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MARINE REVIEW. 13 English and American Ship Yards. MR. W. I. BABCOOK, GENERAL MANAGER OF THE CHICAGO SHIPBUILDING CO. WRITES OF HIS OBSERVATIONS AT THE RECENT CONGRESS IN ENG- LAND--A BROAD AND INTELLIGENT DISCUSSION OF A SUB- JECT THAT NOW INTERESTS THE NATION. [This article, which appeared originally in the Marine Review of Sept. 2, 1897, has been copied in numerous publications throughout England, Scotland and the United States, and is now reprinted upon suggestion from leading representatives of the ship building industry in the United States, who are of the opinicn that it should be given wide circulation in this country.] Editor Marine Review:--In giving you briefly some results of my observations at the recent International Congress of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers in England, I shall not speas particularly of the magnificent reception given to the foreign delegates, nur of the warmth and cordiality of the greetings accorded us, which have already been fully described in your paper; nor go into details of the arrangements of yards and shops or particular tools, but treat the matter in its broader aspects. Any comparison between English and American ship yards must take into account at the very outset the great difference between the two countries as maritime powers. The United States, with nearly eighty milhions of population, is essentially a self-contained country. The coast line is a mere fringe along its edge, and the vast majority of its people have not only never seen the ocean, but take little interest in it. Since the war the vast energies of its people have been principally devoted to the internal development of the country, to the building of its railroad systems for internal communication, to the subjugation of the soil from its virgin condition to the use of man, especially in the vast empire be- yond the Mississippi, and to the establishment of tremendous manufac- turing industries whose chimneys now dot the whole broad land. In all this the maritime industries have languished from neglect, the ship yards of the country are very few and far between, and, but for the wise navi- gation laws requiring all coastwise business to be carried on only in home-built vessels, would scarcely exist at all, and the number of skilled men is limited. The natural consequence has been that the amount of work in the few yards we have has been a very variable quantity; a few orders happening to come together make the yards, for a few months, crowded with work, and finding it difficult to secure men enough; then, with bare stocks and empty shops for a time, the men scattered, even a large proportion of the foremen, draughtsmen and office force necessarily laid off until returning work again demands their services. All this in- evitably has a very serious effect on the internal economy of any yard, reduces the efficiency of the organization, demoralizes the men, and largely increases the cost of building when the work can be nad. -In Great Britain, on the contrary, we have forty millions of people living on a couple of islands off the coast of Europe. With the inhabi- tants of the mainland they have often been at war for the last thousand years, and from their isolated position great fleets have always been ab- solutely necessary to them, so that they could get at their enemies as well as repel invasion of their own country. Naturally a strong and dominant race, and overcrowded at home, they have found an outlet in colonies all over the globe, with which it has been necessary to keep up commu- nication, and this could be done by water alone. An inventive and man- ufacturing people, whose products have been in continually increasing demand as their colonies extended and civilization spread over the waste places of the world, they have gradually become a nation of traders and artisans, withdrawing more and more from agricultural pursuits, until now the greater part, yes three-fourths, of the very food they eat comes from the foreigner. If the ships that bring it were interfered with in time of war, England would starve to death in short order. National existence itself thus depending on control of the sea, ship building and ship owning are among the great industries of the country. The coast line is dotted with ship yards from Southampton to the Clyde, the keels of their ships plough every sea from the Arctic to Cape Horn, and wher- ever they go the strong arm of England protects them with a war fleet such as the world never saw before. As the completed ship is the sum of all human knowledge and en- deavor, embodying in its complex structure the products of every trade and industry, while its operation and the business it carries on enlist the attention and efforts of all the financial ana business interests, every man, woman and child in Britain appreciates the importance of ship building and follows its fortunes with intelligent interest and solicitude. To me, the most striking thing that I saw in England during my recent visit was this universal interest, manifested in many ways. However strange it am seem to an American, the glamour of royality still dazzles the son of the soil, and the fascination of a title or a decoration is yet strong upon He and they are his most longed for and cherished rewards. Now, not oe y. has every chief constructor of the British navy for many years been knighted, but this year the distinction has been conferred on the. chief. engineer as well; the sessions of the recent Congress of Naval aS and Marine Engineers were opened in person by the heir to the ons and, highest honor of all to British eyes, even the aged Queen sell showed her interest in the profession which has made her couney Ww it is, by receiving the members of the congress at Windsor ae i es But all this is, of course, the bright side of the picture, gm e Ba point of view. If it had no reverse, the hopes of those a aS See ane working and praying to build up American interests, to ge Dark al ee Own country its lost carrying trade, now mostly done by Nee ae awaken a sentiment here that will react on congress and One ve eee the appropriation for that navy which all considerations al m4 i aa Me and honor require that we should have, would surely be oon Step ie: appointment. Self-preservation itself impels us to See Coes sults, for, as Capt. Mahan has so well shown, a Soa bea pat Strength upon the sea is absolutely necessary to make an p Prosperous and powerful. ef Now, the spilt not only to build good ships but to oe cheaply as any competing nation can, is one of eee oe Aigacite it is, therefore, a great pleasure to be able to say tate te ete opinion, after careful inspection of the various rare a pare arin Town open to us, and of some others not on the regu of the congress, that, given work enough to keep our yards occupied all the time, our larger and more