The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-03-11 00:00:00

OCEAN STEAM NAVIGATION.

We have received from Washington, a copy of informa
tion furnished by the Treasury Department to the Com-
mittee on Post offices, intended to exhibit the increase of
Ocean Steam Navigation, which in our judgment is of the
most startling import, and which, if we mistake not, will
be a source of as much surprise to our commercial readers
as it has been to us. We have witnessed with anxiety, '
the increase of English steamers to every leading
American port ; but we were not prepared for the
astounding fact, that already two fifths of the gross
value of the importations from England and France, into
the port of New York is in steam vessels ; and conse-
quently American commerce has suffered to nearly that
extent, as a large proportion of that amount is trans-
ported in English steamers. Yet such is the fact, as is
apparent fro n the following statement furnished by the
Treasury Department :—" The value of merchandise
imported from England and France into the part of New
York during the year ending the 30th June, 1x56, by
steam ships and sail vessels ; in sail vessels, 70,888,527
dollars ; in steam vessels, 48,635,531 - dollars.
Here, then, we have the startling fact, that since
the introduction of steam in 1838, two-fifths of the value
ef the importations into this port from England and
France, have passed from sail vessels into ocean steamers !
and yet steam is only in its infancy. In Boston, no
doubt,:the proportion is much larger ; and if our readers
will reflect that the ocean steamers belong principally to
Great Britain, and are constantly on the increase, they
will participate with us in the alarm this development is
calculated to create. They will then perceive, for what
an enormous stake the Government of Gre t Britain has
been playing. and the success which is certain to attend
her efforts, if our Government does not rouse itself to the
necessity of fostering Ocean Steam Navigation to the same
extent that it is so successfully protected by our great
commercial rival. In 1838, the entire carrying trade,
including the postal business and the passage traffic
between this port and Europe was transacted in American
bo. toms. One third of this has already passed into English
bottoms ; and who may venture to predict how much
will remain to us twenty years from this day ? We are
not of that class who look forward to see sail vessels
driven from the ocean by steam ; but we cannot resist the
conviction that a large portion of the commerce of the
world is destined to be done by steam power, and that unless
our Government bestirs itself, England will very shortly
possess as decided a superiority over us in this regard, as
we had acquired in sail vessels up to 1838. If we are to
continue a commercial people, then we must conform to
the necessities of the case; and in imitation of the prac-
tice of England, establish Ocean Steam Postal lines to
every quarter of the Globe—nominally to carry the mails,
but in reality to secure to American bottoms the commerce
of the world. We have the startling fact, that by large
subsidies to her ocean steamers, England has airea ly
robbed the merchants of this port of one-third of the
commerce which had been acquired by the superior enter-
prise of our people ; and it requires no prophet to predict
what will be the result of a perseverance in this same sys-
tem, countenanced and encouraged by the supiness and
neglect of our own government. And to accomplish what
has' been done, has in fact cost England little or nothing.
She enjoyed a monopoly of the passenger trade and
the revenue from postage from '3B to '5O, and during
this period, and since, has abundantly repaid herself for
her entire outlay. By the establishment of the Collins
line of steamers, our Government temporarily arrested
the evil of which we complain; but it was only a
partial work. We want at least two such lines
from this port, and we want lines of Ocean Steamers to
every part of Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. Ten years
R,C;O, we had three-fourths of the entire trade with Liberia.
England coveted the trade. and established a line of
steamers to the African Coast ; an I now seven eighths of all
that trade has been directed to London and is carried in
English bottoms and so with the traffic to the coast of
South America. Even our letters from Rio Janeiro
and that whole line of coast, go first to London, and
then by steamers to the United States ! Of course,
the English merchant gets the first accounts of the
market ; and thus American enterprise is excluded
from competition ! And all this is accomplished at
little if any cost to the English Government,
because she gets back directly, nearly or quite all her
outlay in her tax upon the correspondence of the world.
Indirectly, she gets it back a thousand times over, by
rendering herself the mistress of the ocean, and gradually
monopolising the commerce of the world. But she cares
little whether she gets sback any of this outlay or not.
Whenever her merchants indicate a willingness to run a
line of steamers, she promptly furnishes the aid required ;
and increases the allowance when found to be too small.
As an evidence of the operation of ocean steamers, even on
the small scale in which our Government has embarked,
we are enabled to state, that it is in proof before the Post-
office committee, that the Collins line of steamers
has paid into the treasury two millions and
three quarters of dollars, and saved to the nation
in its reduction of postage, upwards of three
millions of dollars, while its gross receipts from the
Government have been only 5.060,000 dollars—thus show-
ing in the item of postage alone, a saving to the United
States of one million o! dollars ! But if it had not paid one
farthing and had cost ten millions of dollars, the interests
of the nation would have still demanded the establishment
of at least two such lines from this port alone. In relation
to the gradual transfer of the commerce of the ocean from
sail to steam vessels, we have now before us a pamphlet
published in London in August last, in which it is pro-
posed to establish a line of steamers. consisting of four
iron monsters, equal in size to the Great Eastern, now
being built on the Thames, to run weekly between the
Chesapeke Bay (Norfolk) and Milford Haven in South
Wales. This line is to be called the Weekly Iron Steam
Ship Ferry; and as the Great Eastern measures twenty
seven thousand five hundred tons, it is estimated that a
line of steamers of that size, will perform the trip in
seven days, carrying not less than twenty thousand
tons of merchandise. As regards the ultimate effects of
steam upon commerce, the pamphlet says :—' The indica-
tions are too distinct to be misconceived, that a new era
in steam navigation is rapidly approaching. The proofs
have become convincing, to investigating minds, that iron
and steam are to supersede wood and canvas, in the
movement of the products and passengers between the
two hemispheres. The greater size strength, and security
in every respect—to say nothing of durability of wear—
which may be imparted to iron steamships, combine
to render such a result positively certain. Before
the end of this century there will not, probably, bo a
wooden hull navigating the Atlantic under canvas.
The employment of steam as a motive power has
already accomplished more than Oliver Evans, or
Solomon Cos. or Francis Fortune, the so-considered
wild enthusiasts of their times. in relation to its propelling
properties, likely ever imagined in their most enlarged
anticipations of its success. But, *notwithstanding all
that has bet n so wonderfully consummated through its
agency, it is not presumable that anything like perfection
has been attained in the salutary influence it is to exercise
on the destinies of mankind. Science never slumbers.'
We do not agree in this conclusion. but we cannot shut
our eves to the fact, that if we would not cease to be a
commercial nation, our government must come forward
and pursue vigorously, the policy so steadily persevered
in by England. Do this, and in 20 years we shall triumph
as completely in Ocean Stean Navigation, as we have
heretofore done in sail vessels. In competing with British
merchants we asked no aid from any source; but when
British merchants are hacked by the British Government,
the merchants of the United States are entitled to be
similarly sustained. The only remedy, therefore, for the
evil which threatens our commerce, is the prompt passage
by Congress of general hills, authorising at least two lines
of ocean steamers of the largest class from this port, and
lines to every part of the world in which our merchants
can be induced to embark their capital. There is no time
for procrastination or delay, if we would not at once
surrender to F.neland a monopoly of the commerce of the
world.—Netu York Courier.

The Chamber of Commerce of Bordeaux has received a
notice from the Consul of Russia relative to the entrance
of v ssels in ballast into the port of Odessa. They will
receive all possible assistance in discharging, and the town
will purchase such flint stones, pebbles, and flag stones as
may be suitable for macadamising the streets or improving
the footpaths.