With equal candor the evils of the system apparent in those days ought to be told. The subsidized Cunarders not only drove off the American subsidized lines but they drove away the unsubsidized Great Western line. _They depressed all British shipping that entered the trade to New York and Boston._ If they had had a larger subsidy they would have spread to Philadelphia, and thus would have prevented or delayed the establishment of the Inman Line. The British shipping in the trade to the northern ports of America was not increased by the subsidy to the Cunard Company; it was, on the contrary, restricted. Paying a subsidy to establish a line where no steamers had traded before, and none could trade without government aid, was a very different thing from forcing a new line of steamers into trade already supplied with shipping, and even congested. Paying a fair price per pound to a ship for carrying the mail ought not to be confused with paying a subsidy. The first Cunard mail pay was not a subsidy; it was a low price for the work done. Senator Rusk declared, in the document already quoted, that the British Post Office Department "derived a _clear_ income of no less than $5,280,800" from the contract in the first six years it was in force. After Collins began running his ships by aid of a subsidy the British subsidized Cunard to enable him to compete. When the Collins Line reduced freights from £7 10_s_ to £4, _commerce_ was certainly benefited, but the reduction was ruinous to _shipping_. It was especially injurious to the American packet lines. The advent of the subsidized Collins Line did more to injure the American _shipping_ of its day than any other influence except that of the iron screw steamer. Then the effect of admiralty supervision upon the subsidized ships was an incubus upon progress. Naval men are usually conservative, and conservatism often means stupidity. Thus, after the British _Dreadnought_ had demonstrated the efficiency of the turbine engine our American naval engineers provided one battleship with turbines and another of the same model with reciprocating engines in order to learn whether the turbine was worth installing in future ships! The Cunard ships were built of wood, long after iron was known to be a better material, because of naval stupidity. Worse yet, when the requirements of the merchant service became imperative the rules of the admiralty were evaded--ships were reported to be fit for war cruisers when in fact they were useful as transports only. After the Civil War, Congress provided subsidies by which a line from New York to Rio Janeiro, another from San Francisco to China and Japan, and a third from San Francisco to Hawaii, were established. Under these contracts the policy did not have quite a fair trial. The beneficiaries by activity in politics created so much opposition that the subsidies were withdrawn before the effect was fully apparent.