modern yards could buiid ships and make money at English prices, and this notwithstanding the fact that the wages paid on the Clyde--taken from: an official list I obtained in Glasgow-- average but 55% per cent. of the wages we pay. This is due to the much greater use of labor-saving machinery in our yards, to their better 'ar- rangement for handling material, to, in many respects, better tools, and, last but by no means least, to the fact that we manage our own business, that the union and the walking delegate are not all-powerful with us, that. master and man work together in America with mutual respect and esteem, that our mechanics are better and brighter workmen, more intel- ligent and taking more pride in their work, and our managers are always ready to try anything new in the hope it will be better than the old way. The Britisher is very conservative. He believes in stickine to the bridge which has carried him safely over, and does not take kindly to' new tools or new methods. A citizen of a great empire, secure in his belief not only that the sun never sets on British soil, but that the reason for it is that the sun knows his business and has no time to waste in seeing what other nations are doing, he listens, with politeness, it is true, but with ill-concealed disdain, to any description of new devices, and: remains absolutely serene in his opinion that his own way is the only right way, his own tools the best tools. Consequently, many of the im- proved labor-saving appliances which are common with us, have no. place on the other side. His yards are mostly long established and have grown from small beginnings, with the inevitable result of a more or less patch- work appearance and inconvenient arrangement. Land is valuable, and few of his yards have enough of it and are crowded in consequence, with- out sufficient room for the work. Naturally he does not want to throw out tools which are still in good condition because new and better ones are now on the market, even if he could be made to see their superiority, which he can not. But in my judgment, the worst feature today in the British yards is the tremendous power of the labor unions, and the universal antagonism of the men to the masters. The exactions and obstructions of all kinds that are thrown about the work by these unions are almost inconceivable. When it comes to such a pass that an employer is deprived of the use of _acrane for months at a time because two classes of his men can not agree as to which class, needed repairs belong; when a boiler manufacturer is forced to absolutely shut down his works for weeks because of a similar dispute among his men; when strikes are ordered on che most trivial pretexts, and the leaders of the unions are always doing all that thev can to keep up an antagonism between the men and the employers, even going so far as to keep men continually moving from one place to an- other for fear that they will become too friendly with the bosses; when in some places the men insist on electing their own foreman, who holds his position, therefore, at their pleasure; when the rule of the union is that one man shall run only one tool, though his hardest work may be to keep himself awake through the day if he is running a lathe set for a long cut in the morning, and that every tool must be run by a mechanic, no matter whether unskilled cheap labor would be st"'ficient or not, it is very evident to anyone who has any knowledge whatever of industrial operations that the cost of the work must be excessive. It is not too much to say that the tyranny of the trades unions has been the principal - reason why the industrial supremacy of England, in many lines of trade, has already vanished, and in others is rapidly declining. Ge-many today sells more manufactured articles in England than England sells in Ger- many. English exports of iron and steel, hardware and cutlery. linens and woolens, are less than one-half now of what they were twenty years ago. Many industries have been driven out of England entirely, and "ruined by strikes" is the only fitting comment. Already signs are not wanting that the Britisher will wake up some fine day and find that his superiority in ship building--about the only thing left to him--has vanished also. Next year the two largest ships on the Atlantic will have been built in Germany. Foreign orders for war- ships, which formerly all came to England, are now placed to a consider- able extent in France and Germany, and even in Italy, and the Japanese have recently ordered two cruisers in this country, as we all know. The United States has outstripped England already in steel making, and ship material sells here today at lower prices than over there. England is the richest nation in the world, but, largely on account of labor difficulties at home, her capital seeks investment in foreign coun- tries rather than in her own. I was assured that not one ship yard in England today could interest new capital to any extent .» make needed improvements. Probably this is an exaggeration, but the fact is unde- niable that when the revival of American ship building and ship owning comes, when wise legislation enables us to again take our proper place on the sea, and American capital becomes available for the establishment of new and great ship yards, modern in every respect, ihen we can build ships cheaper than anywhere else in the world, and still pay the highest wages. We are only a very short distance behind in the race even now. Chicago, Sept. 1, 1897. W. I. BABCOCK. Secretary Long and Mr. Roosevelt. There is a story afloat in naval circles to the effect that Secretary Long is seeking an appointment as senator from Massachusetts, and that, in the event of his election, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt will be appointed secretary of the navy. The term of Henry C. Lodge as senator from Massachusetts expires in 1899. As there is no vacancy for Mr. Long until then, he is likely to hold office for two years yet, which will carry him nearly through the term of President McKinley. Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Long appear to be working very well together, and the chief seems co have learned how to make the most of the intelligence and brilliant aggressiveness of his assistant. It penetrates every department of the naval service, like a fresh breeze from old ocean, and seems to be blowing away some of the cobwebs of routine and precedent. It may possibly suggest to some, how- ever, the story told of W. H. Seward when he was governor of the state of New York. As the driver of the stage on which Seward was riding refused to recognize the chief magistrate in the unpretentious person at his side, Seward accosted a gentleman passing who knew him, saying, "Won't you tell this man that I am the governor of New York?" "No, you are not," was the answer. "Who is then?' "Thurlow Weed."-- Army and Navy Journal.