TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E, 805 



t)aring tbls century the six months' Toyage round the Cape to India became 

 a forty and then a thirty days' journey by what was known as the overland route 

 for mails and passengers through Egypt. By degrees it had become shorter still 

 by the railway extensions on the Continent and by the unbroken steamship passage 

 through the Suez Canal, until now the mails and hurrying travellers may reach 

 London in twelve or fourteen days after leaving Bombay ; and the great liners 

 of the P. & O. Company can arrive in the Thames eight days later. This famous 

 corporation, after her Majesty had been reigning nearly ten years, possessad only 

 fourteen ships, with an aggregate of 14,G0U tuns. Now it owns a princely fleet 

 of fifty-three ocean steamers, with a total capacity of 142,320 tons. Practically 

 the voyage to India in her Majesty's reign has been diminished by one-half at 

 least. 



Also since the Queen's accession the passage between the British Isles and the 

 Commonwealth of Australia has grown shorter, from the ninety days taken by the 

 sailing clippers to the fifty-three days occupied by Brunei's Great Britain. At 

 the present time it lasts from thirty to thirty-five days by the Suez Canal route, 

 while it has been finished in as little as twenty-eight days. Australia is conse- 

 quently only half as far away, in time, as it was ; while, if the Suez Canal were 

 closed for any reason, we have at our disposal, in addition to the Cape route with 

 its quick steamers, which is linked to us by the Pacific Ocean road, the splendid 

 service of that Empire-consolidator, the Canadian Pacific Railway. 



The important part played by the Suez Canal in this connection will be discussed 

 a little later. Now I am merely indicating by a few well-known facts the 

 diminution of distance by the improvements which have been made in the ships 

 themselves and in their propelling machines. 



Across the Atlantic the rapidity of travelling and the general average speed of all 

 cargo steamers have increased remarkably. Very interesting statistics on this point 

 were given to the British Association for the Advancement of Science last year, at 

 Dover, by Sir William White in the Presidential Address of Section G. We may 

 .say, without repeating details, that during the last half of the nineteenth century 

 the breadth of the Atlantic has practically been diminished one-half. 



In 1857 the Union Company contracted to carry mails in thirty-seven days to 

 the Cape. Now the contract time is nineteen days. This again diminishes the 

 distance by one-half. As an instance of the remarkable change which has been made 

 in steamships within forty years, it may be mentioned that the first Norman of the 

 Union Company took forty-two days to reach the Cape, while the present Norman 

 has covered the journey in fourteen days twenty-one hours. I need not specify 

 particularly the equivalent acceleration of speed upon other great steamship lines. 

 All our sea distances have been shortened 50 to 60 per cent, in an identical way. 



It is not too bold to predict that the Atlantic, from Queenstown to New York, 

 will, before long, be steamed in less than four days. The question has now 

 resolved itself simply into this — will it pay shipowners to burn so much coal as to 

 ensure these rushing journeys before a cheaper substitute for coal is found? We 

 Imow that a torpedo-destroyer has been driven through the water at the rate of 

 forty-three miles an hour by the use of the turbo- motor instead of reciprocating 

 engines. Consequently an enormous increase in the present speed of the great 

 Atlantic liners is certain if the new system can be applied to large vessels. By 

 such very swift steamers, and by the example they will set to all estabhshed and 

 competing steamship companies, the journey to Canada and subsequently to all 

 other parts of the Empire will be continually quickened, until predictions which 

 would now sound extravagant will in a few years be simple everyday facts. 



We must turn next to the subject of telegraphic communication, especially as 

 it relates to the British Empire. 



The mazes of land-lines and of sea and ocean cables are too numerous and 

 intricate to be described in detail. Also the general effect of this means of bringing 

 distant peoples together, and its transcendent importance for political, strategic, and 

 trading purposes, need not be too much insisted upon in this place, so obvious 

 must they be to every one. Yet, great as has been its power and advantage in all of 

 those directions in the past, it is certain that still greater development and still 

 greater service to the world will follow in the future even from existing systems, 



