The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-09-15
HARTMAN AND THE
OCEANIC LINERS

The Chronicle of September has
the following:
Of greater import to San Francisco
interests than any of the other matters
discussed by E. H. Hartman and those
who were successfully admitted to his
room at the Fairmont Hotel yesterday
afternoon, is the arrangement for the
sale of the three steamships of the
Oceanic line to the Pacific Mail, to be
used in the Inauguration of an express
service between this port and AncOn,
in the Panama canal zone.
Since the resumption of work on the
canal under the American government
bhe merchants of San Francisco have
found themselves handicapped in bid
ding on supplies for the Canal Commits
sion, owing to the fact that the steam
ship service on the Atlantic was so
much superior to that furnished by the
slower boats operated by the Pacific
Mail on this side. Not only are these
boats incapable of making the speed
attained by the ships on the Atlantic
canal service, but owing to the fact
that they make many stops on the way
down the Mexican coast, they have
been unable to land canal supplies at
Ancon in competition with the steamers
running from New York, and this in
spite of the fact that many articles
consumed on the canal zone are pro-
duced in California and heretofore
shipped by the roundabout way of over
land freight to New York, and from
fhorn 70 hn fcth NV tho Atlantic
steamers.
The first man of those waiting in the
lobby who was called to Hartman s
room at the Fairmont yesterday after
noon was John d. Spreckels, and the
subject discussed between them was
the terms of the purchase of the three
ships, the Ventura, Sonoma and Sierra,
which formerly constituted the service
from this port to Australia, with Homo
lulu as port of call, on the Oceanic
line. For nearly year these ships
have been lying idle in Mission bay,
and there have been many rumors as to
the ultimate use to which they would
be put. The Spreckels interests had
found the Oceanic service Improbable
without the subsidy which the Ameri-
can government refused to grant, and
the three big steamships, which were
built in the East particularly for this
line, had been lying idle for more than
a year.
But Hartman has work for idle ships
to do, and yesterday afternoon he ex-
planned his plan to put the Ventura,
Sierra and Sonoma on the line to-
Panama, to furnish a direct express
line from here to Ancon
The price he drove was sharp one,
but Spreckels left the conference with
an expression of features that indi
Gated he was well pleased at his bar
gain.
There was more to the talk, too, than
the mere purchase and sale of three big
ocean steamships, for under the Pacific
Mail house flag these boats are to be
operated under an agreement with the
that amounts to a subsidy,
and Hartman explained to Spreekels
of his plans to revive the
fight for a subsidy bill in Congress next
spring.
Hartman has not forgotten that Bob
Evans pointed him out as the man
most fitted to win for this country the
mastery of the Pacific, and he is not !
dauntod by the coming Oh LIE JapdIeeS |
turbine liners. Through his agents he |
has been in correspondence with the |
Japanese cabinet by cable, and his
plans for the Pacific Mail do not end |
with the improvement of the line to
Panama. After the Inauguration in
March, and when Congress convenes,
Hartman intimated yesterday that he |
intended to go after ship subsidy that
would open the way for further extern |
,ions of the Pacific Mail service be-
tween San Francisco and the Orient.
During the day he was also in confer
,nce with r. P. Schwerin and Manager
Avery of the japanese line, and he
made it plain that interstate commerce
regulations that have prevented the re-
,ating by the railroads for Eastern
freight shipped to San Francisco in
ransit for the Orient might not pre-
vent the profitable operation of the
ocean line.
The demands of the army transport
service for more steamships may be
net with an arrangement under which
he Pacific Mail may be able to enlarge
is fleet under a subsidy and with an
agreement that the new boats may be
lsed for troops in the possible event