The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-08-22
GFrom the PRESS Of July 2, 1s69.l
Letter from Hon. Frederic A. Pike.
ENGLISH sEA-GoNG PRoPELLERs-How THEY
ARE BUILT AND EMPLOYED.

ENGLISH sEA-GoING PRoPELLERs-How THEY
ARE BUILT AND EMPLOYED.
have been down the Thames to-day looking
at the enemies of the Maine shipping The
river IS tull OF them. Between London Bridge
and Woolwlch, more sea-going steamers can
be counted than American ships in the harbor
of New York. 1 landed at the famous Mill
well Dock yard where the Great Eastern was
built ltcovers don't know how many acres
and has every variety of machinery connected
with making iron and building ships. When
in full blast they took pig iron and out of it
made iron-clad ships of war. But it has been
outstripped by its more thrifty competitors on
the Clyde. The iron-elad monster steamer
northumberland was its last vessel. | am
sorry to say it but the truth is l am becoming
persuaded that my efforts in Congress to have
ship-building materials admitted free of duty,
il successful would not have accomplish
ed my purpose of restoring the old su-
premacy of the Maine shipping She has
had her day. Painful as is the conclusion,
there is no avoiding it that the wooden sailing
ship Is thing of the past. The man who in
vented the screw propeller gave the fatal blow.
The advantage of the screw over the side
wheel in economy of fuel and in capacity for
slowing cargo, although not great, "not so
deep as well nor so wide as q church
doors enough to do the business for
us and drive us off the OCEAN
And then the screws are full rugged and can
help themselves along by canvass almost as
well as ships, Mr.. Lynchs commission
should take steam at New York and come
over to London. They would then find out
what the matter is with us. They would see
ON the way some of the hundred steamers be-
tween New York and Europe; steamers aver
aging perhaps two thousand tons, and each of
them doing the work of a sailing vessel four
times its tonnage, thus practically running up
an enormous aggregate. l notice that one OF
the Inman line last month made the round
trip from Liverpool TO New York and back in
twenty-four days These steamers are carry
ing almost all of the four hundred thousand
emigrants who go to America this year, and
have possessed themselves of about the whole
of the North Atlantic carrying trade.
Statistics are excellent have taken pains
to make myself familiar for years past with the
figures connected with shipping. But going
round among these rivals of ours gives me new
ideas of their power Here they not only do
foreign business by steam, but the coasting
trade is falling into the same hands Our
well-informed consul, Mr.. Morse, tells me that
Goals from Newcastle are brought round from
London by steam. Will not the same thing be
duplicated with us, and the Pennsylvania
anthracite come to us in New England by pro-
pellers. And is the lumber trade entirely safe
from their grasp.
AS things go we must resign the ocean to
foreign steamers. The English pirates drove
us off during the war aad these
steam demons prevent getting back.
1t has been all along isupposed that sailing
vessels must take the low priced freight such as
coal, lime and the like. But it is not 50; iron
goes overs to us in propellers and they have for
some time been bringing our cotton
into liverpool. The Mediterranean fruit
trade has gone in good degree into the
hands of the English propelers, and
the same dirty craft is making its way into
the West Indies and South America,
HOW SHALL WE RESTORE OUR COMMERCIAL
SUPERIORITY?
What shall be done? 1t is rot only
necessary to present full diagnosis of the dis
ease, but equally essential to give the remedy.
1t is clear it is no use to tariff against ID. We
cannot if we would lrevive the old system of
differential duties. Our fight against steam,
foreign and domestic, with sails, is too much
like putting pack horses and stage coaches into
the lists against rail cars. The Spirit of the
Age, whatever that might be,-demands
rapidity and certainty, and of course steam an
swers the purpose better than the tickle winds.
But we in Maine must not be behind hand. 1t
is no use to moan or grumble. These worn out
governments and stationary communities must
not be allowed always to rule the seas, and
Maine must see to it that they do not But in
order to compass this we mnst not yhimpeF
about the loss of wooden sail vessels Let them
go. Get something better. We shall be dis
tanced in the great Derby of the ocean If we
stick to sails. Sails are pretty and pOctieai but
steam is the stuff to rule the ocean with. L
could mourn over the decay of that thing of
beauty, the marine ship, as L would over the
ageing of handsome woman, but this compet-
ing for the control of the ocean IS no mere mat
ter of sentiment Black clouds of smske from
unsightly chimneys are to be the emblems of
power on the ocean hereafter, ugly and mighty,
If war shond come on refusal to meet our
Just demands for indemnity for the piratical
cruisers it would restore our maratime supe-
riority by the creation of a steam marine; and
especially if France and Spain were TO join
England we should then be driven by force
into steam. And we should undoubtedly end
the war by the annexation of the Provinces
and not impossibly add as much to the English
debt and cripple English manufacturers so
badly as to endanger the permanence of an
aristocratic government whose prerogatives
will not bear the criticisms, excited by popular
suffering and discomfort. But war involves
sacrifices, taxation and distress which our own
people are in no mood to think of, till the
strain of their resentment rises much higher
than it has yet for such by-gone aifrOnts as
the Alabama's depredations. But it would do
the job. And in the present position of parties
here and the temper of the people it would not
be difficult to get up a war if we wanted to,
L find them more trittsh than supposed,
CONGRESS MUST LEGIsLATE so AS TO ENcOUR-
AGE THE BUILDING OF AEMRIoAN MRR-
CHANT STEAMSHIPS.
Let Congress give us cheap iron and coal,
and after while we can do the rest. 1t would
De n slower process Jnan tile Otner, DuC we
should work it out. But cheap iron and coal
we must have They are the only two elements
of English superiority. Mr. Gladstone reckons
that in hundred years England will lose her
coal advantages, but we cannot afford to wait
for that. We want the Nova Scotia and Cape
Breton coal and the English iron. With them
and cheaper food, and greater mechanical in
genuty-as the patent office shows-we should
work up an opposition, but it would take time.
And of course Congress will repeal the copper
outrage of last session. Much more might be
said, but did not sit down to write letter on
political economy or the tariff. 1t provoked
me to be obliged to come across the Allan
tic under the British hag-or rather that
could be had-and when l got there to see the
British superiority on the ocean so wei
established and so rapidly extending itself.
War of course would be horrible, and not the
least so because its evil effects would fall most
severely upon our friends The operatives in
Yorkshire and Lancashire, deprived of both
supply of cotton and market for manufactured
goods in the Uuited States, would suffer more
Severely than anybody else in England by an
American war, while the landed proprietors by
the enhanced price of food would rather be
gamers by it. And we recollect how heroicaIly
the workmen stood by us under the lead of
John Bright, although starving, while the aris-
tocratic landowners cheered Laird in Paria-
ment when he gloried over the Alabama.
SO let the Alabama question remain OPEN
No negotiation and no war And L add no
reciprocity. The tariff will press the Provinces
into annexation, and the Alabama claims
make England willing to let them go. And
Congress must give US chance to build pro-
pelors. This is the proper solution of our
troubles. Il. A. PIKE,