The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

1903. ] MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE RECORD. '21 BATH HAS HAD A BUSY YEAR, _ Bath, Me., Dec. 21.--Bath has just completed another pros- perous year in her ship yards, which have turned out in the twelve. months ending with Dec. 31, 32,822 gross tons of vessels. for the merchant-marine. 'This is not. the record, even for the past : decade, but it is a good vear's work which has kept all the yards of the city well employed. It is also true that the figures do not represent the sum total of the ship building activity in the city, for the biggest. yard of all, the Bath Iron Works, has been en- gaged this year almost exclusively on government construction, which cannot be figured in gross tons but which employs more men than all the other ship building in the city put together. The war vessels building at the Bath Iron Works aggregate more than 20,000 tons displacement and include the battleship Georgia, the cruiser Cleveland and the monitor Nevada, the latter nearly readv to be turned over to the navy department. -The year has produced no especially remarkable vessels. The largest, tne six-master Addie M. Lawrence, was launched Launch of the Addie M. Lawrence from Percy & Small's yard, Bath, Me. from the yard of Percy & Small in the last month of the year. She is one of the four largest of the world's schooner fleet, but 550 tons smaller than the biggest of the-six-masters, the Eleanor A. Percy of the Percy & Small fleet. The steel barge launched for the Standard Oil Co. last summer by Arthur Sewall & Co. and the five-masted steel schooner which the Sewalls are build- ing for themselves are both unique craft in some respects, the latter the first steel scuooner to be built in this city and the first with one exception in this country. Nearly all of the vessels launched 'during the year were schooners and barges for the coastwise trade. Several merchant steamers were built, how- ever, the principal one being the 17-knot Ransom B. Fuller, for the tastern Steamship Co., the finest passenger boat onthe coast outside of Long Island Sound. The New England Co. built her. An event of the year was the launching of his tooth craft by the rfon.William Rogers, who is without doubt the oldest active ship builder in the country. He is over eightv and has been en- Two schooners at New England-Co.'s yard, Bath, Me. gaged in ship building all his life. The prospects for the new year ate excellent. Bath yards, exclusive of the' Bath Iron -Works, are under contract at the present time for more than -I§,000 tons of merchant vessels and there is every indication that "the figures of the year just 'passed will be equalled or exceeded ' Schooner building at Deering's yard, Bath, Me. before 1903 expires. The Bath Iron Works has work enough on hand to to keep the plant busy for a few years. oe MORE SHIP SUBSIDY ARGUMENTS. Editor Marine Review:--Japan gives the following yearly subsidies to her shipping lines: Australian line, $260,900; Bom- bay line, $88,800; Sea of Japan line, $74,500; Hokkaido routes, $18,900; river lines, $12,250; while our ocean marine cuts no figure in the carrying trade of the world. Lt So determined are the English leaders of sentiment against the shipping subsidy movement in this country that they are will- ing to show temporary hostility to their own system of subsidy so long prevalent in England. It is not likely that they are in earnest in giving up a system that has made their great ocean lines what they now are--the leaders in ocean traffic--Buffalo Evening News. A continuance of the unfavorable trend of our foreign trade is again shown in the government statement of imports and ex- ' ports for month of November. In detail they show an increase of imports of $13,000,000 and a decrease of $11,000,000 in exports, the result, a decrease of $24,000,000 in the excess of our exports for the month, and $190,000,000 decrease for the eleven months to Dec. 1. We cannot make headway in securing foreign mar- kets while we are without ships. In round numbers,- the world's steam tonnage amounts to " 25,000,000 tons, four-fifths of which is used on salt water. Over half of this latter tonnage is owned by Great Britain, while the United States. comes in with but 1,270,046 tons. Most of our tonnage is engaged. in the domestic trade and only eight ¢com- panies of any importance--companies owning over 10,000 tons each--run theit vessels in the foreign trade or in the trade to the Philippines, Hawaii or Porto Rico. ; The alliance between our International Mercantile Marine Co. and the Hamburg-American and North German Lloyd com- panies give us the use of 1,600,000 tons, cr about half the tonnage required for our European trade alone. It still leaves us with-. out American ship provision for our growing trade in the Orient. : "The policy of subsidies is the only method at the present time by which American-built steamers with American crews can obtain any considerable share of the foreign trade of the United States."'--Eugene T. Chamberlain, United. States commis- sioner of navigation. "The problem of improved transportation facilities to for- eign markets," said Lyman J. Gage in his last annual report as secretarv of the treasury, "is of greater importance to the inland producing states of the union, than to the seaboard commercial cities."' - The Hamburg-American line alone earns yearly $13,000,000 in passenger and treight receipts from the foreign trade of the United States. The steamship requirements of our trade with the several 'grand divisions of the world are, approximately : Steamers. Gross tons. Purope 2). 3417.0 es = 300 3,200,000 North Amietica s752 552.00, 250 400,000 < Asia, Australia 2.0... a 100 400,000... = ATCA cee ee 80 380,000 South Ametica (2.22. 110 S008 = > Tank steamers. . 70 250,000 I, m 335° 4,030,006. J At present only 88 per cent. of this requirement is being covered by American vessels. 20 per cent. of the worl and colonial trade, ° d's steam tonna Schenectady, N. Y., Jan: 3, 1903: To do our own business we' need ge employed in foreign ~ Warter J: BALLARD. ~