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Evening Star, Issue 10933, 16 May 1899, Page 1

The announcement made by Lord Inverclyde at the annual meeting of Mercantile the Canard Company, that the Cruisers. British Admiralty had int •

mated that the subvention to the Lucania and Campania would be withdrawn in September next, created considerable sensation in shipping circles, for the Cunard Company do not stand alone. The Himalaya, Australia, Victoria, and Arcadia, belonging to the Peninsular and Oriental Company, the White Star Company’s Majestic and Teutonic, and the Empress of India, Empress of China, and Empress of Japan, owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway, are all to be cut cut of the list of subvented craft. With the exception of tv o Cunarders and two -While Star boats the nominal ocean speed of these vessels falls considerably below 20 knots. The Lucania and the Campania can nominally do 21 knots, and the average speed maintained by each of them on her be t trip across the Atlantic in 1898 was 21 99 knots and 20.96 knots re-pectively. The Majestic and Teutonic are nominally 20-knot boats, atd the average rate maintained for the best voyage in »r-ch case last year was respectively 19.37 knots and 19.60 knots. There are plenty of mail steamers and foreign cruisers that can heat these figures, and it is obvious that the who'e of the ships in receipt of an Admiralty subsidy are too slow for thefr work under present conditions. It was never expected that they could fight, and now they are not fast enough to run away. The probability is that this will lead to a change of system and to the abandonment of the method of paying subvention! to mercantile cruisers. The payment of a retaining fee was useful and justifiable a few years ago ; it secured the services of vessels capable of ac.iog as scouts at a titne when the navy was lamentably deficient in cruisers. But circumstances have altered, and what was suitable then is very far from being so now, when five-and-twenty to thirty knots can be squeezed out of boa’s in every respect, save size, infinitely more formidable than the fragile monsters of the Gunard, P. and 0, and other passenger carriers.