round voyage. The contingencies attendant upon such lengthened voyages and service, as the possible interruption of commerce by war, or failure of crops in remote countries, which could not easily be anticipated, required that vast stores of Indian and Chinese products should be always kept on hand at the one spot in Europe where the consumers of such commodities could speedily supply themselves with any article they required; and that spot, by reason of geographical position and commercial advantage, was England. Out of this condition of affairs came naturally a vast system of warehousing in and distribution from England, and of British banking and exchange. Then came the opening of the canal. What were the results? The old transportation had been performed by ships, mainly sailing-vessels, fitted to go round the Cape, and, as such ships were not adapted to the Suez Canal, an amount of tonnage, estimated by some authorities as high as two million tons, and representing an immense amount of wealth, was virtually destroyed.[1] The voyage, in place of occupying from six to eight months, has been so greatly reduced that steamers adapted to the canal now make the voyage from London to Calcutta, or vice versa, in less than thirty days. The notable destruction or great impairment in the value of ships consequent upon the construction of the canal did not, furthermore, terminate with its immediate opening and use; for improvements in marine engines, diminishing the consumption of coal, and so enabling vessels not only to be sailed at less cost, but also to carry more cargo, were, in consequence of demand for quick and cheap service so rapidly effected, that the numerous and expensive steamer constructions of 1870-'73, being unable to compete with the constructions of the next two years, were nearly all displaced in 1875-'76, and sold for half, or less than half, of their original cost. And within another decade these same improved steamers of 1875-'76 have, in turn, been discarded and sold at small prices as unfit for the service of lines having an established trade, and replaced with vessels fitted with the triple-expansion engines, and saving from eighteen to twenty-five per cent in the consumption of fuel. To which may be added that an iron cargo-steamer of 2,000 tons, which even as late as 1883 cost £24,000 ($120,000) in Great Britain to build, can now (1887) be built with all the modern improvements for about £14,000 ($70,000). In all commercial history, probably no more striking illustration can be found of the economic principle that nothing more clearly marks the rate of material progress than the rapidity with which what is old and has been considered wealth is destroyed by the results of new inventions and discoveries.
Again, with telegraphic communication between India and China
- ↑ "The canal may therefore be said to have given a death-blow to sailing-vessels, except for a few special purposes."—From a paper by Charles Magniac, indorsed by the "London Economist" as a merchant of eminence and experience, entitled to speak with authority, read before the Indian Section of the London Society of Arts, February, 1876.
