The Steam Ship (1960)

From the June 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Transport and the Growth of Industry (5)

Steam did not easily conquer sail. Although potentially the more powerful method of propulsion, it had a hard fight to establish itself. As early as the 15th and 16th centuries, for example, men were investigating steam power. But the idea was defeated by the lack of the necessary metal alloys, steel and so forth. It was the Industrial Revolution, bringing the social need for new techniques, which solved the problem and established the new motive power.

The first application of steam was to the driving of factories and the pumping-out of mines. The early engines were heavy affairs, expensive consumers of fuel and capable of only low horse power. The engineers therefore turned their attention to boats, which with their displacement of water. and ability to carry the heavy engine promised to be a profitable method of applying steam.

In the early 1800's, the Europeans were using a conventional type of vessel which had changed only slowly: the Victory, a first ship of the line, was over 40 years old at Trafalgar. The Americans, on the other hand, were untrammelled by old shipbuilding traditions, had plenty of first class timber and attracted the venturesome and radical mechanics and immigrants. Thus they could improve the style of sailing ships.

After the Napoleonic Wars, immigration to the Americas increased, the bulk of it being carried by the Yankee clipper ships, running the first advertised liner service. The Americans were the leading shipbuilders, with transatlantic cargo boats of 1,200 tons against the British average of about 250 tons. They also built the faster ships, with an increased ratio of length to beam. All this improvement in sail was preparing the ground for the adoption of steam.

The first steam boats, because of their heavy fuel consumption, worked on short river journeys. In the early 19th century, Symington invented a steam boat for use on the new canals, but the canal owners neglected his work. In the United States in 1807, Fulton built a ferry, successfully steam driven. Steam river and harbour boats turned up in odd corners of the earth: in Italy in 1824, Java in 1811, India in 1820, and as packet steamers in the Irish Channel. But it was in expanding America, where the rivers and lakes were the principal method of communication, that the real development took place. Wood was a plentiful—and therefore a cheap—fuel. A fast marine engine was developed to overcome the swift river currents. So successful was this development that by 1833 there were about 300 paddle boats in use in America. In many ways, this concentration on opening the interior led the Yankee shipping interests to lose their supremacy in the development of the Atlantic steam boat.

The Industrial Revolution had made Britain a great iron and machine producing nation; this proved to be a trump card in their bid to regain supremacy in the Atlantic and Pacific. The Americans tried to muscle in, building the Savannha, but this was a half-hearted effort: they later removed Savannha's engines. The 1830s and 1840s saw many types of vessels coming onto the Atlantic, with men like Sam Cunard and Isambard Brunei prominent shipbuilders. British investors were eager to support the steamships—Liverpool and Glasgow, for example, raised some £270,000 in a few days for one of Sam Cunard’s ventures.

Of course, the steamships had their problems, being expensive both to build and to run. The first Cunarder cost some £45 per ton to build, against £15 for every ton of a sailing vessel. The Britannia of 1840 could carry only 225 tons of cargo—and for this needed 640 tons of coal. The steamers could make more runs to a regular timetable, but much of the extra profit which this brought was eaten up by the costs of building and running. This made them concentrate on the busy and more lucrative routes; the British shipowners were always very keen to get the Government mail contract, as the payment was a form of subsidy. The expansion of British commerce sent the steamships on routes other than the Atlantic. Anderson and Wilcox opened the Spanish trade and later, when they got the mail contract to India, formed the famous Peninsular and Orient Line. Regular services were in operation to the principal South American ports—this under the eye of the Admiralty, who were interested in the use of steam for warships.

Indeed, it was the need of the British capitalist class to maintain a large navy to protect their far-flung interests which forced the steady flow of design and skill to be used for both naval and mercantile purposes. In contrast, the European powers lagged behind. North Germany was still a tangle of small states and free cities, with capital in the hands of a few families who were reluctant to take the necessary steps of widening ports and deepening channels. The Dutch were in no better state. It was well into the 1850’s before the French started anything like a regular steamship service.

Sail not Finished

The 1850’s saw the screw replacing the paddle amongst the larger sea-going vessels. Over the previous 40 years there had been great development; engine had become more complex and efficient, using less coal in relation to their increased power. Brunel’s Great Eastern was not typical of the ships of the day, but it was a signpost of things to come. By 1862, Holt had 3,000 ton steamers in operation, whose engines used 2¼ lb. of coal per horse power each hour (to work up a pressure of 60 lb. per square inch). Compare this with the 10 lbs. of coal used in the 1820’s to generate 56 lbs. per square inch.

But sail was by no means finished. Sailing ships were cheaper to run, which made them attractive to the trumping, coasting and whaling trades. It also enabled them to cover the cost of delays in the ports of the newly developed lands, where lack of loading aids and dock construction meant weeks of waiting whilst cargoes were man handled ashore. For this reason, sailing ships were extensively used in the South American fertiliser and chemical trade. They were also used for the Australian immigration trade in the 1860’s, which was denied to the steamships by the lack of coaling stations. It was this run which led the Aberdeen builders to modernise (or Americanise) their design, making the famous ships which often grace calendars and other pictures. Typical of these was the Cutty Sark.

There are few things which catch the imagination of the romantic so much as a clipper at full sail. There are, of course, a number of facts which the romantics overlook. Sailing ships had to be towed out of ports by steam tugs—without this assistance, it was not unusual for them to spend days trying to get out of the English Channel or the mouth of the Elbe. The clippers were difficult to handle and were only kept afloat by the crew's intimate knowledge of sea and sail. Seamen's conditions were poor compared with those on the steamships; it was, for example, quite usual in bad weather for men to be flung overboard from the rigging. The competent crews began to leave the sailing ships and this was one of the factors in their slow decline.

By the 1880's the European powers were able to offer a real challenge to British control of the Atlantic. Germany was united and, expanding, warlike and naval conscious, built large and powerful liners. Belgium was one of the many countries where American shipbuilding money was invested; the Dutch, French and Italians were also in the struggle. The Scandinavians were becoming the Carter Paterson of the sea.

Thus the steamships, like the railway and the motor car, became part of capitalist development, part of the commercial bloodstream in the body of private property. The machine caused the mercantlile powers to overhaul the system of maritime training. This meant the end of the illiterate sea captain and the brutal seamen, their heads full of unwritten sea lore which they passed on by word of mouth. Seamen became like factory workers and, like their landlubber cousins, learned to organise in trade unions to improve their conditions. When they are in demand—as in wartime— they are made much of, but they are often the first to suffer in times of a trade slump.

In sea transport, capitalism has played a typical role. It has developed, organised and divided. The ships, the men who make them and the men who sail in them, have all been changed by it.

Jack Law