The North German Lloyd’s _Kaiser Wilhelm II_ was the next ship of this line to cause a sensation. This was in 1903, and she was certainly a triumph for the Stettin builders. Of 20,000 registered tons, she was a little faster even than the _Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse_, for she kept up an average speed of 23·58 knots between New York and Plymouth in one voyage. Very useful was this speed to become eleven years later, for she was in the North Atlantic when war broke out, and got safely into New York on August 6. The _George Washington_, of 26,000 gross register tons, was launched as the biggest of all the ships in the German Mercantile Marine, though, with the speed of eighteen and a half knots, by no means the fastest. She was added to the N.D.L. in 1908, and was able to carry just under 3000 passengers for her owners when the list was full. A very useful and luxurious ship she turned out to be, but on the day after the war began she arrived in New York, was interned, and is now one of the ships in the American Mercantile Marine. The _Berlin_, another N.D.L. steamer, passed into the owners’ hands in 1909. She was of 19,200 gross tons, and originally could do her eighteen knots. In the autumn of 1914 she laid the big minefield off the north coast of Ireland, on which H.M.S. _Audacious_ and other ships foundered. _Berlin_ afterwards scurried north and interned herself in Norway. [Illustration: [_By courtesy the Cunard Line._ STOKEHOLD OF AN OIL-FUEL CUNARDER.] [Illustration: [_By courtesy the Cunard Line._ STARTING PLATFORM Of the engine-room in a Cunarder.] Such, then, was the progress of these two main supports of the German Mercantile Marine until the coming of the mammoth Atlantic liners. The ships of the Hamburg-America and the North German Lloyd were admittedly as good, and sometimes better than, their competitors, the Cunard and White Star; and during the period immediately preceding the war, competition was very keen not merely on the New York route, but in the trade with Central America, South America, East Africa and Australia. The German Mercantile Marine was everywhere, and cutting rates in an alarming manner. Her sea-borne trade was increasing, but the bulk of her shipping still remained, on the eve of war, in the ten powerful companies; and her main strength was still in the Atlantic trade of the two big lines we have just been considering.