Chimborazo, 1871.
Too rapid increase.
But, though inferior in power and dimensions, the vessels the company had built previously to this time for their Liverpool and Valparaiso line were equal in other respects to the new ones. Indeed, as may be seen by the following representation of the Chimborazo, launched in 1871, also from the yard of Elder and Company, they were not surpassed by any steamers afloat. She is a sister ship of the Cuzco, built by the same firm, as also of the Garonne built by Robert Napier and Sons and launched the same year. They are each 370 feet in length between perpendiculars, 41 feet beam, 35 feet depth of hold, and about 3850 tons gross register tonnage. They perform their passages on the coast with remarkable speed and regularity, while the voyage from Liverpool to Valparaiso is usually made in forty-two days. But, for the time being, the company has found itself overtaken by severe competition and depression in the west coast trade, and has been obliged to reduce the services on the line from Liverpool to that coast to two voyages each month instead of one weekly; in consequence of which nine of their steamers are, at present, laid up for want of employment.
“CHIMBORAZO.”
Loss arising therefrom.
Although the loss thus sustained may be attributed in no small degree to the over-sanguine views of the directors in regard to the development of the trade between Great Britain and the west coast of South America, some portion of it is also due to the competition on the coast and to the opposition they met in performing the weekly service for which they had obtained a postal contract from Her Majesty’s Government in December 1872. Bound to a speed in excess of what had been required of other companies, and with a grant of only the sea postage, it was impossible for them to hope to compete successfully with such highly subsidized companies as the Royal Mail and the French Messageries Maritimes, both of which maintain an opposition race to those ports of the Brazils whence the Pacific Steam Navigation Company hoped to derive some advantage by the conveyance of passengers on their way to Valparaiso.
Modification of mail contract and reduced services.
Indeed, where a high rate of speed is required, and where heavy penalties are inflicted for any irregularity in the performance of the stipulated service, it is very questionable, unless when highly subsidized, if any advantage whatever is to be gained by the conveyance of mails on so distant a voyage as that which the Pacific Company had undertaken to perform. But, by reducing the number of services and modifying the rate of speed, which the Government at last consented they should do—requiring, however, a reduction in the amount of subsidy—the directors, on the one hand, may hope to secure a sufficient amount of remunerative freight; and, on the other, to effect a saving in the consumption of coal—a matter of the highest consideration on such distant voyages.
Although the anticipations of the directors, in the more recent and expensive portion of their great undertaking, have not been realised, while the services of the steamers on the West Coast have periodically, and especially of late, been subjected to considerable depression, the trade of the Pacific has steadily and, compared with any previous development, marvellously increased since first opened out by the energy of Mr. Wheelwright. Moreover, this trade is likely to go on increasing, especially as the company has now a class of vessels admirably adapted for its still increasing wants, and affording many comforts to passengers who, induced by numerous attractions travel either for business or pleasure, along the shores of the Pacific.