Chapter VI · The Expansion of the Hamburg-Amerika Linie (continued 2)

Concerning one matter which played an important part in Ballin’s career, viz., the relations between his company and the North German Lloyd, the reader may perhaps desire a more exhaustive account. There certainly was no want of rivalry between the two companies. One notable reason for this was the fact that at the time when Ballin joined the Packetfahrt the latter had fallen far behind its younger competitor in its development, both from the business and the technical point of view. The Packetfahrt, in particular, had not kept pace with the technical progress in steamship construction, and the consequence was that, when the pool was set up, it had to content itself with a percentage which was considerably less than that allotted to the Lloyd. The enormous advance made under the Ballin régime naturally caused it to demand a larger share. At the same time the Lloyd also increased its efforts more than ever before, and thus a race for predominance was started between the two big companies, which greatly assisted them in obtaining the commanding position they acquired as the world’s leading shipping firms. I do not think this is the place to go into all the details of this struggle, and I shall confine myself to reproducing an article which Ballin himself contributed in 1907 on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the North German Lloyd. As this article throws several interesting sidelights on the development of transatlantic shipping enterprise, it may furnish a suitable conclusion to the account given in the present chapter:

“The year 1907 is one which will stand out prominently in the history of our transatlantic shipping on account of the two anniversaries which we are going to celebrate during its course. On May 27th it will be sixty years since the Hamburg-Amerika Linie was called into existence, and on February 20th the North German Lloyd will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation. I suppose that a more competent pen than mine will present us on that day with a detailed account of the development of the great Bremen shipping firm, and my only object in writing this article is to review in brief the period of more than twenty years during which I have had the pleasure of working hand in hand with our Bremen friends.

“Until the year 1885 the two big companies, the Lloyd and the Packetfahrt, scarcely had any mutually profitable dealings with each other; on the contrary, their relations were characterized by open enmity. It is true that the attempts at a rapprochement, which were made from time to time, did in some cases lead to the conclusion of an agreement concerning certain rates to which both companies bound themselves to adhere, but they never lasted more than a short time, and ultimately, far from causing an improvement of the existing state of things, they left matters worse than they had been before. I think I may congratulate myself on being the first to have brought about a better understanding between the two companies which, in the end, paved the way to the establishment of a lasting friendship which has grown closer and closer during the past twenty years.

“In 1886, shortly after I had joined the Hamburg-Amerika Linie, when I went to Bremen in order to find out what could be done to lessen or, if possible, to remove altogether the competition between both companies, the conduct of the firm’s business had passed from the hands of Consul Meier, who was getting on in years, into those of Director Lohmann. Mr. Lohmann was a man of unusual energy and possessed of a rare gift for organization. In the annals of international shipping his name will be for ever associated with the introduction into the North Atlantic route of fast steamers under the German flag. He had been fortunate enough to meet with a congenial mind on the technical side in the head of the firm of Messrs. John Elder and Co., the Glasgow shipbuilders. At their yard, starting in 1881, a series of fast steamers were built—the Elbe, the Werra, the Fulda, the Saale, the Trave, the Aller, and the Lahn—which opened up a new and memorable era in the progress of the means of communication between the Old World and the New. These boats proved of great benefit to the company financially, and they were also a considerable boon to the passengers owing to their speed and punctuality. I recollect talking to the chairman of a big British steamship company on board one of his steamers in New York harbour in 1888, when the s.s. Lahn, of the North German Lloyd, steamed in. My British colleague, filled with admiration, glanced at his watch, touched his hat by way of salutation, and said with honest enthusiasm: ‘Wonderful boats; they are really doing clockwork.’ He only expressed the sentiment felt by the travelling public generally; everybody appreciated their reliability and punctuality, and the excellence of their service.

“Director Lohmann died very suddenly on February 9th, 1892; he had just concluded an address at a general meeting of the company held at the ‘Haus Seefahrt’ when he dropped down dead. During the last few years of his life he had not been well advised technically, and failed to adopt the twin-screw principle, as had been done by the Hamburg company. Thus, when the two fast single-screw steamers, the Havel and the Spree, were built at Stettin in 1890, they were practically obsolete, because the travelling public by that time had come to prefer those of the twin-screw type, owing to the increased safety they afforded.

“In 1888 Consul Meier retired from the chairmanship of the Lloyd, to be succeeded—after the short reign of Mr. Reck—by Mr. George Plate. To Mr. Plate, if I am rightly informed, great credit is due for having secured the services of Director-General Dr. Heinrich Wiegand on the board of the company.

“What the Lloyd has achieved under the Wiegand régime far surpasses anything accomplished in the past.

“The Hamburg-Amerika Linie, meanwhile, had been alive to the needs of the times; and the consequence was a healthy competition between these two steamship companies—by far the biggest the world has ever seen—practically on all the seven seas. This competition, by intelligent compromise, was restricted within reasonable limits, the guiding spirits of the two concerns consciously adopting the policy implied by the strategic principle: ‘In approaching the enemy’s position we must divide our forces; in attacking him we must concentrate them.’

“It would not be correct to say that this atmosphere of friendship had never been clouded—it would, indeed, have been tedious had it been otherwise than it was. Up to now, however, Wiegand and I have always been able to maintain pleasant relations between our two concerns, and in the interests of both of them it is sincerely to be hoped that this spirit of mutual understanding will continue to animate them in the future.”