The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-10 00:00:00

TILE GREAT EASTERN.

To look at the gentle though powerful monster
now lying off Greenwich, few would guess the dif-
ficulties and hardships that threatened to stifle the
young giant. But as one of the greatest births of
time it must have its story of wrongs. Like many
another noble craft, it was all but wrecked before
it ever touched water, and might have been pointed
at for a hundred years or more, like the first big
ship of all, as the folly of an enthusiast. But that
was not and that is not the worst trial of the Great
Eastern. Its worst foe is neither wind nor wave,
neither rock nor mudbank, nor anything earth or
sea can put in its way. Like many another upstart,
it has to fight its way against favouritism ; and it
now starts against a subsidized competition with
nothing to depend on but its own iron walls, its
many roods of surface, and its power, greater than
was ever accumulated before. As it lies quietly
before you, held by a dozen of the strongest cables
ever wrought by man, you see that which promises
to compete successfully with a large fleet of fine
vessels, befriended by Governments, tenderly nour-
ished by Legislatures, bribed, privileged, and
secured from all opposition within their track. It
has to run a race with a company and a legion of
steamers. This is the unity in which now centres all
the hopes of the Eastern Steam Navigation Com-
pany. Notwithstanding the evident advantages of
free competition,--notwithstanding the admitted
failure of the Peninsular and Oriental to perform
its undertakings, and the recommendation of a
Parliamentary committee that a rival company
should be encouraged to divide the traffic of the
Overland Route, Parliament ended by giving the
company in possession a monopoly of the Overland
eoute, and leaving the wide ocean to any new com-
petitor. The Great Eastern—the idea of which
sprang out of this struggle—represents the vast
ocean as against the inland seas—the spirit of com-
mercial freedom as against a subsidised monopoly ;
the enterprise of the Englishman against the wis-
dom of Parliaments, and that true dominion of the
seas which survives war, but thrives most in peace.
We may many of us remember the time when it
was a matter of four months to pass to and fro to
India, or even to obtain news. The great old India-
men, on which we used to depend for this tedious
process, may still be seen in the river, passing to
or returning from their present humble, but useful
errands, in the conveyance of emigrants. Since
they were first afloat, and since they excited the
admiration of the world as marvels of shipbuilding,
there have been strange revolutions. A new path
has been opened, or rather re-opened, over the
earth. An incredulous public heard that it was
seriously proposed to revive the hazardous route
by which merchants in the age of our Alfred
penetrated the East to the then fabulous Ind. It
sounded almost like an attempt to enact the
Arabian Nights in this city when it was an-
nounced that arrangements were made for travel-
lers to pass through Egypt, and over the
Isthmus of Suez, and down the Red Sea, and
along cities, ports, and headlands known only to
the scientific geographer, so as to the distance be-
tween England and Bombay literally in six weeks.
Though a Sinbad might happily survive so difficult
and complicated a route, many laughed at the idea
of a regular stream of passengers. There were
people who expected to hear of hundreds of Eng-
lish gentlemen and ladies carried off by Bedouins,
or made unwilling pilgrims to Mecca. That route,
so impossible, so romantic, has become as beaten
and familiar as the road from Charing-cross to St.
Paul's. People have come to regard it as neces-
sary to the possession of our Indian Empire. There
has been a talk of occupying Egypt, and even now
fur fortified ports in the Mediterranean are regarded
as stepping-stones to India, so soon has a novelty
grown old and a thing we had done without be-
come indispensable. Now, in its turn, it bids fair
to be superseded. The new company, baffled in
its purpose to share the overland trade, left Eng-
lish subsidies, Egyptian viceroys, Lesseps' canals,
the Lyons railway, and Austrian Lloyd's to their
fate, and bethought themselves once more of the
old course from England right on end to Calcutta.
Nothing could fetter them or trip them up in that
course. The calculation was certain. Every
increase ofsize and ofp3wer, and every improvement
in the build, had told in increased speed. They had
every encouragement to go on. Theirs was indeed a
great work, but greatness is only comparative. It
is only the other day that thousands were flock-
ing to see the Great Britain, then the largest ship
afloat. There are now more than a dozen larger
than she is. It is only a question of size, and that
is a question of money. The undertaking had to
do everything for itself, and those who have con-
tributed to the work have paid heavily for their
generous confidence in the powers of nature and of
man. But the work survives, and will shortly be
put to the proof. The quick passage will then, as
seems likely, be that round the Cape ; the overland
will be the slow.

It may now be said that all these hopes have been
fulfilled, and the thing is done. As to the ship
itself, it has no immunity from perils. It may suffer
what is suffered every day by some ship or other
in our vast mercantile navy. But the calculation
has been worked out, and there lies a vessel ready
to start in a few days for Calcutta, land its passen-
gers and cargo, take in others, and return home
immediately, without taking in more coals, all
within seventy days. Once released from these
shores nothing can stop her, so long as her ma-
chinery does its work. This, of course, is the
question ; but never was steamship provided with
so many alternatives. She will rush over the sea
with a speed nearly equal to an ordinary railway
train, and with a weight two hundred times
greater. Should she come into collision with any-
thing else afloat—should she, by chance, touch
some little three-decker in the mid-sea, she
will live to tell the tale, and she alone. She
might send the flimsy craft to the bottom in
the night, cutting her in two, or sailing over her,
without even disturbing the sleep of her passengers.
It might be presumptuous to affirm that she will
not feel the waves, for that remains to be tried, but
on calculation she should feel them little more than
an ordinary Thames steamer does the waves be-
tween bridges. Is not this, then, the true solution
of the Indian route ? The only difficulty that will
then remain will be the weight of a national sub-
sidy thrown into the other scale. The Great
Eastern will have to pay her own expenses against
a rival half paid by the public ; she may not be
able to stand this sort of competition ; and, should
she be obliged to give up, simply as a non-paying
speculation, the British public wiil have perpe-
trated one more characteristic folly, by helping to
crush the grandest proof of its commercial adven-
ture, its maritime experience, and its mechanical
power.—limes.