44 REPORT OF AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE COMMISSION.

Cuba so long as ships built in Europe, owned there, officered and
manned there, and repaired there, dominate the growing trade between
the island and the mainland.
The peculiar closeness of the relations between the new Republic and
the United States imperatively forbids a longer continuance of European
 control over the larger part of their means of communication.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC MAIL SERVICE.

None of the new mail routes proposed by the bill runs to a European
port. There is nothing in this measure, as has frankly been acknowledged,
 to encourage the building of expensive *‘ greyhounds” for the
mail, passenger, and express cargo service to Great Britain and the
Continent. The Commission has not been forgetful of this important
part of our commerce, nor is there any disposition to ignore it,
especially as the President of the United States, in his message to Congress
 recommending the creation of this Commission, made significant
reference to this very service, saying:
While such a measure is desirable in any event, it is especially desirable at this
time, in view of the fact that our present governmental contract for ocean mail with
the American Line will expire in 1905. Our ocean-mail act was passed in 1891. In
1895 our 20-knot trans-Atlantic mail line was equal to any foreign line. . Since then
the Germans have put on 23-knot steamers and the British have contracted for 24-knot
 steamers. Our service should equal the best. If it does not, the commercial
public will abandon it. If we are to stay in the business, it ought to be with the
full understanding of the advantages to the country on the one hand, and on the
other with exact knowledge of the cost and proper methods of carrying it on.
During the past few weeks the Commission has given particular
attention to this important phase of the inquiry in its sessions in
Washington, and expert engineers, ship builders, and steamship managers
 have been invited to present their views as to the difficult prob
lem of the North Atlantic fast mail and passenger service. But the
Commission regrets to say that information that would be adequate to
guide the action of our Government has not yet been secured.

A COMPLICATED PROBLEM.

The problem, a formidable one at best, is further seriously complicated
 at the present time by the partial development of the turbine
principle in marine propulsion. The two new giant Cunard steamers
 will be of this type, yet untried on a large scale in transoceanic
navigation, though perhaps destined to work almost another revolution
 In marine architecture. Besides the Cunard ships, two Allan
Line steamers of large size, but moderate speed, are being completed
in Great Britain for the Canadian mail service, and conflicting reports
as to the trial performances of the first of these vessels make a positive
 recommendation seem all the more premature and ill advised.
Meanwhile, though American builders have thus far produced no
large ocean-going turbine steamer, some creditable experimental work
has been done in the United States, and some of our own engineers
are advancing on original lines toward results that promise to be of
the very first importance.
These considerations naturally make the Commission all the more
reluctant to form conclusions that must be based on European practice,
though that practice confessedly has not vet passed beyond the experi-