58 REPORT OF AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE COMMISSION.
By the same schedule the British Government may temporarily charter any vessel
7 the Cunard fleet at the following rates:

Rate per ton gross register per month.

In the event of the
company not having
 to provide and
pay the officers and
CTEew

In the event of the
company having to
provide and pay the
officers and crew.

speed of vessel per hour,

Above 22 knots ...............
Of irom 20 to 22 knots, inclusive.
Of from 17 up to 20 knots ..........
Mnder 17 knots and nbhove 14d note

For first
four
months
of each
period of
hire

sd.
25 0
20 0
20 0
17 6

For subse
quent
period of
hire

8d.
25 0
20 0
17 3
15

For first
four
rnonths
of cach
period of
Hire

5. dd.
30 ©
24 0
24 0
a9 0

For subsequent

period of
hire.

sd.
30 0
24 0
21 6
17 6

The rates are equivalent to $87.48 a year per ton (including crew) for the steamers
over 22 knots and to $51.45 a year per ton (including crew) for steamers between 14
and 17 knots. The average earnings of the Cunard fleet in 1902 were $57.83 per
gross registered ton, so that the Government charter rate is somewhat in excess of
the ordinary commercial earnings of the company.
The total annual subsidy to the Cunard Line specifically provided for in the contract
 consists of £150,000 ($729,000) for admiralty services and £68,000 ($330,480)
for the mails, in all $1,059,480. Paragraph 20 of the second part of the contract contains,
 however, the following provisions looking toward the maintenance of a complete
 Cunard semiweekly trans-Atlantic service:
‘If, in consequence of additions to its fleet, the company shall at any time establish
a new fast weekly midweek service between Great Britain and the United States of
America (that is to say, a service performed by vessels of a speed of 18 knots and
upward per hour), and the postmaster-general shall, under the powers conferred by
this clause, send by means of such new service a regular mail to the United States of
America which shall be equal in weight, on an average of twelve months, to not less
than 10 per cent of the average weight of the mail sent each week by a mail ship
under this agreement, then the postmaster-general shall make such additional payment
 to the company for the advantage thus obtained as (regard being had to the
other payments to the company under this agreement) may be agreed upon, or failing
 agreement, settled by arbitration under clause 35 hereof.”
The amount of the subsidy or “mail pay” under this paragraph is not fixed, but
the paragraph is a pointed illustration of British policy to dispatch British mails
entirely by British steamers, even if British steamers are slower than competing American
 and German mail steamers. With the semiweekly mail line in operation, the
Cunard Company will doubtless receive about $1,100,000 from the British Government
 annually. The United States pays substantially the same sum for our eastbound
 trans-Atlantic mails, the Cunard Company receiving of late years over $200,000
annually from the American post-office. The proposed concentration of British westbound
 mails upon the Cunard Line, with an annual payment of about $1,100,000, may
be contrasted with the American policy of distributing our east-bound trans-Atlantic
mails, ag Shwn by the following tahle of mail pavments for a series of vears to the
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