CAPTAIN MACAULAY, OF SS. “CANADA.”
At a luncheon given on board the Canada to leading members of the Dominion Government, Mr. Torrance said that the Dominion Line had been sold out to a company composed of men of tremendous energy and enterprise, with any amount of money at their backs, and, after looking at the matter in all its bearings, they decided that the time had come for a forward movement. They determined to build the largest steamer they could for the St. Lawrence trade. The Canada was contracted for by Messrs. Harland and Wolff, Belfast, as a sixteen-knot ship, and on her trial trip made seventeen and a half knots. He believed that she would average sixteen knots at sea, that she would reach Rimouski in six and a half days from Liverpool, and deliver her mails at the Montreal post-office within seven days. If that expectation comes to be realized, as it is most likely to be, the arguments in favour of a fast mail service between Canada and Britain will be materially strengthened. Mr. Torrance added that the Canada was built to carry 7,000 tons of cargo, that if she had a speed of seventeen knots she would only carry 4,000 tons of cargo; if eighteen knots, she would carry but 3,000 tons, and that with a speed of twenty knots it would not be safe to calculate on her capacity for more than 1,000 tons of freight: “in short, that the twenty-knot ship must be, virtually, a passenger ship, and well subsidized.” The Canadian Government has not been slow to back up private enterprise of this nature in the past, and will doubtless continue to do so in the future. For reasons not made public the Canada was withdrawn from the St. Lawrence service and placed on the route from Boston and Liverpool, where she has been so successful that another vessel of the same class is being built for that route. In the meantime other large vessels have been put on the St. Lawrence route, the latest addition to the fleet being the New England, having a tonnage of nearly 11,600 tons, fine accommodation for a large number of passengers, and room for an enormous cargo.
The Beaver Line.
This is an out-and-out Canadian enterprise, dating from 1867, under the name of the “Canada Shipping Company, Limited,” when several Montreal capitalists, among whom were the late William Murray and Alexander Buntin, Messrs. Alexander Urquhart, John and Hugh Maclennan and others, combined to originate a line of iron fast-sailing ships to trade between Montreal and Liverpool. Having adopted for its distinguishing flag the emblem of the Canadian beaver, the company soon came to be popularly known as the Beaver Line, a line which, though not remunerative to its originators and stockholders, is worthy of honourable mention as having contributed in many ways to the interests of Canadian trade and commerce. The company commenced with a very fine fleet of five Clyde-built iron ships of from 900 to 1,274 tons each. These were the Lake Ontario, the Lake Erie, the Lake Michigan, the Lake Huron and the Lake Superior. The ships were in themselves all that could be desired. They were beautiful to look at, and made swift voyages, but there was a necessary element of success wanting. They did not pay. In fact, they began their short-lived career at the time when the days of sailing ships were rapidly drawing to a close. The important question of steam versus sails had been settled. The Canada Shipping Company must therefore retire from the business altogether or avail themselves of the advantages of steam power. They decided upon making the experiment, and gave orders for the building of steam vessels to supersede the sailing ships. In the meantime the Lake Michigan was lost at sea with all on board, adding another to those mysterious disappearances, of which there have been so many instances—gallant ships and noble sailors setting out on their voyage buoyant with hope, reporting themselves at the last signal station as “all well,” but never to be heard of any more.
ROYAL MAIL SS. “LAKE ONTARIO,” BEAVER LINE.
