The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-08-08

waiting. The tunnel will greatly relieve
the Brooklyn bridge and the ferries which
are now overcrowded. The plan is per-
fectly feasible, and the cost will not be so
great as one would suppose"
"Wlll you have exclusive passenger
steamers on your ocean express line?"
''No. 1t wouldn't pay to carry passen-
gers alone. If we can cross the ocean in
the finest ships atioat in four or five days,
guess the public will be satisfied for a
time at least. What do you think? For
years have favored all legislation that
looked to the encouragement OF Ameri-
can ship building SO we could buy our
ships as reasonably in the American mar
ket as abroad. The causes of the falling
off in the building of American ships for
transatlantic carrying are perhaps not
hard to find. During the war people who
were in the Transatlantic carrying trade
sold their vessels to the government at q
fancy price. disbanded their companies,
and their help were gradually absorbed in
other trades. When the war closed
old shipping houses had re-
run transatlantic liners were scattered
and men of large capital were not found to
invest in enterprises new to them, and re-
quiring skill and long experience and
training. But men OF both parties in con-
gress are coming to the rescue of Ameri-
can shipbuilding. If the American regis
ter is given our foreign-buit ships we will
of tonnage equal to that admitted under
the flag"
evil there not be more danger in rum
ming your ships at an increased rate OF
speed?"
"No, there will be less danger running
at twenty-one knots an hour than at
fifteen or eighteen, unless you run into an
hor n m w "a n
speed you are going you are wrecked then
sure"
Naturally, Mr.. Corbin's proposed new
line of ocean greyhounds has aroused the
greatest activity on the part of other lines.
The latest scheme, an old one with new
varnish, is the Arrow Steamship Com
pany. that has recently completed and
launched ship. the Howard Cassard. at
Baltimore. This ship has keel that
weighs Sc, 900 pounds, and it was believed
she would sink of her own weight. At any
rate, she had been completed and tested to
dissatisfaction of the men who invested
money in her. It is said by Mr.. Fryer, her
builder and inventor, that other ships of
this style will be built at once and en-
ployed in the ocean passenger traffic, and
Mr.. Fryer and his hackers say they can
make the voyage In even less time than
can Mr.. Corbin's ships. As they will carry
only passengers. they claim that the How
ard Cassard, now in the water, will
make the trip in four days to Queenstown.
They will get the mail carrying at 40 cents
pound and the 1900 a round trip Of
their American-built ships, according to
the provisions of the subsidy bill. But the
pubic can at last expect tremendous
rivalry in the ocean carrying trade. There
will be such racing and hustling for pres
tige for Uncle Sans mails and subsidies
that even the great railroad magnates Of
America will be siienced for time.
/ went to Carl Schurz, the director OF the
Hamburg-American line, for q quiet and
serious chat after listening to tales Of
these gigantic ocean enterprises. asked
him what he thought of them.
:'Mr. Corbin's scheme know nothing OF
excepting what have picked up piece
meal in the papers from time to time.
From the meager information / have /
should say it was perfectly feasible and
showed great planning. I don't think it
will pay to put on ocean liners for passen-
ger carrying alone. The passage of the
Cochran act for the encouragement of
shipbullding was one of the wisest acts Of
the last congress. If proper encourage
ment is given our capitalists, of course
they will build ships here. The only rea-
son they didn't do it before was because
they couldn't afford to pay the price when
they could get the same goods for less
money in foreign market. There is
new era at hand in American shipbuilding
and the transatlantic carrying trade, and
Americas sun is in the ascendency."