THE STORY OF P. & O.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2164, 17 August 1920, Page 1

THE STORY OF P. & O.

ROMANCE AND SPLENDID ENTERPRISE HAVE COMBINED TO BUILD CP THE- GREATEST OF BRITAIN’S MAGNIFICENT SHIPPING COMPANIES. Speak of .steamship companies, and one at once begins to think of the great transatlantic companies, such its the Canard and the White Star. The reason is plain enough. The Atlantic steamers arc, and always have been, the biggest and 'fastest in the world. Yet while those that ran to the East it re neither so large or so speedy, (hey it re just as important, and the hard fact stands out Unit the Peninsular and Oriental owns more ships, hits far more tonnage, steams more sea miles, and carries more cargo titan any other shipping company in the world. Before the wav the P. & O. owned 212 steamers, with it tonnage of 1,247,330 tons. Every year these Heels steamed more than four million miles, in their furnaces was consumed nearly a million tons ol coal, while the bill for wages to ofi lieers, crews, and shore stall amounted to more than ToOO.OOO yearly. The very first steamer to cross it it ocean was, its most people know, the Savannah, it vessel of about 300 tons burden, which travelled across the Atlantic from Savannah to Liverpool in the year 1819. AHEAD OF CONTRACT TIME. What very few people know is that, only live years later, the Faleoln, a steam yacht of no more than 175 tons, made her way in safely to India, sailing, of niiiisc, all the way round the Cape. One year later, in 1825, the P. & 0. came into being. It was not the V. & 0. to begin with, but was called the Peninsular Line, and the reason thiil it look litis title was that its ship—it laid only one lu begin with, called the .William Eaweelt —sailed from Falmouth for Spain. • In 1837, the same year in which Cfueen Victoria came to the throne, four new steamers were built and added to the Line. They were the Tagus, Dun Juan, Braganza, and Iberia. These traded as fur as Gibraltar, but even then there was no idea of extending the service any farther East. This did not come about until ] 84(1, when 11k* Government asked for tenders Tor carrying mails to Alexandria and India. The Peninsular Company got the contract, and (licit: lit tic craft, which were only about the size of the boats which cany the Channel Island trallie, began to run up the Meditteranean. Mow well the service was carried on may be gathered from the fact that the'mails were always carried in less than contract time. For that matter, they have been so ever since. The time allowed for India is 131 days, and for China 32 clays. The fleet was soon increased, and for thirty-two years had no competitors at all. SAVED FROM DISASTER. In those days there was, of course, no Suez Canal. Passengers and mails travelled by what was called the overland route. They wore landed at Alexandria, carried to the Nile in canal boats, and conveyed thence by steamer to Cairo, it distance of 120 miles. From Cairo they had to travel across the desert for nearly a hundred miles, and re-embark at the head of the Red Sea. It was a very trying-and uncomfortable perform-

ance. In 1847 the P. & 0. extended their .service to India, cargo-boats running round the Cape. Then came the completion of the Suez Canal. The overland route wits swept away, and ruin stared live company in the face. There was nothing for it but to build an entirely new Heel of ships Jit for the passage of the Canal. Twenty years earlier a Scotch boy named Thomas Sutherland had joined the -company as a junior shipping clerk. He was a great worker and a born organiser, and at this time was thirty-six years old. It was to him that -the directors turned in this emergency, and they could not have found a better man. Within live years the new heet was built, equipped, and running, and shortly afterwards Mr Sutherland became chairman of the company and a K.C.M.G. He also was M.P. for Greenock from 1884 to 1900. The P. & 0. then entered on ts palmy days. It extended its service to Australia, and carried all the bullion, all A he merchandise, and all the passengers to and from England and the East. It was ehietly through Sir Thomas Sutherland that the Hong Kong ducks were built, making Hong Kong one of the greatest ports in the British Empire. GREATER THAN'EVEN. 1 All the company’s ships, men, and

coaling’ stations were at the service of the Government, and from the Crimean and Afghan campaigns rig'llt down to Iho Great War, fhev c a * did nearly all the carrying of troops and stores to the Eastern sc^ts.of

Discipline aboard a P. & 0. liner is -as strict almost as in a warship, and a very different thing from that maintained on other lines. The end of the Great War sees the P. & 0. in the rare position of being actually stronger than in 11)14. In June, 101(1, (he company, bought np the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, a fleet of 74 steamers, with a tonnage of 327,860. A little later (hey bough I tin' ITain Line of 27 cargo steamers, aggregating about 109,000 tons. A third purchase was that of the six tine vessels of the Nourse Line, of about -1,000 tons each. These more than make up for the company’s loss of cargo vessels during the war, and the Heel now stands at 319 steamers afloat or under construction, with a tonnage of almost one and throe-ipmrtor millions.