on sailing vessels and overland transit, yet they are enabled, by the facilities which they afford, to monopolize and control the commerce of the world, and to divert it from the most natural channels, into the lap of British wealth. It is in this view of the subject that our merchants so justly complain that our government, by refusing to give them the facilities commensurate with the demands of the age, deprives them of the power or privilege of competing with foreign nations in this trade, and palsies their hands simply because they are not able individually and by their associated capital, to do that which only the government can do.

The reason why our mail steamers, to be established in this trade, require the aid of government is, because foreign governments subsidize their lines, and that our individual enterprise cannot compete with their individual enterprise, and that of their government combined.

The reason why foreign governments subsidize their steamship lines, engaged in this trade, is, because those lines cannot depend upon their own receipts for support, or run without government aid.

These facts are undisputed by steamship men and merchants, and are verified by the practice of the whole world, and the great number of failures in attempting to sustain steamers from year to year, on regular lines, by their receipts alone.

If England by steam has overtaken and neutralized our trade with these countries, then we have only to employ the same agent, and from geographical advantages we shall soon surpass her, as certainly, and even more effectually, than she has us. She sweeps our waters, and

we offer her no resistance or competition. She gains in these Spanish American countries an invaluable trade, because she employs the proper means for its attainment and promotion, while we do not. Hence, although much farther off, she is practically nearer.

Suppose that Great Britain had no steamers to that great sea at her threshold, the Mediterranean, and we had the enterprise to run a main trunk line to Gibraltar and Malta, and nine branches from this termini to all the great points of commerce in Mediterranean Europe, Asia and Africa. Would we not soon command the trade of all Southern Europe, of Western Asia, and of Africa?

But we find her wisely occupying her own territory, and that it is impossible for us to get possession. Great Britain has not waited for competition to urge her to her duty to her people.

30. The report of the Post-Office Committee of the House of Representatives, on the subject of Steamship Lines to the West India Islands and Brazil, at the last session, also forcibly sets forth our deficiencies with reference to the Spanish American Trade. "It is a singularly significant fact, and one demanding the serious attention of this body, that while the British Government sustains a perfect net-work of steam lines among the West India Islands, along the Spanish Main, to Central America, and to Mexico, and from Panama along the whole Pacific coast of South America, as well as from the West Indies to Halifax in British North America, which are all so arranged as to sweep closely around our whole coast, and yet afford to our commerce and our countrymen

no possible accommodations, and also two excellent monthly lines from Southampton and Liverpool to Brazil and La Plata, the United States have not established a single line of steamers, save a short line from Charleston to Cuba, and to some unimportant touching places in Central America, to any of these large and growing fields of commerce, notwithstanding our very highly favorable proximity to them, which, with the proper encouragement from the government, would make our people actually, as naturally, almost their sole furnishers, carriers, traders and bankers."

ELABORATENESS OF THE ENGLISH STEAM-PACKET SYSTEM TO

SPANISH AMERICA.

31. How elaborate and perfect, in its arrangement, this English steam mail packet system is, can be inferred from the following sketch of the West India and Brazil lines:

The mails from England are made up on the 2d and 17th of every month, and are taken from Southampton by one of the splendid steamships of the "Royal Mail Steam Packet Company."

This Company has twenty vessels of 29,454 tons, 9,306 horse power, and 1,667 men. They contract with the government to carry the mails between England and the West Indies, Gulf of Mexico and Spanish Main, twice a month, and to Brazil and the Rio Plata once a month, from Southampton, for an aggregate subsidy of £270,000 per annum. After leaving Southampton, the vessels of the West India line proceed direct to

St. Thomas, and thence to Santa Martha, Carthagena, and Aspinwall, and from Aspinwall to Greytown and back. Returning, they leave Aspinwall with the mails and treasure from the west coast of South America, and from California, and touching only at Carthagena, proceed to St. Thomas, where the entire West Indian mails and the mails and treasure from Mexico have meanwhile been collected; and thence they proceed direct to Southampton. Time between Aspinwall and Southampton twenty-two days.

Once a month, a branch steamer leaves St. Thomas for Havana, Vera Cruz and Tampico, with the out mails of the 2d of the month, brought by the steamer of the trunk line from Southampton to St. Thomas. Returning, the mails and treasure are collected at Tampico, Vera Cruz and Havana, and reach St. Thomas in time to connect with the main-line steamer thence to Southampton.

Twice a month another steamer proceeds from St. Thomas to Porto Rico, Jacmel and Jamaica, and back in the same order to St. Thomas, distributing the out mails and collecting the home correspondence.

Another steamer leaves St. Thomas twice a month, and proceeds to St. Kitts, Antigua, Guadalupe, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, Barbadoes and Demerara, and returns in the same order. Another branch steamer, connecting with the last, proceeds from Barbadoes twice a month, to St. Vincent, Carriacou, Granada, Trinidad, and Tobago, and back to Barbadoes, by the same route, in time to connect with the steamer for St. Thomas.

Another steamer leaves Jamaica once a month for

Honduras, and back to Jamaica, connecting with that from Jamaica to St. Thomas.

Still another leaves St. Thomas once a month for Nassau, and back to St. Thomas.

On the Brazil route, steamers belonging to the same company, leave Southampton once a month, and proceed to Lisbon, (Portugal,) Madeira, Teneriffe, St. Vincent, (Cape de Verdes,) Pernambuco, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro with the out mails, distributing them and receiving others at each of the above-named places.

From Rio de Janeiro another steamer, proceeding in connection, continues on to Monte Video and Buenos Ayres. Returning, the same route is observed, and mails taken up at every port for England. The time out is twenty-nine days, and home thirty-one days, to and from Rio, and forty days out, forty-three home, to and from Buenos Ayres. Every connection on all of the routes being made with the utmost regularity and punctuality.

32. The ramifications of these lines can best be understood from the following list of the places at which the steamers touch: