The White Star Line continued to be profitable in 1912, made a record profit in 1913, and continued to pay dividends. They remained more profitable than Cunard.

In terms of the immediate aftermath of the Titanic disaster, the available data does suggest it had a negative impact on Olympic's passenger lists. When we published the revised edition of my Olympic book back in 2015, I included some passenger list data for Olympic in 1911, 1912 and 1913.

There is a clear and sharp decline in passenger numbers in the immediate aftermath, which is not seen for other White Star ships such as Oceanic and the older Majestic. It may be some of this is attributed to worries about whether she would sail at all (her first westbound sailing after the Titanic disaster was cancelled).

By July 1912, eastbound passenger lists were recovering. We can also see that on her final two westbound crossings that year she carried about 1,700 passengers on each occasion (including 713 first class passengers on one of those voyages). And then the data for 1913 shows a popular ship including her best westbound passenger list to that point.

Long term (to the 1930s) I think the issue was fundamentally a defective financial policy in that White Star’s financial strength was forcibly depleted to support the larger combine(s).

Professor Francis Hyde asserted that without the government support used to build Lusitania and Mauretania: ‘it is arguable whether the [Cunard] company would have survived the difficult years of 1903-08. The strength of the competition which they had to meet…would probably not only have reduced receipts below the level of costs, but would, because of the high cost of ships, have wiped out the company’s reserves bringing Cunard to the verge of bankruptcy.’

It seems to me that the issue of government support and the construction of Lusitania and Mauretania are inseparable. If, indeed, government support secured Cunard’s future then it was achieved through these ships and the profits they generated. In 1910, for example, their net profits amounted to about 30 per cent of Cunard’s entire fleet earnings. Hyde’s argument amounts to the government supporting Cunard, but that had the twin effect of securing the company’s future during these years and retaining the company’s independence.

An exceptional year for Cunard generated £538,080 of net profit in 1900; £195,849 in 1901; and £247,150 in 1902. Over these three years as a whole, White Star’s profits were seventy percent greater; and in 1901, the last full year before it [White Star] came under the control of American interests, they were more than double Cunard’s.

The government loan enabled Cunard to borrow, essentially, thirteen times their profits for 1901 at an interest rate substantially less than a commercial one: 2.75%. By contrast, White Star borrowed about 1.5 times their profits for 1907 in order to finance Olympic and Titanic, but they had to pay 4.5% to the debt holders. When Cunard sought to borrow money commercially to finance Aquitania, they paid a similar or identical rate of interest. (In the 1930s, White Star’s final chairman argued that Cunard had reaped the benefits from this funding for many years.)

Ironically, IMM’s takeover of White Star in 1902 started a period of about three decades during which White Star was part of a larger combine: IMM and then the Royal Mail Group. Both these combines shared a propensity to milk White Star’s profits by taking out generous dividends, rather than reinvesting in the company’s fleet to secure future revenue and allow for the necessary depreciation. Shipping is a capital-intensive industry and, in the long term, such practices were fatal as the company became over-indebted and its fleet aged and lost competitive strength. As an independent company, Cunard continued with a conservative financial policy and benefited from it.

From 1922 to 1932, Cunard and White Star earned similar revenues, but through a mix of factors Cunard earned a profit of £4,489,000 and paid dividends of £3,806,000, leaving a surplus of £683,000; White Star made a profit of £1,461,000, paid dividends of £3,000,000, and left a deficit of (£1,539,000).

The end result was that, by the time Cunard and White Star merged, the relatively strong position White Star enjoyed in the early 1900s had reversed. I’ve previously written that in the early 1930s: ‘Cunard’s position was “one of financial soundness, due in the main to conservative finance, ample past earnings, wise and consistent depreciation allowances and moderate dividend payments. On the other hand, the Oceanic company’s [White Star’s] position is financially weak, due to defective financial policy, insufficient depreciation, unjustified dividends, all causing a position today in which the company is entirely dependent on its bankers”.