We have now reached a stage when a change was coming over the Mercantile Marine slowly but without a doubt. A new competition was beginning, yet so far sail was ahead and improving all the time. But from the number of new shipyards which were springing up, and the interest which they and owners were taking in the steamship, it was obvious even soon after Queen Victoria’s accession that in the steamship lay the future of the trading and passenger ship. It is to be noted that during the time of the Honourable East India Company their ships were primarily and essentially freighters. They earned their profits by carrying valuable exports and imports. The few passengers who travelled were officials going out to India in the service of the company, or returning home. To-day the finest merchant ships in the world are not freighters, but passenger ships. It is the tramp which has succeeded to the carrying trade of those pioneer ships; and after the Indian monopoly had disappeared, and there came a need for people to go out East, it was quite an innovation to provide more accommodation for passengers. Then the same thing happened in regard to China, but especially with the emigration to Australia. Gradually this element increased, people began to travel all over the world, for business, for administrative reasons, for pleasure; and as the number of passengers increased so the amount of cargo space was encroached upon. Especially was this the case in the transatlantic ships, so that to-day the principal liners on that route carry practically no cargo beyond mails and the passengers’ luggage. Thus, within a hundred years, the needs of the public have entirely altered the characters of the shipping. It was natural enough that the East should for so long have instigated all the improvements in shipping, for the reason that travellers went to the Orient long before America was discovered, and the East India Company had a continuous need for the best ships. But since the introduction of steam and the rapid progress of the United States, it is the West, and not the East which has always seen the greatest enterprise in shipping. Bigger and better vessels, compound engines, twin screws, triple screws, quadruple screws, turbines, oil fuel, increased speed, luxurious accommodation—all these most important and progressive factors in the Mercantile Marine have come as a result of the Atlantic, and not the Oriental trade.