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26 MARINE REVIEW. [April 18, MARINE REVIEW "Devoted to the Merchant Marine, the Navy, Ship Building, and Kindred Interests. Published every Thursday at No. 418-19 Perry-Payne building, Cleveland, Ohio, by THe Marine REvIEW PUBLISHING Co. SusscripTion--$3.00 per year in advance; foreign, including postage, $4.50, or 19 shillings. Single copies 10 cents each. Convenient binders sent, post paid, $1.00. Advertising rates on application. Entered at Cleveland Post Office as Second-class Mail Matter. The forthcoming meetings of the industrial commission, which are to be held in Washington and New York, are likely to be of far reaching interest, The commission is desirous of obtaining information regarding the United States Steel Corporation, and has requested Andrew Carnegie. J. Pierpont Morgan and Charles M. Schwab to attend. Andrew Carnegie will not attend, though he has sent to the commission a copy of his views upon trusts written several years ago. Mr. Morgan will give his testi- mony to the commission some time after his return from Europe. Mr. Schwab will doubtless testify whenever the commission sends for him. He will testify in relation to the practical advantages secured by con- solidations of large manufacturing plants. He will take the technical and executive side of it, and there is probably no man in the country more qualified to speak upon these two important departments than Mr. Schwab. Indeed, there is probably no other man in the country who could speak upon them both. Fairplay of London says that German competition in the English market has probably reached top mark and that it has never been of a character to inspire fear. "American competition, however," it says, "1S an unknown quantity, of increasing intensity and with altering conditions whose potentiality we cannot forsee. That is where the trouble is. But American competition is promoted and facilitated, not by technical col- leges and commercial education, but by (along with the gifts of nature) concentration of capital, concentration of effort by the division of labor, economy of labor by the use of machinery and sustained industry in pro- duction. We do not need a school of economic and political science to teach us these things, nor will such a school, admirable as it is, help us much to deal with them. There is no higher technical skill nor greater commercial ability in America than here. There is simply more concen- trated and sustained effort and more devotion to business." In a race across the Atlantic from Liverpool to Philadelphia, the four-masted ship Kenilworth, owned by Arthur Sewall & Co., Bath, Me., eclipsed all previous sailing records when she passed in the Delaware capes last week, 18%4 days from the time of her departure from the river Mersey. From a sailing standpoint this passage has never been equalled by a vessel of the Kenilworth's class, the nearest approach to it being the trip made from Liverpool to New York by the American clipper ship A. J. Ropes, which completed the passage in nineteen days. The differ- ence in time is somewhat over twelve hours and besides the Kenilworth covered 120 more miles in actual distance. The Iron Trade Review notes the following prices for representative Lake Superior ores, announced since the base price of $4.25 for old- range Bessemers were given out a few days ago: Chapin, $3.78; Cham- pion, No. 1 crushed, $4.66; Republic Specular, $4.92; Kingston, $4.41; Palms, $3.72; Anvil, $4.02; Melrose, $4.19; New Era, $3.92; Millie, $4.68. Ashland, $4.12; Taylor, $3.66; Lake Bessemer, $4.31; Abbotsford (Lake Superior Iron Co. hard Bessemer) $4.86. Non-Bessemer ores have sold at about $1 below last year's prices. Among Mesabi non-Bessemers, Sauntry is quoted at $2.75 and Audrey at $2.35. Five million dollars will be spent by the navy department in a naval station at Olongapo, Subig bay, Luzon, if congress adopts its plans. Secretary Long has appointed a board composed of Rear Admiral Taylor and Civil Engineers Wolcott and Menocal, to meet at the New York nayy yard, to prepare estimates. According to the preliminary survey, the dry dock will cost $1,000,000 and the shops and machinery $4,000,000 more. Wm. E. Corey, who has just been elected president of the Carnegie Co. and the Carnegie Steel Co., has been connected with the Carnegie organization from boyhood. He began at sixteen years of age in the laboratory of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works. He is thirty-five years old. 2 : Edwin Ball, manager of the Minnesota Iron Co.'s mines since the resignation of D. H. Bacon as president, has been appointed. by Presi- dent Bacon of the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co., to be superin- tendent of the latter company's mines. DESIGN FOR FAST SCOUTS. DISTINGUISHED NAVAL COMMANDERS AND CONSTRUCTORS ARGUE FOR AND AGAINST THE BUILDING OF SUCH VESSELS~--KIND OF VESSEL UPON WHICH THE DISCUSSION WAS BASED. At the recent meeting of the Institution of Naval Architects in -Lon- don Rear Admiral C. C. P. Fitzgerald read a paper upon the subject "A Design for a Fast Scout." In the Spanish-American war the United States converted the Atlantic liners of the American line into scouts, but it is the opinion of Admiral Fitzgerald that these are too large. The text of this paper follows: "TI beg to lay before the meeting a design for a scout of high speed ' and good seagoing qualities. I am responsible for the general idea of the design, but, not being myself a ship designer, I have been obliged to ask for professional assistance, and Mr. Philip Watts of Elswick has most kindly taken all the trouble to work out the design for me, and to carry out my views, so far as that was possible on a given tonnage; though, of course, we naval officers always want more than we