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1902.] MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE, RECORD, 2y "It must be clear that it is the wages paid to American labor in the ship yards that prevents the building in American ship yards of a large proportion of the shipping required for the carriage of our foreign commerce. If American labor would accept enough less wages than it now receives to enable owners to have ships built in the United States as cheaply as in Great Britain, doubtless they would be built here. But our labor will not accept less--it demands profitable employment--and so the American with capital to invest (he, tco, seeking profitable employment for his capital) puts it into for- eign-built ships, as Mr. Morgan and_ his associates are doing. In this last named case we find a demonstra: tion of the willingness of American capital to invest in ships-- foreign-built ships, however--and it is to be assumed that this capital, so invested, will be safe and profitably placed. Ameri- can capital, therefore, is not unemployed because we have no shipping under our own flag, but American labor is. 'The amount of the subsidy being the sum of the difference in the wages paid here and abroad, the capital invested in a subsidize] American-built ship will earn no more than the same capital invested in an. unsubsidized foreign-built ship earns. If the subsidy is paid to the American ship owner, he merely pays it out to American labor, and if he don't get the subsidy, he pays out his money to the foreign labor which he employs more cheaply. "So far from Senator Frye, therefore, endeavoring 'to inject the direct withdrawal of public money from the treasury for handing over to the few millionaire ship builders and ship owners, as the Oregonian charges, he seeks to give em- ployment to American labor in our ship yards, without any abatement of the present rate of wages, by letting the United States government make good, through a subsidy, the differ- ence in the cost of the American-built ship that is due to the higher wages paid to the labor employed in constructing it. "It should be added that the cost of running a ship under the American flag because of the higher wages paid to its offi- cers and crew than is paid to the officers and crews of the ships of any other nation and because of the greater quantity and the better quality of food served to the men on board of Ameri-' can than is served to the men on foreign ships--as required by the laws of the United States--is fully 30 per cent. greater than the cost of running a competing ship under a foreign flag. And the shipping bill now pending in congress merely provides for the payment by the government of a sum barely equal to the difference in the cost of running and the cost of building an American ship, as compared with the cost of running and building foreign ships. And when American ship owners are asked why they do not have their ships built in the United States and run them under the American flag they tell merely the simple truth when they say that the wages paid to American labor in our ship yards and on board our ships are so much higher than the wages paid in the ship yards and on board of the ships employed by their rivals in our foreign carrying trade that they could not earn a profit if the employed American-built ships and run them under our flag. 'They say, furthermore, that if the government will make good the dif- ference they will build their ships here and run them under our flag. Now, to whose interest is it to have the ships built here-- that of American capital or that of American labor? Who will be benefited? The answer must be obvious that Ameri- can labor is the interested party and would be the beneficiary, and that so long as we do not build our own ships, but employ our capital in foreign ships, American labor is the loser. Ameri- can labor does not lose; it is not unemployed. And this explains fully why it is that American ships carry but 8 per cent. of our entire foreign commerce. "The reason (aside from its economic aspects, .which are sufficient in themselves, but which I omit from consideration here) why the United' States should make good this differ- ence in the amount of wages paid to American labor, em- ployed in our ship yards and on board of our ships, through the direct and effective agency of a fixed subsidy, is that the United States needs, as a resource of national defense, mer- chant ships and trained and experienced citizen seamen. The lack of merchant ships and experienced seamen of our own makes us weak upon the sea, where we should be strong, and this weakness imperils our national independence, and may, « one day, subject us to humiliation and» possibly. incalculable losses in blocd and treasure. We find, tod):that' through the.. agency of subsidies, subventions, navigation and' constructioit bounties and other aids other nations foster and build up and maintain their merchant shipping, and thus are in possession of this indispensable arm of national defense--merchant ships and experienced citizen seamen. And it is largely the vast and valuable commerce of the United States that» is seized upon by these subsidized and bountied ships of other nations-- these semi-military instruments of national defense--and our very neglect to protect and foster and build up and maintain our Own merchant marine intensifies our weakness while con- tributing to the strength and power and prestige of our rivals. . "For more than a generation American ships upon the seas have been unprotected in their competition with foreign ships, and, while the value of our commerce has increased 500 