In the discussions that have arisen on the subject, the danger of running fast steamers on this route has, in many instances, been unduly magnified. Past experience tends to show that the actual risk is not necessarily increased by fast steaming. Shipwrecks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence during later years have been confined to cargo and cattle steamers. Not one of the faster mail boats has been lost during the last sixteen years. The chief difficulty in the way of establishing a twenty-knot service for the St. Lawrence is that of the ways and means. Would it pay? Certainly not by private enterprise alone, but the favour with which the project is regarded by the Imperial and Dominion Governments leaves little doubt that it will be accomplished in the near future. [Illustration: CAPTAIN W. H. SMITH, R.N.R.] Captain W. H. Smith, formerly Commodore of the Allan Line, in command of the _Parisian_, and who, from long service on this route, is well qualified to express an opinion, states in his report to the Government that he sees no reason why there should not be a fast line of steamers to the St. Lawrence. “If,” he says, “the St. Lawrence route is selected for the proposed fast line, there should be no racing in competition with other large steamers, and the same amount of caution must be taken which has been exercised of late years by senior officers of the Allan and other lines trading to Canada; and it will be absolutely necessary for the safety of navigation that the commanders and officers of any new company should be selected from the most experienced officers of existing lines.” In 1853 a Liverpool firm, Messrs. McKean, McLarty and Lamont, contracted with the Canadian Government to run a line of screw steamers, to carry Her Majesty’s mails, twice a month to Quebec in summer, and once a month to Portland during the winter, for which the company was to receive £1,238 currency per trip, under certain conditions, one of which was that the ships should average not more than fourteen days on the outward, nor more than thirteen days on the voyage eastward. The ships of the first year were the _Genova_, 350 tons; _Lady Eglinton_, 335 tons; and Sarah Sands, 931 tons. Their average passages were wide of the mark. Next year the _Cleopatra_, _Ottawa_ and _Charity_ were added to the line. The _Cleopatra_ made her first trip to Quebec in _forty-three days_; the _Ottawa_ never reached Quebec at all, but after dodging about some time among the ice at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, made for Portland. The _Charity_ reached Quebec in twenty-seven days. As a matter of course the contract was cancelled. THE ALLAN LINE.