Crossing the Pond Gets Cheaper

I was looking at the pricing for a steamship birth from the UK to the US in the mid-1850's, and was surprised by how expensive it used to be. A few ads from 150 years ago today:

Steam to New York from Havre. The American steam-ship ERICSSON, Captain Lowber, will leave Havere for New York, direct, August 4th. Fares- First Class, £25: second class £20 and £16. To engage passage apply to Oroskey and Co. Southampton, and 67 Gracechurch-street, London.

Steam to New York from Southampton. The next departures of the United States Mail Steamers will be as follows:
UNION, 1,650 tons, 600 horse power, Wednesday, August 1
HERMANN, 2,000 tons, 7500 horse power, Wednesday, August 15
ARAGO, 3,000 tons, 800 horse power, Wednesday, WASHINGTON, 2,000 tons, 750 horse power, Wednesday, September 12

Fares, including provisions, steward's fees &c: By the Union and Arago, first class, £30; second class, £20 (and by the Arago only £16). By the Washington and Hermann, first class, upper saloon, £28; lower saloon £24, second class £15.

For freights or passage apply to Grindlay and Co., 9 St. Martin's lane, Charing Cross; or to the undersigned, general agents,

CROSKEY and Co., Southampton, and 67 Gracechurch street, London.
Drafts and letters of credit upon the United States.

If we take the average cost of a second class ticket as £20, and try a few numbers for inflation over the past 150 years, we get:

3% inflation inflation= $3,000
4% inflation £7178 = $13,000
5% inflation £30159 = $55,000


Now I have no idea what real inflation has been over the past 150 years, I used the basic CPI rate of just under 4% in the years from 1913 to 2004 as the midpoint. In any case, a nice cabin on a cross-Atlantic steamer which any of the travelers would have loved to swap for a 6 hour hop in a plane would conservatively cost around $10,000, adjusted for inflation. That's one way!

Chinese Boycott Against Cheap American Goods

From the New York Times, July 20, 1905.

Chinese Boycott Begun

Now in Force Against American Goods in Five Big Ports

The State Department has been informed by its counsuls that the Chinese boycott against American Trade Goods, organized by the trade guilds in five ports: Shanghai, Canton, Tien-Tsin, Han-Kow, and Niu-Chwang began today.

It is believed that the boycott will not be successful or do any particular injury to American Goods, except in Canton and Shanghai, where the guild are stronger than elsewhere.

There is no official action which the United States government can take as long as it remains a simple boycott or a refusal to purchase American goods, but it is thought the boycott will be discourage by the Chinese Government as far as possible.

Talk about the shoe being on the other foot, just 100 years ago today, it was the Chinese who were worried about our cheap trade goods flooding their country. The modern situation is arguably different, in terms of both quantity and quality, and I think our economists are all wet on the idea that America's vaunted "service economy" can truly replace our shrinking manufacturing base. In another 100 years, we'll have the answer to whether outsourcing was driven by global competition or by CEO compensation tied to stock option (ie, short term profits). In the meantime, I'll break my usual pattern of only posting articles with expired copyrights since the following was written by myself ten years ago for the Dailey International Newsletter:

Way, Way Outsourcing

The outsourcing avalanche of the Eighties has taken on the momentum of a religious movement in the Nineties. The ultimate result of this terribly flawed model for industry gives rise to a new paradigm, which I call Way Outsourcing. As you might guess, Way Outsourcing refers to sending manufacturing overseas. How did outsourcing win so many converts in industry? Simple. Through an unholy marriage with downsizing, outsourcing has transitioned from being a strategic choice to a grim necessity.

Originally, outsourcing won adherents through the process of business re-engineering, Focus on your strengths, management was advised, and improve efficiency by outsourcing your non-core activities. This approach never went over well with middle managers who saw this process as a threat to their career expectancy. They were proven correct, and downsized as a reward for their acuity. At the same time, a funny thing was happening on the technical side in many American corporations. The hiring and "bringing along" of fresh graduates in engineering disciplines, the time honored approach to securing technical expertise for the future, was also discontinued. This clever move reduced staffing requirements for both trainees and trainers. As long as nobody retired, expired, or otherwise abandoned their post, great savings could be achieved.

Well, a few years went by, and a new problem crept up. Upper management retired too, and nobody was left who knew the names and phone numbers of all the ex-middle managers and retired engineers who had been coming in as contractors to maintain plant infrastructure. Top management was left with one choice. Outsource upper management to consulting houses, which had proven their worth by remaining focused on their own core business, billing a many hours as possible. Now there was no way to transition back to the old business model, and no real motivation for anyone involved to try.

