30 REPORT OF AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE COMMISSION.

ships of our proposed lines to Brazil and Argentina. Foreign steamsrs
 from New York to South Africa are now of from 8 to 11 knots, and
10 knots is above the average speed of the foreign craft now trading
within the Gulf of Mexico.
On the trans-Pacific routes, the fastest ships now afloat are Amerisan
 built, and belong to the Pacific Mail Company. The required
speed for steamers on the North Pacific line (13 knots) is three knots
loss than via the Hawaiian line, but the northern route is the shorter
to the Orient, and the winter voyages are often too rough and stormy
for high speeding. The three British North Pacific liners are nominally
 of 16 knots, but it is understood that they are never driven to
their maximum.
A NAVAL RESERVE FLEET.

Just as is required by existing law, whose safeguards are in no way
relaxed, the contracts for the new ocean mail routes of the proposed
hill must be awarded, after public advertisement, in free and fair competition,
 to the lowest responsible bidder offering terms satisfactory
to the Post-Office Department, and the ships offered can receive no
sther subvention or bounty from the United States. As required by
existing law, the new mail steamships must be built under naval inspection,
 and the faster of them must be strengthened to mount powerful
puns asarmed auxiliary cruisers, while theslower vessels serveasequally
indispensable transports or supply ships. The speed of all must be
tested on an official trial and certified by the Navy Department, and
all these mail ships, of any speed, must be held at the disposal of the
(Government in war. Moreover, they must all carry a quota of men
and boys of the naval volunteers. Thus there is guaranteed a new
naval reserve of both ships and seamen, and an important reinforcement
 not only of the commercial power but of the defensive power of
the United States.
NO NEW DEPARTURE.

The general method of the proposed bill in its mail subventions
nvolves no new departure from the established practice of the Govsrnment.
 These mail subventions are not in any opprobrious sense a
subsidy or bounty. They are granted frankly in compensation for
public services rendered and to be rendered. = As far back as 1841, the
gear after the Cunard Line appeared with its British mail contract,
Senator Thomas Butler King, of Georgia, began his memorable and
successful advocacy of national encouragement to American mail lines
on the North Atlantic. Mr. King was ably supported by Senator
Thomas J. Rusk, of Texas, and in an annual message to Congress
President Polk urged:

The enlightened policy by which a rapid communication with the various distant
parts of the world is established, by means of American-built steamers, would find
an ample reward in the increase of our commerce and in making our country and
ts resources more favorably known abroad; but the national advantage is still
syreater—of having our naval officers made familiar with steam navigation, and of
having the privilege of taking the ships already equipped for immediate service at a
moment’s notice, and will be cheaply purchased by the compensation to be paid for
the transportation of the mail, over and above the postage received. A just national
pride, no less than our commercial interests, would seem to favor the policy of augmentine
 the number of this descriotion of vessels.