Year: 1859

STEAM CANVAS.


The State of Maine il suffering a prieyous
calamity Her great ship building interest is un-
dergoing the process of annihilation and may
even now fairly be considered defunct as staple
element Of the wealth of the commonwealth. We
really do not know what the good down-easters
will do now that they can no longer do the only
thing that they could do in large portion of their
bleak and rocky domain. They will have to send
out of the State the great capital which has so
long had profitable investment in the building of
| ships, for which their wide forest region supplied
| SO abundantly the greater part of the material.
| Along the rivers and on the borders of the many
little rock-bound bays and inlets, wherever there
| was water enough to launch vessel sideways or
endwise, had grown up thrifty villages, the sole
| resource and occupation of their mechanic COM
munities being the building of ships and this arti


Gle of production annually brought into the State
returns Of from six to ten millions Of dollars.
Now, we presume, fatal paralysis has smitten
these thriving settlements and that their inhabi-
tants have been banished from their homes and
scattered over the world, wherever remunerative
employment could be found to replace the lost
means of support. Steam has done this - has
served this summary writ Of ejectment on the
peaceful villagers of the Maine coast 1t is another
of the giant revolutions which it has accomplished


another of its great feats in snatching the bread
| from the mouth Of the workman, forcing him to
exercise the cunning Of his hands in the develop
ment of new industrial resources.


| The sailing marine of America cannot compete
with the great feet Of commercial steamers which
England has put afoat and is rapidly increasing,
| to the ruin Of the demand for Yankee ships. For
the year ending June 80, 1855 Maine built tw hun.
dred and fifteen thousand tuns of shipping in 1858
| only fifty-iye thousand tons, and the tunnage of
| 1859 will fall below even that. These figures show
that the shipping interest of Maine is destroyed


and it is done by the British steam marine. The
general idea of the growth and present extent of
this marine engaged in ocean service is entirely in
adequate, and though, unfortunately, we have not
the data to give the total number, we know that
there upwards of fifty steamers in the service be-
tween England and America alone, of which some
four or five only are Americana sad fact. As
one steamer will supply the place in general COM
merce of about three sailing vessels it is apparent
that the employment of these fifty steamers in the
English-American trade has enabled it to dispense


with one hundred and fifty sailing vessels, most of
which would have been supplied to the market
from Maine. Thus they have done away with de-
mand for one hundred and seventy five or two hun
dred thousand tuns of Yankee shipping-which is
worth about as much per tun, on an average, as
cotton is per bale. A heavy blow on the down
casters, whose resources for making money-brng
| ing money from abroad into their State-are not
| over abundant. But other evils to the North more
serious fhan this are in the train of this steam ma
| rne enterprise of England, for New England must
suffer fearfuly from the loss resulting to the injury
| of the shipping nterests-not as builders so much
| as owners and managers of ships. This has been
an immense source of wealth, for these States have


been the common carriers of the world their ships
swarming the waters of every cline, and thus col
| lecting money from all nations to swell the
| wealth of Yankeeland. Shipping was the favorite
| investment of capital, and the New Englander who
| had accumulated small sum was almost certain
to buy tnn two of ship, which sometimes
thus had hundred or so owners-stockholders
Scarcely man of any means in all the coast coun-
| try of New England but was directly identified
with the shipping interest, which was thus en-
couraged and developed to the vast breadth and
Importance it attained by the universal favor with
| which its investments were regarded. Hence came
the marine supremacy of America, OF rather of New
England which is now so seriously threatened by
|
States of their chiefest element of wealth-a loss
the effects of which may almost be compared to
what the consequences of loss of cotton SUI
premacy would be to the South.


In this newly inaugurated condition of affairs
oceanic, we foresee a!very possible advantage to
the South, which may explain in few words.
| Doubtless, when the trade between the Northern
ports and Europe is fully supplied with steamers,
capital will boil over its limitation to that channel


and will put on lines to the Southern cities, and
thus aid the great cause OF direct importation,
which is essential to commercial independence
| of the North, and will take out of its hands some
of the importing business which it is now doing for
us, and getting rich on by the profits of such
| agency New Orleans, Norfolk, Charleston and
Savannah, must have regular lines of steamers, to
accomplish even degree of success in compe
| tition with New York. We will have them some
| day, for " steam is yet in its infancy"


| TALK ON CHANGE.