The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1889-05-07
WFAT THE SAMOAN DISASTER MAY
DO FOR PACIFIC STEAMSHIP
LINES.

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by waking up the American people
to a realization of their naval neces-
sites. Following out the subject in
another direction, we seem properly
led to anticipate strong movement
in the United States in the matter of
subsidies to steamship lines.
President Harrison's recent inau
gural very decidedly favored sys-
tematic action of this sort. While
France and Germany, and especi-
ally England, have been heavily sub
sidizing their manifold steamship
lines, the policy of the United States
has been adverse to such course.
Consequently, the foreign traffic
in American steamers has Ian
guished and declined, while that of
England has enormously increased.
Nearly all OF Americas immense ex
port to Europe is carried in foreign
steamers. In case of war, England
can at once impress vast feet of
swift and powerful merchant steam
ers for transports and even as
cruisers, many OF them being ex-
pressly built for carrying guns in
war tine.
On these ships England also
nurses and educates great body of
seamen, engineers and able officers,
from which to recruit her naval
force in time of war. For any large
navy, such powerful merchant
service forms an indispensable aux
iliary and source of supply. In this
respect, as in others, the United
States navy has fallen into serious
weakness. 1t is true that in her i'm
mense inland and coasting com
merce, America has still very con-
siderable resource for manning
navy; but sea-going steamers are
lacking.
The new creation of navy which
is evidently at hand, and is even now
begun, necessarily involves a very
extensive substituting of ocean
steamship lines in order to supply
this deficiency The larger part of
these will, of course, be on the
Atlantic. The Pacific will also re-
ceive due attention. The Oceanic
and Pacific mail steamship lines will
probably soon receive such liberal
subsidies as will enable them to
compete successfully with the power
full British lines centering at Vic
toria, Hongkong and Sydney, which
are heavily subsidized by their gov
eminent. In consequence, large
and rapid increase in mail service
by American ships may be looked for
soon. In this, these Islands must
largely profit.
A closely related and attendant
benefit must be the fastening of the
laying of Pacific telegraph cables.
1t is becoming very evident that
Honolulu must be the great radiat-
ing center for such cables to the
Asiatic and Australasian
coasts. Both the commercial and
naval necessities of the enlarged
Pacific traffic will be greatly accom-
modated by having telegraphic com
munication from points in mid ocean.
An empire like the British can, in
war time, sometimes save the entire
cost of an ocean cable by a single
telegram about the moving of fleets
or forces. Had the reported de-
struction of the Nipsic by German
torpedo been reality, how material
a difference might have been caused
by the existence of cable in that
vicinity. The best efficiency of
naval force using Pearl Harbor
would seem to necessitate teleoranhic
communication.
Reasons for the existence of Pacific
cables are evidently growing towards
We hope to see one laid
from San Francisco to Honolulu at
an early day, in consequence of the
naval needs of the United States.
We may make the general observa-
ton that when things have gone SO
far that two naval squadrons gather
at a mid Pacific island, it is evident
that this portion of the world is get
ting to be of some consequence; and
when these ships are all wrecked
together, the attention of the powers
is likely to be more closely directed
than before to this same region of
the globe.
The Church.
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