s all iron vessels
can be rather more readily divided into water-tight compartments by
bulkheads. Yet as a material of construction it offers no transcendent
advantages over the side-wheel for transatlantic navigation, while it
is not probably so safe, or so comfortable for passengers. Yet, it
will be well for us to adopt the propeller largely in our coasting
trade, and iron as the material of its construction.

We have thus seen that to save fuel and carry freight, the speed of
the propeller must be low; indeed very low, if it is to live on its
own receipts. It is therefore clearly impossible that with such
comparatively low speed it should carry the mail. Neither can it
support itself except by this low speed. By running thus but a
fraction faster than the sailing vessel, it can command on a few
prominent lines a large freight; but to give vessels of such speed a
subsidy for carrying the mails would be both to render the mail
service inefficient, and to enable the propeller to compete with the
sailing lines of the country at very undue advantage, which would be
an unfair discrimination against all sailing interests. Should the
propeller, like the side-wheel, run fast enough on the average trips
of the year to carry the mails, which would certainly be at the
expense and abandonment of any considerable freighting business, then
the Government might with propriety pay for the mails, as these
steamers would not injure the freighting business of sailing vessels.
The outcry by sail owners against steamers as competitors can not be
against the mail packets; for these carry but little freight; but
against these slow screws which should be treated like all other
freighting vessels, notwithstanding the fact that some of their owners
have had the impudence to propose them for the paid mail service and
to ask a subsidy from the Government, but the better to cripple the
interests of sailing vessels. As well might Government subsidize fast
clippers, because they are a little faster than regular, ordinary
sailers. When the steamer runs with sufficient rapidity for the mails,
the sailing ship has nothing to fear from competition, and has all the
benefits of the more rapid correspondence. Thus, Government must pay
only where there is a fast mail, whether it be in a side-wheel or
propeller; otherwise it destroys individual competition and cripples
private enterprise.

If, as we have seen from all the facts regarding the expense of
r