PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
Fifteenth Day.
14 May 1907.
MAIL SERVICE
TO AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND rià CANADA.
146
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE : Yes, and increasing it to 18 knots would make an enormous difference.
Sir JOSEPH WARD: If you are going to pay 250,000l. a year, and if the other countries coming in pay another 100,000 a year, in my opinion it would be worth it.
1
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I agree, if it is only that.
Sir JOSEPH WARD: To bring the countries together as a matter of business you want to carry out a feasible scheme. If these steamers running out to Australia should run out to Vancouver and back again on a 15-knot service I would not give twopence towards it; I would just as soon travel by our direct cargo steamers, if I were going home as a matter of speed. From a New Zealand standpoint, I would not be prepared to put down any money for a slow service. These powerful self-governing countries are prepared to do something and we want Britain to join, which would enable us to come within three weeks of London. For my part, I should be exceedingly glad to see the proposal made in the direction Sir Wilfrid Laurier is urging, but with an effort to greater speed to both between England and ('anada, and Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. I know the obligations upon Australia for other services are greater than ours, and make them necessarily consider whether they can afford to give large sums of money to another service running at a high speed. One can thoroughly understand that as being a reasonable view to take, but the advantages all round events worthy of to them would be very great, and it is at all consideration. You cannot tell what the steamship competitors would be prepared to do. If we were to pass at this Conference a resolution inviting offers, say, for a service to run from England to Canada, to Quebec or Halifax, whichever alternative you like, in summer or winter, and make it a condition that the speed was to be 23 knots an hour, and ask fenders for it, and do the same thing on the Pacific side, should go straight for a 21-knot I service there, and find out what amount of subsidy was required for it. have got sufficient knowledge of the whole proposition to realise that you cannot get a fast service like this even with the coaling depôts available at ·
What short distances, unless you are prepared to pay a large subsidy for it.
is a few hundred thousand a year to Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in order to get something of the kind when you consider the advantages to be obtained?
Sir WILLIAM LYNE: What additional amount do you think a 20-knot service means ?
Sir JOSEPH WARD: I should think 300,0001. a year, by comparison with anything you have done for Australia now, including the Canadian side.
:
Mr. DEAKIN You can easily test this question by inviting offers for services at 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24 knots.
Sir JOSEPH WARD: This matter of a route across to Vancouver we years have been urging ou for many years. I have been at it for 17 or 18 personally. Every opportunity I have had I have been talking about improving the service across to Vancouver. I took the trouble 12 years ago to go straight from London to Canada lor the purpose of interviewing the Canadian Government to get a contract signed. I got it signed and took it back to New Zealand, but where we are going to be landed, as far as New Zealand is concerned, in the absence of united action is that the
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147
"all red routo which we prefer would have to be given up, and the alternative for New Zealand will be to go via America. The American service has only ceased at the moment because of the difficulties which cropped up consequent upon the earthquake in San Francisco. It is the fastest way we have from New Zealand. It is the shortest route under any conditions.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: What knot service is it?
I went back
Sir JOSEPH WARD: Only a 15 or 16-knot service. myself from here to New Zealand and landed in New Zealand in 28 days, or rather, I should have done so if I had left here two days later. I went on two days ahead from England, and the mails were landed in 28 days by that route. Our alternative, in order to bring us close to the Old Country from the standpoint of the nearest route, is to join with the United States Government and to pay sufficient money to have an up-to-date line of steamers put on from San Francisco to Auckland. We would get a faster route than we are getting here, but as that service is at the moment stopped we ought to try and secure the "all red route" and help our people to come through Canada and help Britain to have that route through Canada, and on to Australia, and New Zealand. I say it is infinitely preferable for us to put our minds upon that and come together and offer a larger subsidy to have a fast route for mails and passengers across Canada and the Pacific, and if we do that we do one of the finest things for the Empire.
Sir JAMES MACKAY: A service once in four weeks?
Sir JOSEPH WARD: The one across America has been a three-weekly service. I am suggesting now a fortnightly service.
Sir JAMES MACKAY: For 300,000 a year?
Sir JOSEPH WARD: 300,0001, or whatever it may be. Speaking from the New Zealand standpoint we are not going to remain a fifth wheel to a coach in the matter of giving our money to support a line of steamers as is supported by Britain and Australia at the present moment, which are slow, for the purpose we desire; that is the 15-knot service out through the Suez Canal. That is used by our passengers very largely, and for mail services, but it is keeping us comparatively in the back woods, and we are not going to continue to give our money directly or indirectly to a slow service by the P. and O. and the Orient or any other line, and allow ourselves to remain in the position of being kept nearly six weeks from England, when, at this age of steam development, we know it is quite possible to get here, under improved conditions, in about three weeks. So, what I urge is, that wo ought to achieve a really fast service by the best route of the lot, from the passenger point of view. The view was put forward by Sir Wilfrid Laurier that the service should also go to China and Japan. It is one of the finest things possible. They have a line of steamers now from Vancouver to the East-the Empress line-which has done a good deal to divert passenger trade through Canada from England. If you want a large diversion of trade for larger and faster steamers on that route and you will change the direction of the trallic from the East, which is now filtering through the Suez Canal, with all its high charges and imposts. If you want to bring about a revolution and a complete reformation in the transport of people, then help Canada to get this fast service to the East, viâ Vancouver, and you "all red route" there also. But from the point of view of get an New Zealand, I only want to make it as clear as I possibly can that
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Fifteenth Day.
14 May 1907.
MAIL SERVICE
TO AUSTRALIA AND NEW
ZEALAND viâ CANADA. (Sir Joseph Ward.)