The Allan, Dominion, Beaver, and other Canadian Lines of Ocean Steamships—Sir Hugh Allan—A Fast Line Service, etc., etc.
WERE it not that the St. Lawrence is hermetically sealed for five months of the year, it would undoubtedly be a more formidable rival to the Hudson than it now is. That great drawback, however, is not the only one. The navigation of the St. Lawrence has always been somewhat difficult and hazardous. The seven hundred and fifty miles of land-locked water from Quebec to Belle Isle is notorious for swift and uncertain tides and currents, for treacherous submerged reefs and rocks, and shoals in long stretches of the river, for blinding snow-storms and fields of floating ice in the lower reaches at certain seasons of the year, for icebergs which abound on the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland, and for bewildering fogs. With such a combination of difficulties it is not to be wondered at that shipwrecks have been frequent; that they have not been more numerous must be mainly attributed to good seamanship and an intimate knowledge of the route. Nautical appliances and charts are very much better than they were thirty or forty years ago. The efficiency of the lighthouse system has been greatly increased, and, what is vastly important, the masters of mail steamers are no longer restricted to time, but on the contrary are instructed that whenever the risk of life or of the ship is involved, speed must be sacrificed to safety.
The St. Lawrence route has some advantages over the other. It is nearly five hundred miles shorter from Quebec to Liverpool than from New York. Other things being equal, passengers by this route have the advantage of 750 miles of smooth water at the beginning or end of their voyage, as the case may be. For these and other reasons many prefer the St. Lawrence route. It has become popular even with a good many Americans, especially from the Western States, and will certainly become more so if the contemplated “fast service” is realized, by which the ocean voyage—from land to land—would be curtailed to three days and a half!
In the discussions that have arisen on the subject, the danger of running fast steamers on this route has, in many instances, been unduly magnified. Past experience tends to show that the actual risk is not necessarily increased by fast steaming. Shipwrecks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence during later years have been confined to cargo and cattle steamers. Not one of the faster mail boats has been lost during the last sixteen years. The chief difficulty in the way of establishing a twenty-knot service for the St. Lawrence is that of the ways and means. Would it pay? Certainly not by private enterprise alone, but the favour with which the project is regarded by the Imperial and Dominion Governments leaves little doubt that it will be accomplished in the near future.
CAPTAIN W. H. SMITH, R.N.R.
Captain W. H. Smith, formerly Commodore of the Allan Line, in command of the Parisian, and who, from long service on this route, is well qualified to express an opinion, states in his report to the Government that he sees no reason why there should not be a fast line of steamers to the St. Lawrence. “If,” he says, “the St. Lawrence route is selected for the proposed fast line, there should be no racing in competition with other large steamers, and the same amount of caution must be taken which has been exercised of late years by senior officers of the Allan and other lines trading to Canada; and it will be absolutely necessary for the safety of navigation that the commanders and officers of any new company should be selected from the most experienced officers of existing lines.”
In 1853 a Liverpool firm, Messrs. McKean, McLarty and Lamont, contracted with the Canadian Government to run a line of screw steamers, to carry Her Majesty’s mails, twice a month to Quebec in summer, and once a month to Portland during the winter, for which the company was to receive £1,238 currency per trip, under certain conditions, one of which was that the ships should average not more than fourteen days on the outward, nor more than thirteen days on the voyage eastward. The ships of the first year were the Genova, 350 tons; Lady Eglinton, 335 tons; and Sarah Sands, 931 tons. Their average passages were wide of the mark. Next year the Cleopatra, Ottawa and Charity were added to the line. The Cleopatra made her first trip to Quebec in forty-three days; the Ottawa never reached Quebec at all, but after dodging about some time among the ice at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, made for Portland. The Charity reached Quebec in twenty-seven days. As a matter of course the contract was cancelled.