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1899.] | MARINE REVIEW. 24 In 1873 Japan's: steam tonnage was so small as to be classed with the scattering, while this year that country has taken the seventh rank. The tonnage of Japanese steamships clearing from the United States for Asia in 1898 was greater than the corresponding American tonnage. Japan has found no inconsistency in adopting both the "free ship" and the subsidy policy. They are not conflicting propositions, but independent methods of dealing with two different subjects. Japan's present subsidy legislation contemplates a possible expenditure of about $5,000,000 annually, appor- tioned among fast steamships, general navigation bounties for slower vessels, bounties for the construction af steamships in Japan and fishing bounties. Japan has an abundance of seamen who work for low wages, and the Japanese laws require the crews of vessels to be Japanese subjects, officers in some cases being excepted by special perntission of the govern- ment, until a sufficient number of Japanese have been trained to the service. Japan's naval rank renders it necessary for her to have ship yards of her own. She has already become one of the seven nations which can build steel steamships of 6,000 tons. GERMANY'S GROWTH IN SHIPPING. Next to Norway and Japan, Germany, which shows an increase of 693 per cent, has made the most rapid development as a maritime power. Her growth virtually dates from the adoption of the policy, urged by Prince Bismarck in 1881, and inaugurated in 1885. At that time German ship yards were not important. All the large German steamships were built in Great Britain, the lower cost of speration under the German flag permitting Germans to compete with the British, thus making the free ship policy available. In 1885 Germany voted an annual subsidy of 4,400,- 000 marks [mark--23.8 cents] to the North German Lloyd Steamship Co. for fifteen years for lines to Asia and Australia. This subsidy was in- creased to 5,590,000 marks last year. A subsidy of 900,000 marks for a line to Africa, begun in 1890, is to be increased to 1,200,000 marks next year. When this policy was begun Germany also established low freight rates on government railroads for ship building materials. To these legis- lative aids the Germans in official reports attribute their recent growth in ship building for the Atlantic as well as the Pacific trade. The difference in the cost of building steel steamships in Great Britain and Germany has been greatly reduced, German operating expenses are appreciably less than British, and Germany does not impose restrictions on the nationality of her crews. The Empire, too, has pursued for some years a vigorous colonial policy. Germany has developed her merchant marine before her navy, and is now using the ship building plants, promoted by government aid, in the construction of war vessels. France in 1872 adopted the discriminating duty policy, which met with such effective retaliation and proved so disastrous that it was aban- doned in 1873. In 1881 a policy of navigation and construction bounties was adopted, and continued with modifications in 18938: While many mil- lions have been spent under this policy, the results have not been great by comparison with the progress of other nations. France is peculiar among nations in charging tariff duties on ship building materials, and as her construction bounties are in part designed to offset those duties, this form of aid to shipping is more apparent than real, being in fact a partial refund of amounts already paid by ship builders to the government. The navi- gation bounty system is peculiar in awarding larger bounties to sail vessels than to steamships, so that, under the natural decrease of sail vessels, the system calls for maximum expenditures with minimum results. Again, the French law provides that three-fourths of the crew of a French vessel shall be French citizens, a requirement which contributes materially to the reduction of the French mercantile marine. Other eccentric features of the French system are difficult to understand. The Italian government has had in force since 1885 a system of general navigation and construction bounties in outline resembling the French, but without the latter's eccentricities. Italy's progress as a maritime and ship building power has been greater than that of France, though Italy is handicapped by meager native coal supplies. Both nations have adopted the "free ship" policy. NO HEADWAY IN BLIND ADVOCACY OF ANY ONE SYSTEM. Great Britain in 1889 began to subsidize steamships as soon as ocean steam navigation began to seem of probable importance. That nation, for political and commercial purposes, has steadily pursued that policy ever since, expending in some years upwards of $6,000,000 for the purpose. The "free ship" policy was adopted ten years later, in 1849, by Great Britain. It never has contributed to Great Britain's predominance on the sea, because until 1854 the British were handicapped by a law requiring the officers and three-fourths of the crew to be British. For twenty years before the civil war, the United States were building ships cheaper than they could be built in Great Britain. From 1854 to 1864, had the war not intervened, Great Britain would doubtless have purchased many vessels from the United States. The Rebellion drove 800,000 tons of American shipping to the refuge of the British flag. For a third of a century vessels have been built more cheaply in Great Britain than elsewhere in the world, so that the privilege of buying elsewhere is practically never used by a British shipowner, except occasionally in the colonies. By adopting this Policy, however, Great Britain has encouraged other nations to follow the same course, from which British ship builders have undoubtedly derived great benefit. This necessarily incomplete review of the navigation laws of other countries is made to illustrate how impossible it is to attribute to any one Maritime policy a nation's success or failure. From natural conditions the "free ship" policy has been absolutely without effect in producing Great Britain's greatness, while it has been indispensable to Norway's welfare. General subsidies have pushed Japan rapidly forward on the Ocean and have secured only meager results in proportion to expenditure in France. A stringent law as to nationality of crews is a matter of in- difference to Norway, an injury to France and an impossibility for Great nitain and Germany. No headway wiil be made in the United States by blind advocacy of any one system simply because it is in use by a nation which is successful On the ocean. We may entertain the hope, however, that by selecting from systems elsewhere in use