The next step I call Way, Way Outsourcing. This is where top management and stock ownership are outsourced overseas as well. This business model has the added attraction that nobody left in the United States has to pay any income tax. If you see any holes in this model, please post a comment. I've outsourced my secretarial support and I want to see if the new blog guys are worth the beating I'm taking on exchange rates.

Morris Rosenthal

Alexander Berkman Freed - Emma Goldman in Pearls

A small blurb in the New York Times from 100 years ago today caught my eye, it read "Enemy of Frick Freed." I remembered who Frick was, though I'd forgotten the name of his would-be assassin, Alexander Berkman. The belief that that best path to changing the world is through instant gratification tends to reside in the terminally young and armchair intellectuals. The article is reproduced below:

Man Who Attempted Assassination Arrested on Another Charge

PITTSBURGH, July 19 - Alexander Berkman, who attempted to kill H. C. frick, the millionaire steel manufacturer, during the great Homestead strike of 1892, was released from the Western Penitentiary today. He was immediately arrested on a commitment to the Allegheny Count Workhouse to serve one year for carrying concealed weapons.

Berkman was sentenced to twenty-two years in the penitentiary, but good behavior earned for him a commutation of nine years. During his long imprisonment, Berkman devoted his leisure time to study and writing.

As he left for the workhouse he said to Deputy Sheriff Haggerty: "I hope there won't be any notoriety about me. I want to do my little bit and then be a good man and live at peace with the world."

The trip from the penitentiary to the workhouse was without incident.

If I remember accounts of the strike, the strikers actually stood a reasonable chance of winning until Berkman came along and destroyed all sympathy for their cause with his botched murder attempt. Berkman is also known as the lifelong companion of Emma Goldman, a woman who was sufficiently vain in her beliefs to preach free love and violent revolution at the same time. Her essay on the former is a truly amusing read for adults who may know nothing of love but have seen plenty of life. I doubt I would have remembered either Berkman or Goldman but for a young woman who attended a local seminar at a private college. She reminded me greatly of a picture of a young Emma I'd recently seen in a documentary, and she had the habit of wearing a T-shirt and pearls. I thought it was charming.

United we Stand, Divided we Flee

There's plenty of reason these days to wonder about historical precedents for relations between countries after a war. Our own relations with the British between the Revolution and the War of 1812 were not the smoothest. In fact, we didn't really get on such great footing until World War I, despite sharing a common language and distaste for the French:-) The argument was played out in the newspapers, both in America and in Britain, as the following reprint illustrates:

Portsmouth, May 13th (Taken from The London Times, July 16th, 1785)

To such a pitch has British insolence arrived that, added to their prohibiting all American vessels from entering their ports in the West Indies, they will not suffer an American to command a British bottom, unless he can produce a certificate that he served in the British forces during the late war: an American Captain lately arrived here from Grenada, was thrown out of employ (after engaging his freight with the expectation of sailing for Europe) upon no other pretext than that he was an American. If any American vessel happens to appear within gun-shot of any British Frigate or fort, with their colours flying, they are interrogated with the greatest impertinence, and very often complimented with a genteel broadside. If they put in through distress, lack of water &c, they are ordered to come to an anchor at some distance; when a boat is ordered on board either from their shipping or forts , to enquire of their business, and on being informed that they are in want of provision &c, they will not suffer them to send their boat ashore, but by a stretch of their boasted humanity, bring it off to them in their boats, accompanied with the most peremptory orders for their immediate departure. These are stubborn facts, which the warmest advocates for Britain cannot deny.

From the above circumstances, the necessity and importance of investing Congress with full powers to regulate both internal and external commerce, must appear plain and obvious; and the policy of several States acquiescing in such measures as they in their wisdom may adopt is too clear to need any comment.

Clearly a call for unity amongst the young states in the post Revolutionary period couched in terms of Naval distress. United we sail, divided we sink. We continued to sink for another decade until the six heavy frigates (the famous constitution is one of them) were authorized in a direct response to the Barbary Pirates (modern day Lebanon) who liked kidnapping American sailors and treating them like dogs, thanks to religious differences.

Slavery Insurance - The Business of the Slave Trade

England emancipated slaves throughout their empire one generation before the American Civil War. But, English merchants with the protection of the British Navy had provided the backbone of the slave trade the long generations that went before. The following excerpt is from the Universal Daily Register (predecessor of the London Times) 220 years ago, July 1, 1885.

