The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-05-20
AMERICAN STEAM NAVIGATION.
s P Z E C H
WILLIAM II. SEWARD, OF NEW YORK,
FOR
THE COLLINS STEAMERS
In Senate of the United States, April 81, 1852

F
In Senate Of the United States April 81 1852.
Mr. PRESIDENT: What will Congress do
what has Congress done-for the Collins steam
erst These are questions which meet every
visiter returning from the Capital on hls ar
rival at New York, and which every traveller
/ from America encounters, on Change in Liver
pool and London and in the Courts OF Paris
and st. Petersburg. There is reason enough
for all this curiosity and interest among the
merchants and statesmen of the two continents
Mr.. President under Il contract with the
United States, made on the 18th OF April lSl9,
between +. X Collins, James Brown. and Stew
art Brown, merchants of New York, and the
United States, those persons now prosecute, be-
tween the ports of New York and Liverpool,
forty voyages across the ocean, or twenty out
ward and inward voyages annually, in steam
ships, carrying freghts and passengers on their
own account and also public mails on account
of the United States and receive from the
Treasury, a. u compensation for that service,
three hundred and eighty-iiye thousand dollars
n year, which is equyaientto somewhat more
than $4,000 for each outward and return pas
sage The Committee on Finance propose an
amendment to the annual Deficiency bill, the
effect of which is to increase the number of
mails and voyages from twenty to twenty-six,
and the compensation from 81 g 900 to 500, 900
for each voyage.
OUGHT THIS MEASURE To BE ADOPTED
| assume, for the present that the existing
enterprise is to be perseyeringly sustained In
that view the question arises
Whether the proposed increase Of mail serviee
IS sIpedient.
When this line was established, the British
Cunard steamers, consisting of seven vessels,
were making semi-monthly voyages and car
rying semi-monthly mails between the same
ports during the eight temperate months, and
monthly mails during the four other months :;
and thus they had monopoly Of steam ocean
postage between the two countries. We au-
thorized the Collins line to carry just the same
number Of mails, alternating with the Cunard
steamers and 50 we broke up the monopoly
and divided the hostages of the route equally
with Great Britain. So far, all was right and
well. But recently the Cunard steamers have
continued their semi-mOnthly mails throughout
the whole year, while ours were limited to the
eight temperate months and so the equality Of
postage revenues has been subverted, and the
early British monopoly has been partially re-
stored BY the proposed increase of mails we
shall exactly alternate again; and on every
day that an American or European mail steam
vessel shall leave New York, one of the other
line will leave the opposite port; and so the
monopoly will again be broken, and the COM
plete equality of postage revenues will be re-
established. We must do just this, or relinqush
in an important degree the great postal object
of the enterprise. The Postmaster General and
the Secretary of the Navy, and the Scnate's
Committees on the Post Office, on Naval Affairs,
and on Finance, agree that the service must
be thus increased, if it is to be at all continued
The increase, then. is not merely expedient,
but even necessary and Indispensable.
Assuming now that the service is to be in
creased the question comes up
Is the increase of compensation from $4,000
TO $4,000 per Uoyage Just and reasonable
1t as just and reasonable if necessary 1t is
clear that some increase is necessary The
propretors decline to make the six new v0y-
ages for nothing, and even to make them for
$40, 900 voyage. We cannot oblige the con-
tractors to make them for that compensation,
nor even to make them for any compensation,
for they are beyond the contract No one else
offers to make them on those terms, or indeed
on any terms. We must therefore apply to Mr..
Collins and his associates to enlarge the con-
tract. But opening the contract for enlarge
ment opens it for revision. They consent to
enlarge but they equally appeal to us to re
model it and they show for reasons that while
the average cost of each voyage is S65,2l66l
| The average receipts are only lS2S6S5