those features which are best adapted to Our own conditions and requirements we shall ten years hence take rank asa maritime commercial power. For in one respect the table above gives the United States greater prominence than we can claim, While the fig- ures for other nations relate chiefly to their steam tonnage in the foreign trade, the figures forthe United States include a large part of the splendid steam fleets of the Great Lakes and of the trade between our Atlantic ports, not subject to international competition. On July 1, 1899, our steam tonnage registered for foreign trade was only 360,030 gross tons. _ _ The strength of the Hanna-Payne bill, so-called, lies in the fact that it is based on a selection from other systems, adapted to American condi- tions and requirements. EXPERIMENTS WITH WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. REAR ADMIRAL BRADFORD, CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF EQUIPMENT, WILL TAKE THE SUBJECT UP WITH SIGNOR MAROONI. Rear Admiral R. B. Bradford, chiet of the bureau of equipment, is not so very much impressed with experiments that have so far been made in wireless telegraphy. Those which he has witnessed have not been very successful from the standpoint of utility. Signor Marconi, the author of the Marconi system, is shortly to visit this country, and while he comes pena on other business, Admiral Bradford will make it a point to see im. . "So far, from our observation," said Admiral Bradford, "wireless telegraphy has not, been a success. But we cannot afford to let other nations get ahead of us. We will continue the experiments. I would pre- fer, however, to wait until I see Marconi before making a statement. Even granting that wireless telegraphy does all that is claimed for it, 1 cannot see that it is of much actual utility. One ship may signal to the shore with perfect intelligence, and indeed two may with the use of separate ciphers without creating any confusion, but if the opposing fleet should com- mence signaling would it not be to the confusion of all the rest? Why the opposing fleet might begin to telegraph the book of Genesis." Admiral Bradford will, however, shortly undertake additional experi- ments in wireless telegraphy. The success which has attended the adop- tion of the system by the British navy has attracted the attention of the United States naval attache in London, Lieutenant Colwell, and he has submitted to the navy department interesting data bearing on the subject. Instruments will shortly be secured and experiments made between vessels and the shore. The operations of the system and its value to naval work are summed up as follows by a British expert: "With wireless telegraphy signals can easily be made from ship to ship over a gap of thirty miles. No man need be exposed and no large staff is necessary. In'some instances a range of fifty miles can be at- tained. The defects of the system for naval purposes are two--messages can only be sent slowly, and there may be disturbing interference with the signals from other transmitters in the neighborhood. The Juno, for instance, was taking a message from the Alexandria when suddenly a dispatch from Alum bay in the Isle of Wight, which was really meant for the Poole, began to come in. The latter had covered a gap of fifty miles. "An enemy would be sure to set his transmitters so as to interfere with signals while his receivers would be adjusted to take in signals from any fleet he was watching. Thus all messages would have to be in cipher and in cipher constantly changed, for no cipher is undiscoverable. There can be no doubt, however, that the system will be rapidly improved. It has vast possibilities. It cannot, of course, remain the exclusive appanage of our navy but each advance in the art of long distance signaling tells heavily in favor of the superior naval power. "Our program in war is to make the enemy's coast our frontier, so constantly our ships will be off the enemy's coast, while his, it is hoped, will be kept in the harbors. With this new system signals asking for help or describing the enemy's movements can easily be sent backward or for- ward between our fleets and their bases. If hostile torpedo craft try raids on our coast, or are seen near them. forces can quickly be called up to intercept them. In short the maneuvers have proved the great practical value of wireless telegraphy." HONORING THE MEMORY O¥ GREAT MEN. As one vessel after another of the big Rockefeller fleet of 6,000-ton ore carriers is turned out on the great lakes, the pleasant features of a suggestion from Mr. F. T. Gates of New York, that these ships be named for men of great accomplishments in the iron and steel industry or in the shipping world, become more apparent. No statue or tablet has as yet been erected by the vessel owners for Gen. Poe at the big canal lock in the St. Mary's river, but in a smaller way the memory of the army engineer' who built that lock, and who was in fact the responsible head of most of the improvements undertaken by the government in the busy entrance to Lake Superior, is to be honored by the Bessemer Steamship Co. The Rockefeller steamer building at the Globe works, Cleveland, and which will be a modern lake carrier in all respects, is to be named Gen. Orlando M. Poe. Another of the Bessemer company's vessels, one of the new steel barges, is to be named Robert W. E. Bunsen, in honor of the great Ger- _man chemist, who died Aug. 16 of the present year in Heidelberg, and who was the inventor of the hot blast in furnace practice. But this was only one of his achievements. He was the greatest, with possibly a single exception, physicist of our times. "It may be noted on the part of our company," says Mr. L. M. Bowers, general manager, "that it adds greatly to the pleasure of doing this trifling honor to the memory of Bunsen when it was remembered that he was absolutely free from the least sel- fishness or egotism about his enormous discoveries and contributions to the advancement of science." ; Bunsen was one of the shining lights of Heidelberg and one of the most modest of men. Honors bestowed upon him were the highest that could be obtained in a scientific career. He was the recipient of numbers of orders and decorations from the rulers of most of the countries of Eu- rope, but he held them in small esteem. The name of the steamer Globe, purchased not long ago by the Besse- mer company, will be changed to James B. Eads, thus honoring the emi- nent civil engineer, who first acquired fame from the construction of the ~ St. Louis bridge across the Mississippi river, and later through the con- struction of the piers at the mouth of the Mississippi river, which were the first to ever hold the Mississippi bar.