can get, and more than the laws of hydrostatics will admit of. I have also gratefully to acknowledge the assistance of Admiral Sir John Hopkins, whose great apenente and sound practical views on all naval subjects are universally admitted.. "The proposed vessel is to be of 3,800 tons, 400 ft. long between the perpendiculars, 44 ft. beam, with a draught of 14 ft., with her normal coal supply on board; there will be two screws, and the collective horse-power will be 16,000. The armament is to be six 4-in. guns and a dozen machine guns. There will be a protective deck 2 in. thick on the slope and 1 in. on the flat. There will be no double bottom through the boiler compart- ments, but there will be elsewhere. The 4-in. guns will be protected with 4-in. shields, except the foremost and after guns, which will be in 4-in. gun-houses, and the conning-tower will be of the same thickness. The speed is to be 25 knots, but the whole idea of the design has been not so much to procure a very high measured-mile speed for a few hours, as to assure a good, continuous ocean speed, as long as the coal lasts, and this is to be 23 knots. The normal coal supply is 500 tons, but the bunker capacity will be for 1,200 tons, though I need scarcely say that the vessel will not go 25 knots with her bunkers full. The original idea was to have a smaller vessel with very quick-running engines; but, taking into con- sideration the liability of such engines to give trouble when run continu- ously at sea, it was decided to have less quick-running engines, and, con- sequently, a larger ship. The boilers will, of course, be tubulous; proba- bly of the Yarrow type. The ventilation will be artificial, and there will be no cowls. Turbine engines were contemplated; but, after full consid- eration, reciprocating engines have been decided upon. "Tt seems necessary that I should show cause for proposing a design for a ship of war of this tonnage, with such a very insignificant armament. In the first place, then, I would beg to point out that she is not intended to be a ship of war in the ordinary sense of the words; that is to say, she is not intended to be a fighting ship, and thus the proposed armament must be regarded as altogether of a secondary, or rather of a tertiary, importance; the two first qualities aimed at being continuous high speed and good sea- going qualities in all weathers. It will, therefore, prevent confusion, if we -call her a despatch vessel, or a scout. She may not make much show on paper, though that is a matter of small importance, if it can be shown that such a vessel, or rather a considerable number of such vessels, would be of the most vital importance to enable us to carry out our avowed strategy in the event of war with a maritime power; and notwithstanding that the want of such scouts may not become apparent until war is actually upon us; in other words, that there is no use for them in peace time. And in this connection I may remind you that, at the time of the Russo-Turkish war in 1878-9, when our squadron passed through the Dardanelles, and it seemed probable that we should be involved in hostilities, the want of fast scouts became so urgent that the government were obliged to buy up hastily a number of Liverpool tugs, as our own small craft of the day were so deficient in speed and coal endurance that they were practically useless for the duties of scouts and despatch vessels, notwithstanding that they could sail. It has often been suggested that we ought to keep our- selves ready for war at short notice, so as not to find ourselves in the position of having to extemporize any important class of vessels as auxil- iaries after war is declared, or becomes imminent; and, with regard to scouts, there do not appear to be any vessels in existence which would meet our requirements. The transatlantic liners are too large. The Holy- head boats, and the channel island packets are fast vessels and good sea boats, but their boilers and engines are unprotected, and their coal supply altogether insufficient to enable them to act as scouts; and our old friends, the te erp) tugs, are scarcely up to present-day requirement with regard to speed. "It is generally understood that, in the event of war with a maritime power, it would not be possible to institute a close blockade of the enemy's ports, in the same way that we blockaded during former naval wars; but that it would, nevertheless, be absolutely necessary that we should be able to watch those ports in such a manner that the exit of hostile ships in any considerable numbers could not take place without the admirals in com- mand of our battle squadrons being promptly informed of the fact. But, although this is the leading feature of our avowed strategy, it is difficult to see how it is to be performed, or what warships we have capable of doing it. If we begin with our first-class cruisers we will conclude that they are too valuable to be exposed to the great risk of watching off an enemy's port, which probably would contain numerous torpedo boats, and, perhaps, some submarines; secondly, there are not enough of them; and, thirdly, they would have quite enough to do in protecting our trade routes from the depredations of hostile cruisers, which are certain to escape, in spite of the closest watching. Next, take our second and third class cruisers, with nominal speeds of about 19 and 19%4 knots, some of the smaller ones (the 'P' class), having a speed of 20: knots in smooth water. It does not seem likely that these vessels will be permitted by an enterprising enemy to keep watch off a port which will probably contain several powerful armored cruisers of large size, and with nominal speeds of 21 knots. These vessels would anpear on the scene some fine morning at daylight, with a good head of steam ready and sink or capture our