THE ATLANTIC STEAM PACKETS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XVII, Issue 50, 23 June 1858, Page 4

THE ATLANTIC STEAM PACKETS.

[ Fvoin a Correspondent of the London Daily News.] Theannouncementof the Postmaster-General, a day or two since, that the United States packets (Collins' lino) had ceased running, is an event in the history of steam navigation. For ten years the American mails were carried by British steamers (Cunard's). The Americans then thought they could build packets as well ai Englishmen ; they accordingly started Sand's line between New York and Southampton. These vessels were soon surpassed in speed and size by new ships built by Cunard. In 1830 Collins started his line between New York and Liverpool, iv direct opposition to Cunard. He has built, in the whole, five ships, at an expense of 9^800,000 ; two of these, namely, the Arctic and Pacific, worth £200,000, were lost. Soon after 1850, Livingstone started another American line between New York and Southampton. His first two ships, the Humboldt and Franklin, were lost. Cunard established « weekly mail communication with America, and the three United States lines established another weekly communication, thus making the arrival and departure of a mail between England and America semi-weekly. Sand's, Collins's, and Livingstone's packets were heavily subsidized by the American Government. Collins reduced the passage between New York and Liverpool to less than 1 0 days. Cunard has built eight ships since 1850, only one of which, viz., the Persia, has beaten those of his great rivals in speed, and this superiority iS only on the eastern pnsange. Horses, it is said, run faster returning to than going from their stable, and something like this would appear to be the case with steamships. The English mail-packets run fastest from New York to Liverpool, and the Yankpe steamers beat the Britishers from Liverpool to New York. Sand's line ran 10 years, and last year the subsidy was withdrawn — the ships were found to be worn out for ocean steaming, and they ceased running. They earned a five per cent, dividend during the last three years of their career, but nothing previously. Collins's line has never paid simple interest to the stockholders. The only line now properly subsidized by the American Government is Livingstone's, and the subsidy to this will shortly be discontinued. When it was first started, it paid a 7 per cent, dividend, but this was soon reduced to nil. The ships by this line only form a monthly mail communication with England. Vanderbilt's ships carry American mails for a portion of the postage on the letters which such mails contain. The failure of the American lines is attributed to various causes. The steam machinery of American steamers is inferior to that of English vessels, and the hulls are not so strongly built. Hence the former ships break down oftcner than the latter, and this causes irregularities in the mail service. Again, American lines work with fewer steamers than English lines. When there is a breakdown, therefore, with the former, the mail service must be interrupted, because ships are not at hand to be substituted for disabled ones. There is less certainty also about tbe continuance of the American subsidies than about the English ones, and there is consequently a difficulty in raising sufficient capital to provide an adequate fleet for the American lines. Most of the ocean lines would pay well without mail contracts, if they ran at a moderate speed. As it was the pace that used to kill horses in mail coaches, so it is the pace that wears out the steamers and ruins tbe owners. When a line of packets obtains a small contract, the packets are tasked at a high speed. This of course secures the most profitable traffic, and the non-subsidized lines on the same route, if they do not run as fast, are ruiued. The wide difference in the cost of working steamers at high and low speed is easily proved. Collins's ships were obliged to run 14 miles an hour by contract ; but to do this each ship burnt 128 tons of coal daily. Now, that same ship could run 12 miles an hour, and only consume 80 tons of coal daily; and 61 tons a day only would actually drive her 11 miles an hour. Thus it took more than double the quantity of fuel to increase her speed by three miles an hour. The truth is, that the power of coal necessary to produce speed must be increased in the ratio of the cube of the velocity. But not only is the cost of fuel enormous in fast steamers, but the wear and tear of such ships must be very great. They must first be built with great strength, at an extra expense, of course. After running six years, Collins's ships cost in repairs more than the original outlay for building them, and yet, notwithstanding these repairs, the ships would not last above 12 years. Every trip of one of Collins's steamers to England and back again cost upwards of Every six years the boilers have to be renewed, at an expense oi' £22,000. Collins's last ship, the Adriatic, cost in building £\ 70,000. Her speed has not yet been properly tested. Next to the Leviathan she is the finest ship in the world. Notwithstanding that all Collins's steamers w.re really very fast and splendid ones, they never supplanted Cuuard's in public favour, not even with the Americans themselves. Collins is a true patriot. He has spent an immense fortune to establish a reputation for his countrymen for skill in ocean steam navigation. Some of his family perished in the great calamities which have overtaken his own ships, and he has experienced the bitterest obloquy and opposition in his own country, while undertaking for its benefit one of the most spirited enterprises ever sustained by a •ingle individual. What will the British Government do now the formidable rivals of Cunard's ships are faiely driven off the Liverpool and New York line, and America has acknowledged the supremacy of England in steam navigation 1 For «ome years there has been a semi-weekly mail communication between this country and the United States, and the two countries can scarcely do without such a frequent communication, for the American mails are of great J magnitude. Now is the time for English capital and enterprise to grasp at the whole of the mail traffic, and all the lucrative trade that accompanies it in the North Atlantic, but of every shilling postage on a letter to or from the United States, the British Government, according to the last postal convention, nets IQ^d., if .the letter is conveyed across the Atlantic in an English packet. The American Government has not yet finally decided oil the

non-subsidy policy, and Collins, with true Saxon pluck, having been driven from the Mersey, is contemplating running his magnificent steamers to some port in the British Channel, where they would be sure to monopolize the traffic of the whole of the continent of Europe with America.