Travel
[We publish on this page articles and notes which may help our readers in their plans for travel at home and abroad. They are written by correspondents who have visited the places described. We shall be glad to answer questions arising out of the Travel articles published in our columns. Inquiries should be addressed to the Travel Manager, ,The SPECTATOR, 99 Gower Street, W.C. 1.]
The Atlantic Crossing
THE ' Empresi of Britain' is the ninth largest ship in the world, the fourth largest built since the War, and actually the
largest built in Britain since the War. The three larger ones are the 'Bremen,' the 'Europa,' and -the Ile de France.' The ' Majestic,' the Leviathan, and the Berengaria ' were War trophies ; the Olympic' and the. Aquitania ' are British pre-War. Seven other giant liners, including the new 73,000- ton Cunarder, are now being constructed in the shipyards of Britain, America, France and Italy, with a total tonnage of over 410,000 and with speeds varying from twenty-seven to a vaunted thirty knots. • • - - That is, assuming they will all be completed. The world- wide slump has hit shipping badly ; it has not only hurt freights, but has necessarily depressed passenger travel. Business travel has fallen off because there is less business exchanged ; the rich and remunerative American tourist trade has fallen off after two years of hard times in Amerka. So why, therefore, one may reasonably ask, do the steamship lines continue the race to build bigger, faster and more luxurious ships ?
There is a partial answer, of course, in the fact that it takes many months, even years, to build and complete a big ship, and that construction entered into in good times must be con- tinued in hard times. The real answer is that modern condi- tions demand big ships, and especially fast ships. National prestige has really hardly anything to do with- the matter ; whether the speed record is held by British ships, German ships or American ships counts but little with the passenger so long as he gets speed and can boast that he has travelled by the speediest vessel afloat. Hence we find thousands of British passengers in the last year have deserted British lines to travel by German lines. Quite apart from the Mauretania,' three British ships and one American have speeds of twenty- two and a-half knots or over : but they do not suffice.
Still further desertions have been due to the standard of sybaritic surroundings. Since the War, the " floating hotels" have become floating palaces, and there are always a sufficient number of travellers—especially American—who will pay the enormous price of luxury in order to enjoy it for a few days. The very lowest price at which one can, travel first-class by the Bremen,' for example, is £12 a day ! The French ships enjoy a very remarkable reputation for cuisine and " night life," especially the Ile de France,' which latter ship particularly has cut deeply into the high-class American tourist business hitherto carried by the British lines. The monthly statistics of the North Atlantic Passenger Conference show that for the last two or three years the British lines have been losing steadily even what business there is—that is, for big ships.
With the lesser ships the story is not quite the same. Those who are content with a slower tempo, either in time or expendi- ture, still prefer the British-owned ships. The North Atlantic Conference, in its schedule for this season between Europe, the United States and Canada, enumerates 74 " cabin class " liners as against 38 " first class." On the former, 41 are British owned, of the latter 16. The remainder of the " first class " group consist of 9 German, 5 Dutch, 8 Trench, 2 Italian, 2 Swedish and 1 American vessels.
The words " first class " bear no relation, of course, to a ship's character, age or performance. They mean-Merely that a ship carries first-class " passengers, the rest .being entirely the price charged. There are ships listed as " first class which are as old as twenty-five years, and of a' tonnage as low as 15,500 ; there are " cabin class '17- ships Which are as recent as 1930 and as high in tonnage as 27,000. Similarly, many " cabin " ships can steam much faster than the slowest of the "first-class" ships.
The first-class group is divided into fourteen price classes, rangin,,,,u from £36 10s. to 260 ; the cabin class group is divided into nine classes, langing from £27 to £34. In each case, of course, I quote.the basic minimum rate, which is found, in a formula that combines speed, age and size ; the maximum rates depend upon the degree of luxury that you want Many remarkable changes have taken place in the North Atlantic shipping trade since the-War. One that needs little emphasis is the introduction of oil-fuel, well-nigh universal now in the bigger ships ; and another is the coming of the motor-ship, as evidenced in the" Augustus,' the Britannic ' and the Lafayette.' A comparison of tonnages shows, too, that the piling-up of size which reached its 'climax in the Bismarck (now the Majestic ') just before the War was succeeded by several years of flatness, so that it was not until 1927 that a ship was built nearly as big as one built in 1911.
But the most interesting transformation has been in the character of the business carried, and in the accommodation provided for it. Liverpool, for example, haa ceased to be the premier British port for trans-Atlantic travel. The big ships now make for Southampton instead, calling first at Cherbourg or carrying on (if they are German) to Bremen or Hambtrrg. This betokens a switch in tourist interest ; the American tourist, as we all know, wants to get to Paris quicker—or in the last year or two, to Berlin—and he regards England, Shake- speare's Country, the Lake District, and so • on as something he can " clean up " towards the end of his itinerary. Cabin class ships were on their way just before the War ; since then they, have multiplied. For the modest purse they provide a compromise between second class and first class at a fare which is also a compromise, and give that purse's owner the best accommodation on the ship. Immediately after the War, the tendency seemed all towards the cabin class ship, with a possibility of the first-class ship gradually disappearing ; but subsequent events have not justified that prediction. " Second class," as such, has practically, disappeared ; those lines which still retain it are rapidly converting it into " tourist third," which again is a compromise, with a rate that tails along in proportion. On some of the newer ships, tourist third class costs only a pound or so less than cabin class on the older ships. Tourist third class is supposed to have been an American invention, to compensate for the loss of the rich immigration traffic that occurred when the United States introduced its " quota " system. It was intended to create an entirely new source of traffic, and attract the university student, male or female, by the fascination of a hurried trip to Europe and back for about £60 or £70. The originators took a great deal of trouble in those days to make tourist third class sound some- thing jolly and Bohemian, in which Spartan discomforts would be counterbalanced by junketing. Hence saxophone quartettes, dancing on deck, and the like were enthusiastically encouraged,• even to the degree of suggesting that the first- class passengers, looking down from their after rail, were openly envious. But latterly a quieter, solider trade has grown up ; a very different type of clientele has come along, and as the tourist third class has improved—so that in the newer ships it is as good as some of the older cabin class, and almost as good as the older first class—a great deal of the previous business has found a lower and satisfactory price level.
That it will continue to do so goes almost without saying. In the next year or two, steamship fares, which have been in a state•-of -flux,- will-probably settle down into definite price grades, and just as the majority of motor-car owners—in spite of anything that may be said to the contrary—buy their cars upon a price basis, so the majority of ocean travellers will take into account not only speed and luxury, but also price. There is a noticeable increase, in spite of the present hard times; in the number of British and Continental summer visitors to the United States and Canada—not business travellers, but holiday-makers, eqnivalen-C to those that-those two countries have been sending us—and much of this now moves by tourist
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