The struggle for the speed supremacy of the North Atlantic went on. The _City of Paris_ was a flier. She could do her nineteen and twenty knots. But the White Star Line replied with the _Teutonic_ and _Majestic_, both launched in 1889. They, too, were fliers, for the former broke the record by steaming from Queenstown to New York in five days, eighteen hours, eight minutes, while the latter did it in five days, sixteen hours, thirty-one minutes. They were, of course, twin-screw ships, but of only 9984 tons, which in this advanced twentieth century seems quite small for a crack liner. The competition was continued by the Cunard Company launching in 1892 the _Campania_, and in the following year the _Lucania_, fitted with twin screws and triple-expansion engines. Beautiful ships these were, with lovely lines and an amazing turn of speed. Steel had, of course, long since taken the place of iron, and in the building of these two wonderful vessels the plates were made of unprecedented size, and so they required a smaller number of rivets. These were 600-feet ships, and it was their length which helped to give them the 22-knot speed. _Campania_ made the run between Queenstown and New York in five and a half days, and averaged just under twenty-two knots for a whole year’s east-bound voyages. This was a truly remarkable performance, for the real criterion of efficiency is that a ship should be able not merely to make one spectacular hour’s run, nor break the record for one day or one voyage, but to keep on doing this all the time. Here is the test of good steamship management ashore, perfect organisation aboard and the reason for the highest praise to her officers and crew. The point we have now reached represents the era of keen competition for the best-equipped and speediest steamships in the Atlantic, and therefore of all the Mercantile Marines in the world. In this race the Collins Line, though subsidised by the American Government, had already disappeared, the reorganised Inman Line, which had been absorbed in the American Line, in spite of its fine ships, ceased to be a dangerous competitor. In the end it became a contest between the two British lines, the Cunard and the White Star. The German liners now entered the Atlantic as very serious competitors. It will be more convenient to deal with the German Mercantile Marine in a separate chapter, but it may be said here that it was the wonderful achievements of _Campania_ and _Lucania_ which created such emulation that the North German Lloyd Company scrapped their old-fashioned ships and in 1897 produced the _Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse_, which by her mean speed of 22·81 knots beat the Cunarders, and thus for the first time Germany won the “blue riband” of the Atlantic, as the expression was in the ’nineties.