STEAM NAVIGATION.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1271, 12 March 1872, Page 2

STEAM NAVIGATION.

£ from Mitchell's maritime register, nov. 4. J The opening of the Suez Canal has given an extraordinary impetus to the building of steamships. A new route to the Eastern Seas, created a demand which has been abundantly met. Independently of British enterprise, the French Dutch, Italians, Austrians, and Russians have taken advantage of the facilities presented by the short cut to> India, Java, the Straits Settlements,. China, and Japan, and they also have inaugurated lines of steamers. From a summary before its of British steamships, advertised in a single number only of the Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, to sail on a given day, via: Suez, to ports beyond the Red Sea, and these announced to follow,, we find that the actual tonnage of the vessels whose names are given amounts to 104,986 tons. To this gross tonnage we add the burthen of those ships advertised, on previous days, and known to- be in? the trade ; and from a careful calculation we make the grand total 147,986 tons. The employment of sucii a large amount of steam tonnage must completely revolutionise the Eastern trade. But to the British steam vessels of 147,986 tons should be added the tonnage of foreign vessels built expressly in consequence of the piercing of the isthmus, and, if we place that at 50,000 tons, which is a fair estimate, it will be found that over 200,000 tons of steamshipping is employed under different European flags, in steam navigation to the East. This is a result scarcely to have been anticipated two years ago, and the enormous augmentation of steam tonnage thus shown is the most convincing proof of the practical success. of the Suez Canal, as a means of expediting commerce between Europe and Asia. It should be born in mind, also, that so extensive an employment of British steam-vessels in this new channel of navigation is the spontaneous achievement of British enterprise and British wealth. Taking the value of our own vessels at ,£25 per ton on an average, it gives an estimated expenditure of capital of £8,699,640. The embavkation of such a large capital, in a comparatively short period, in vessels, engines, equipment, and stores, must have afforded work for thousands of mechanics and laborers, independently of the mining population. That whole fleets of unsubsidised steamships should have been thus created in less than two years seems marvellous. Some few of the steamers dispatched to the East have, no doubt, been taken from other lines, but this does not in reality touch the question, as, if they were profitably employed before, other ships would beplaced on the temporarily abandoned routes to supply their places. What effect will ultimately ensue from the extension of steam navigation to the East remains to be proved, but, considering that so few nailing ships are bein<r built to till the void left bv wrecks and breaking up, this increase of steamships, in point of aggregate tonnage, is not, perhaps, disproportionate to the merchandise to be conveyed. The old East Indian sailing ships averaged about 1,000 tons, so that the new British steam tonnage, as regards register, is equal to 148 sailing vessels. By the rapidity of their voyages, and the saving of time in distance, the increased steam tonnage is equal to about 370 sailing ships of 1,000 tons each. Recent returns from the commercial building yards of the United Kingdom show that there are 450,000 tons of steam shipping now on the stocks, or on order, all of which, it is said, is to be floated between this and March next. The value of this tonnage now building, or leadyfor floating, calculated upon the same moderate estimate as that which we have referred to a-, engaged in our Eastern trade, would amount to. the large sum of £11,250,030—a further proof of the characteristic enterprise and commercial wealth of thecountry. All this tonnage wall not figure on the register for 1871, but even if it did, there is, we a corresponding decrease in sailing tonnage. We will not say that the steamy tonnage i.ndev construction is excessive,, though if a panic or adverse times were to set in it would turn out. to be so. During a period of prosperity there should be not only tonnage enough.