per cent. during that time, or from $500,000,000 to $2,500,000,000, our shipping engaged in carrying it has diminished 67 per cent., or from 2,500,000 to 800,000 tons. Is this a demonstration of the failure of the protective policy or is it indisputable evidence of the failure of free trade upon the sea in the car- riage of the foreign commerce of the United States--so far as the United States is concerned. Senator Frye, therefore, can perform no higher nor greater nor more needed duty than to point cut, in season and out of season, the dangerous condi- tion of weakness of the United States upon the seas, and I earnestly join with him in this patriotic task of pointing out our pressing need of a great merchant shipping and trained and experienced seamen of cur own as an invaluable arm of our national defense, and the duty of the government to extend its aid to the upbuilding of this shipping for the protection of the nation, and without impairing in the least degree the pre- sent high standard of wages paid to American labor." PROCESS OF BRAZING CAST IRON. At a meeting of foundrymen in Philadelphia, a few even- ings ago, Mr. H. Armor Ward, president of the American Braz- ing Co. of 223 So. Fifth street, Philadelphia, and 532 West Twenty-second street, New York, explained the newly dis- covered process of brazing cast iron. In the course of his re- marks Mr. Ward said: The discovery of this process has changed the methods in European foundries with reference to complicated castings, especially in the case of large castings where a flaw or imperfec- tion of any kind involved the relegation of the piece to the - scrap pile. The patterns were now cut into two or more parts, so that each was a simple piece to mould, and the several parts that went to make up the whole were brazed together, so that in effect when the brazing operation was complete, the several pieces that went to make up the whole casting were as one entire casting, and the cost of production had been reduced, in that the cost of brazing was very much less than the cost of moulding one large casting. Mr. Ward explained that flaws in castings were eliminated by drilling them out if they were small, and brazing in a plug made to fit the hole. If they were large and in the nature of a crack, and if the crack was wide, a piece of any kind of iron was fitted into the space and brazed into place. If narrow, the crack was cleaned out thoroughly and brazed up. If it was so that it could not be cleaned in this way, the fracture was extended by hammering until the entire break could be reached to clean, even if this involved breaking the piece entirely in two. The cost of the Ferrofix involved was about half a cent per square inch of surface brazed. In tests made for the government in Berlin at the Stevens' Institute in Hoboken, at the University of California and by 'the Pennsylvania railroad, it had been demonstrated, he said, that the brazed jcint was not only stronger than any portion of the casting of equal section, but that the iron adjacent to the joint had its strength increased perceptibly, the tensile strength being raised from 50 to 200 lbs., and the transverse strength as much as 2,000 Ibs. It was believed that this was not due to any action of the chemical on the iron, but was entirely owing to the fact that in cooling down from the brazing heat, this cool- ing down. was much more rapid than when the casting was orig- inally made, the effect on the iron being to increase its strength, by reason cf this more rapid cooling. With the practice in Europe in mind Mr. Ward asserted his belief that the introduction of this brazing process must affect the shop practices as radically as was the case there. As the result of his investigations in Germany, France and Bel--- gium, Mr. Ward stated that in his judgment at least, 75 per cent. of the flaws that ordinarily destroy the value of a casting could be eliminated, and the places made strong and serviceable at a small fraction of the cost of re-moulding, and as one of the banes of the foundrymen's business was the loss accruing from the imperfect castings, and this process seemed to solve the trouble to a very large extent, he hoped the gentlemen present would experiment with the process on such lines as they deemed requisite for adding to the knowledge of its use. Several of the gentlemen present asked the privilege of sending imperfect castings to the shops of the American Brazing Co. for the pur- pose of noting the results of the work done. Several small pieces were exhibited, but as there were no means of testing the strength' f the joint, it could not be determined just how satisfactory the joints were for strength, although to all appear- 'ances the pieces were as sound and strong as if they had been moulded perfectly. Mr. Ward said that the only difficulty encountered in doing large pieces was in cases where the casting was joined in such manner as to prevent free expansion when only a small portion of the casting adjacent to the fracture was heated. As castings of this peculiar character were not as commonly encountered as the other kind, the trouble arising from it was not so serious, he thought, and even in such castings, when the entire piece could be heated more or less, the brazing operation was suc- cessful. "The chief peculiarity of this process of brazing,' he con- tinued, "is that it is always perfect when the work is properly done. Its simplicity and cheapness are remarkable in view of the fact that in brazing steel or brass an expert in that art is usually required, in order to insure having a good job, but in Ferrofixing by this process no expert skill is required. The