Fifty-Mile Mail Steamers.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 119, 15 November 1894, Page 3

Fifty-Mile Mail Steamers.

The following letter has been sent to Mr Arnold Morley, Postmaster General, and is reprinted from the Manchester Courier, of Saturday, September 22nd, 1894 ; Sir, - The following are startling figures, but they are true, and I hope you will read them. If the post office put on seven steamships which could go fifty miles an hour- they can easily be made— you could run a weekly mail to Halifax, Canada, in 2£ days ; to Egypt in S£ days, to Bombay in 6£ days ; to Capetown in 6J days; and to Melbourne in 12 days. A steamship 600 feet long, 50 feet broad, 60 feet deep, and drawing about 26 feet of water, would be about three-quarters the size of the Campania. But if filled entirely with machinery and coals, from the bottom up to four feet above the water line, she could steam 4,500 miles at 50 miles (43.4 knots) an hour, and tho whole of the upper part of the vessel, from 4 feet above the water, 30 feet high, would be available for crew, passengers, mails, and light parcels. Four steamers to Capetown and Australia could coal at Gambia, Capetown, and Amsterdam Isle in the Indian Ocean. Two steamers to Bombay could coal at Port Said. One steamer to Halifax, Canada, could carry her ottu coal for the return voyage. Those make tho seven steamships, but of course, there ougnt to be one or two more in reserve, in case of accident. Each of the steamers named above could accommodate 500 first-class passengers, with a 'single tier of berths, or a 1,000 with a double tier, one above the other, and would carry 500 to 1,000 tons of mails and light parcels. A passenger at aea only weighs, with his baggage, 4 cwt., or 5 to the ton. The fare to Bombay is £55 to £60. Tho fare to Australia, first cabin, is £60 to £70. If the time were reduced to little over one-third (35J to 12), there are lots of people who would gladly pay double fare for the saving of time. Tho fifty-mile mail steamers then would get the rjcher portion of the passenger traffic, and the present cargo steamers would reduce their speed and carry third-class passengers only. If the steamer could go full (it is not likely), 1,000 passengers to Australia at £120 would be £120,000 each voyage, or 500 passengers would b« £60,000, exclusive of tho value of the mails and light parcels. — Yours, etc., a. A. Haig.