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December, 1915 include Bar- t) American ports. They ARACATACA, TORTUGUERO, ZENT, RANCA and SAN Mateo. The Elder-Fyfe steamers are being operated in the banana trade between Central America and United States Bets under the British flag, It. is reported that they are soon to be transferred from British to American registry. With the completion of the necessary formalities in changing the registry of the five steamers, the United Fruit Co. will have transferred no less than 29 of its vessels from British to American registry since the outbreak of the war. The company. began the . transfer of its fleet of steamers from British to American registry almost imme- diately after the act of Aug. 19, 1914, was approved by congress. Twenty- four .of the. company’s steamers changed to American registry within two months after the law was passed. im. ©. Evans & Sons, San Francisco, have been made agents of. the Bank steamship line. Following the with- drawal of the Pacific Mail Steamship Co. from the transpacific trade routes, the English lines have considered the service a good opportunity to extend their fleet. Thus the Bank steamship line will operate vessels from Pacific coast points to the orient. Another new freight service by a Dutch steam- ship company is also expected to be announced in the near future when the Java-China line, a Netherlands “concern, will begin operating a month-. ’ ly steamer from Java via Manila and Hongkong to San Francisco beginning this month. The Alaska Steamship Co., Seattle, has purchased two steamers on the Atlantic coast and will bring them out to the Pacific by way of the Panama canal. They are Buritincton and BEN- NINGTON, which have been in operation for a number of years on the Great Lakes as ore carriers. The purchase price is said to have been $400,000. The steamers will be made ready for the Alaska trade as soon after their arrival on the Pacific coast as pos- sible. Burtincron and BENNINGTON were built seven years ago at Ecorse, Mich., for the Rutland Transit Co., a subsidiary of the New York Central Railroad Co. They will be used in the Alaska Steamship Co. for bringing ore from Alaska mines to the smelters at Tacoma. A direct steamship line between Puget sound and France is proposed by a French-consular representative on the Pacific coast, who is holding frequent conferences with business mien whom he has interested in the project through the branch office of the department of commerce. THE MARINE REVIEW cr Y LA? ollar 439 olds LS Panama Railroad Will Not Boost Tariffs as Announced — Slide Causes Trouble HAT threatened to be a bat- \ \ tle royal between the gov- ernment owned Panama Rail- road Co. and the steamship lines shipping freight through the Panama canal and now held up by the recent disastrous slides in the: Culebra cut, has been averted by the suspension of the ruinous rates announced by the former. A temporary flat rate of $3 per ton has been fixed by order of the war department for shipment of goods across the isthmus. The railroad is extending its. facilities as best it can to expedite the movement of perishable cargoes from the Pacific to the Atlantic side. Dredging opera- tions on the canal are being carried on at high pressure, a total of about 208,000 cubic yards of soil being re- moved per week. The tremendous pressure of sliding earth and rock has forced up an island in the channel, as illustrated on another page of this is- sue of The Marine Review. It is feared that canal traffic may be held up for several months. The new rate of $3 per ton includes all wharfage, cranage, stevedoring, and transfer charges on the dock as well as the rail haul. It. takes the place of a sliding scale designed by the Panama railroad, which would have gone into effect Nov.:1, and would have varied from $2.50 to $15 a ton. When this rate was announced, vigorous protests were made by sey- eral lines, especially by the Lucken- bach line, which declared that such a step would virtually force it out of business. The protests were aug- mented” by. those of large Pacific coast shippers whose business was seriously endangered by the contem- . plated raise in rates. Fifty per cent of the cargo capacity of the regular Panama steamers, it is said, has been automatically wiped out by conditions arising out of the landslide blockade. The prospective financial losses which confront the regular Panama lines have been ésti- mated at more than $500,000 for each month that the canal remains closed to navigation. These losses include extra expenses on temporary service by railroad across the isthmus, the use of the 30-day longer route via Magellan, 50 per cent loss in scheduled sailing time for the. steamers and coincident inability to carry the usual heavy cargoes. Officials of the Luckenbach Steam- ship Co. declare that, owing to the their rates materially. limited loading and unloading facili- ties available at the Cristobal and Balboa entrances on the Panama rail- road route, the transshipping of car- goes across the isthmus will not per-, ‘mit of the “turning” of a ship within less than 15 days, while the ordinary time in which vessels through the canal have been “turned” is seven days. At the Cristobal entrance are only 13 piers available for wharfage, and only five at Balboa. It is said that the closing of the canab has resulted in such heavy ex- penses to the steamship lines that most of them are leaving the coast- to-coast routes. It is intimated that when the slide is removed there will remain but two of the lines in opera- tion between the Atlantic and Pacific. If the canal is closed for eight or. nine months, it is said, the loss of the American-Hawaiian Line will be about $5,000,000, and probably three- fifths as much will be lost by the Luckenbach Line. The average daily losses of ‘the Panama steamers arising out of the blockade are fixed at about $1,600. The aggregate steamer losses are therefore extremely heavy, when it is considered, for instance, that the American-Hawaiian Line is using no less than 16 large-sized vessels in the Panama trade, while the Luckenbach -and Grace interests are operating more than. 12, On some of the larger Panama steamers the average daily losses reach as high as $2,500. The average period of extra delay involved in the case of the Luckenbach ships, which are transshipping their cargoes across the isthmus via the Panama railroad, is 10 days, while on the ships of the American-Hawaiian Line, which are utilizing the alternative Magellan route, the extra voyage involved is 30 days. The fact that the lines do not have to pay any tolls for passage through the canal is not held to be an important item for consideration, inasmuch as it is fixed at about 85 cents per ton, which is easily ab- sorbed by the additional fuel oil ex- penses to be met by the lines through the use of alternative and longer routes, as well as the delay at the entrances to the waterway, before actual exchange of cargoes overland may be attempted. The heavy extra costs to canal car- riers have compelled them to raise In fact, the