The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-12-22
II II Z
THE OCEANIC STEAMSHIP SERVICE


Some of our contemporaries and a
few "small fry politicians appear to
think that it is as easy to run and MAN.
age feet of three thousand ton steam
ships as it would be to manage a rushing
peanut business at a street corner.
Hence the unreasonable objections to,
and comments upon, the Oceanic Steam
ship Company since it took up the Aus
tralian mail service. Until that time
the Australian mail service was in no
way connected with the Oceanic Com
pany, which ran two steamships month
ly between Honolulu and San Francisco
Very often an Australian steamship ar
rived and departed close upon the time
of the Oceanic COmpany's vessel, but
no one took note of the fact, because
latterly the Australian mail steamer
carried neither freight nor passengers
and very little mail. The Oceanic Com
pany's vessels did all the work for these
islands in reality, and the people were
so we'll served that some of them
actually made it a matter of com plant
This hostile feeling created, singularly
enough, by too good treatment, was
brought out in most ungracious way
about year ago, when Mr.. Pierce with
drew from the arrangement with the
Union Steamship Company of New Zea-
land and started an opposition line. We
need not refer to the exultant tone in
which prophecies of the speedy down
fall of this Oceanic Company were
uttered, nor need We repeat them. They
are too fresh in the public mind to be
forgotten, and doubtless not few of
those who uttered the Vaccinations in
question are now heartily ashamed of
them But it was fact that the with
drawal of the Oceanic Company's yes
sells and return to the schooner days"
of Hawaiian commerce was anticipated
as a national gain. The mail would
take care of itself, for was not Mr..
Pierce of Glasgow running an independ-
ent line of steamships past our doors,
and the mail could be dispatched to the
Coast whenever a vessel came along.
OF course this was all nonsense, but
otherwise sane men wrote and spoke in
this way, and even in the last session of
the Legislature the tone of the OPPOSE
ton to the Oceanic Steamship Subsidy
bill did not materially differ from the
street talk and newspaper comment re-
ferred to. Since the Pierce opposition
fell through, however, and the entire
Pacific steamer traffic with the Coast
and Australia passed under the control
of the Oceanic Company new objection
has been raised. The Company, it has
been said, was not providing a regular
semi-monthly service, but an apparently
irregular service caused by the impossi
bilitv of sailing at stated intervals apart,
three of the company's vessels being
scheduled to run by lunar months, and
one OF them by calendar months. In other
words, the Oceanic Company gave the
Hawaiian public the advantage of the
combined long and short service boats,
for depriviug them OF which, under ar
rangement with the Pacific Mail Steam
ship Company of New York, the Oceanic
management had been previously de-
nounced. With singular inconsistency,
however, the Oceanic Company is now
denounced by the same people for restor-
ing what they had declared to be essen
tial to the well-being of the Kingdom
and the convenience of individuals few
months before.
Now, it is the fact that during all this |
time the Oceanic Steamship manage
ment was doing its utmost to consult
the convenience of shippers and the /
travelling public, but it was impossible to /
formulate sailing schedule for the in
termediate boat until the contracting |
Colonial Governments had agreed upon |
a timetable for the year lS86-87. This
has now been done, and the Oceanic
Company has issued a time schedule
fixing the date OF sailing of the inter
mediate ship, the Australia, to Honolulu