LAW REPORT
Trinity Term, 1785
Jones against Small
This was a case on a policy of insurance, and the action was brought for the loss of a great number of slaves by mutiny, which slaves had been insured at 10% from mortality by mutiny.
Captain Richard Bowen deposed that he was Captain of the Wasp trader; that he shipped 225 negroes, they were prime slaves, sailed from the coast of Africa May 11th, 1783, had then 217 slaves on board the 30th of May. Before he sailed an insurrection was attempted. The women seized him on the quarter-deck, and attempted to throw him overboard. He was rescued by the crew, the women and some men threw themselves down the hatchway, and some were bruised. He sent the ringleader on shore. The men were not active: 12 men and a women died of those bruises and from abstinence. On the 22nd of May, twelve days after sailing, there was a general insurrection. The crew were forced to fire upon the slaves, and attack them with weapons.; the slaves cut the mate desperately, and fractured a boy’s skull, who died. It was a case of eminent necessity. Several slaves took to the ships side and hung down in the water. Three were killed by firing, three were drowned. They hung in the water from chains and ropes, some for about a quarter of an hour. Many of them were desperately bruised, other almost drowned, fifty-five died in consequence of bruises, swallowing salt water, chagrin at disappointment, and abstinence; thirteen died of bruises, several of fluxes and fevers in consequence of swallowing salt water.
Lord Mansfield here stated a question, "Whether some did not die as a consequence of despair, and not in consequence of insurrection?"
Mr. Gorman (a juror) observed that the flux was a common disorder amongst slaves on shipboard. In answer to a question from Mr. Gorman, the witness said the slaves had no fluxes before they swallowed the salt water.
Lord Mansfield said, he would give no charge, but laid it all to the jury, if it had not been for the proviso in the instrument of insurance, which gave ten percent on mortality by mutiny, he thought the case was not within the instrument. This was not like the case of throwing negroes overboard to save the ship. Here was a cargo of desperate negores refusing to go into slavery and dying of despair.
Capt. Richard Bowen. Thirty-one died of natural deaths. The average loss by natural death in a cargo of such a number is twenty-five. They killed each other after they were landed, and when brought to market, sold at a loss of 6l [six pounds] per head.
On cross-examination, his proteit did not state losses by bruises, the reason, because he had not the surgeon’s book.
Lord Mansfield. It appears by the policy, that the underwriters are exempt from losses in boats, mortality of negroes by natural death excepted. This was explained to mean an exception of payment for negroes.
Mr. Mactaggart. Is conversant in the African trade; he has known losses by insurrection. It has been usual to pay for such losses.
Question from Mr. Gorman. "Is it the usage to pay insurance for negroes, who, after an insurrection die of chagrin or abstinence?"
It is; he has known negroes paid for who have died as a consequence of leaping into the sea. He has never heard of an insurer making difficulty in such a case.
Mr. Vaughan. By the usage, where the death has been a consequence of insurrection, the underwriters have paid – but what if the consequences have been disputed? He shewed the case of the Cato slave ship exactly in point, upon which his son recovered.
Lord Mansfield. You cannot recover under this policy for damage done to negroes, but only for mortality.
The policy is absurd – the particular case in the question is not within the penalty of the policy; but there is an exception which takes in mortality by mutiny.
There are three classes of this mortality:
Those who are killed, and those who die of their wounds, these are clearly within the policy.
But on the other class there is a doubt; those who died of abstinence, gnawing at their chains in despair, died not of mutiny, but of disappointment of a mutiny.
The other class is those who receive some hurt in the mutiny, but not mortal, and afterwards die of other causes. This appears to be the principal object; there is no law in the case; the jury must determine.
The jury made the following rules:
That all slaves who were killed or died of their wounds were to be paid for.
That all who died by leaping into the sea were not to be paid for.
That all who died of bruises, accompanied by other causes, by swallowing salt water, should be paid for.

I can add nothing to point out the coldly mercantile tone of the proceedings. There's no whitewashing of the humanity of the slaves, that they were desperate human beings, dying of despair, refusing to eat, and if I understand the line "killed each other after they were landed," even engaged in mutual suicide pacts once they arrived at their destination. But the question at hand was a legal one, which dead slaves the insurance company was required to pay on. Lord Mansfield had a up-and-down judicial career with respect towards slavery, and the situation ramined confused until 1807 when the trade was abolished. Slaves in England were not emancipated until 1833.