Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/78

66 went on increasing and multiplying in number and quality, their great receipt of twenty-five per cent. per annum enabling their owners to enlarge and improve them, transferring the original steamers to some less important line.

It is almost needless to speak of the advantages to commerce consequent on the establishment of these transatlantic lines of steamers. No merchant would have his valuable wares sent by a sailing vessel, requiring forty or fifty days to make the passage, when he could obtain them in ten days by a steamer.

Notwithstanding the advantage the Cunard steamers possessed in obtaining a large amount of patronage from the British Government, our steamers competed successfully with the English, and would have driven the latter from the ocean had our Government possessed one tithe of the liberality of our transatlantic rivals. At the very moment, however, when we were promised victory, our Government withdrew its patronage, and the Collins line of steamers began to lose its reputation, for want of means to support it. Fortunately for the company, their vessels were in great demand during the war, and they were in this way able to employ them more advantageously than as passenger steamers.

The result was that the contest between the American and British steam vessels was given up by the former, and the British boasted of a victory which they never would have gained but for the short-sightedness of Congress. Since that time the French have stepped in to contest the prize with the English, and like a blown horse we stand quietly by and witness a race in which every American feels that we should be participants and victors. Fifteen years ago, no Frenchman was considered competent to run the engines of a steamship; and although two or three lumbering old French craft made voyages to-and-fro across the Atlantic, yet they met with so many mishaps, were so slow, and so badly conducted, that they received few passengers and but little freight. How is it now? The moment we ceased our competition with the English, the French took our places, and by their success have proved how much we yielded when our steamers gave up the contest. At this moment the French are contesting every inch of ground with the British, equalling if not exceeding the latter in the speed of their steamers, and surpassing them in all the conveniences and comforts of sea life. Already have the English withdrawn their line between Boston and Liverpool, where their expenses have increased without any corresponding benefit to themselves.

New York, in this matter of communication as in everything else, is the great emporium. To it, as the centre of trade, are exported all the necessaries and luxuries of Europe, and thence depart the passengers who would visit foreign shores. This steam trade will so increase in magnitude from year to year (judging by its constant progress in the past) that the city of New York will scarcely afford facilities for the augmented business. If this trade is so great under ordinary circumstances, let us consider what it will be when the great East India trade is centred in New York; when Jersey City, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and both shores of the Hudson for miles will be lined with steamships and sailing vessels waiting for the India freights that will be brought to us by our Pacific railroads.

The present generation will live to see this, if we exhibit any wisdom in our Government councils. We should commence now to prepare for the great commercial struggle that is to come, and our Government should at once hold out inducements to our merchants to start new steam lines. Congress ought even (for the present) to withdraw the restrictions with regard to buying foreign ves-