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TAE Marine. REVIEW 31 when you get to tide water by any route, 90 percent of the things you have to send abroad and which you get back in traffic, is turned over to foreign ships. This the American - people will not long endure. We cannot expect or hope that our world competitive products of the soil or the factory can go abroad in*fair competition and with proper results if we are to depend upon our rival in trade for their introduction and delivery abroad. It is a proposition self-evident, requir- ing no argument. It has never been seriously disputed. "If it be argued that free and unrestricted trade suggests that we leave this without government support, answers spring up which would exhaust your patience in their mere enumer- ation. Some or most of them will suggest themselves. "But what has been said argues only the weakest point of the question. We need a merchant marine because in case of war among the nations upon whom we now depend our foreign commerce itself will be stifled. We need the mer- chant marine because just as surely as war shall come to us with any maritime nation, our great and increasing navy will be of minimum efficacy, lacking a naval reserve upon which to draw for recruits and ships for auxiliaries. However sat- isfying this reason may be in patriotic view, a normal condi- tion would strengthen it; a foreign marine, in keeping 'with our standing as a commercial nation, accompanied by an ef- ficient navy, each supporting the other as occasion may require. "The question of expense is raised. We are going forward with the Panama canal, yet it is predicted that if we build a sea level canal, the expense will not fall much, if any, short of $500,000,000. Our naval establishment: will soon cost $150,- 000,000 a year. The pension cost is nearly the same. For city free delivery, the nation paid in 1904 nearly $21,000,000. For rural free delivery, to meet the convenience of our population outside of cities, the annual expense already reaches nearly $13,000,000. For so expediting the mail as to anticipate one delivery, the government spends more each year than would be the expense of establishing the foreign marine. : "Time forbids extended argument of details. Suffice here that one of the strongest commissions to which was ever sub- mitted a similar subject--five senators and five members of the house of represenatives--spent months in gathering testimony and data from every source. Their hearings developed a gen- eral belief that the necessities of this country require a for- eign marine under our flag. Now we have the spectacle of the great American nation, the greatest on earth, hesitating, fumbling and stumbling over the word "subsidy" and missing the substance, and not one who hesitates gives an adequate reason, : : "To be plain about it, there is no question of subsidy; it is a question of self-defense. It is not the benefit to the individ- ual shipbuilder, shipowner, master, mate or seaman. The ques- tion does not turn on the percentage of American sailors employed. All these are incidental details. It sums up in this: Do we need a merchant marine in the foreign trade under our own flag? And the answer, without serious dissent is,.Yes, for the sake of the nation as a whole. Then, how to get it? Those who say it will come in time without government sup- port, are hoist with the petard, that for fifty years the industry has declined and with all our prosperity and abundance of money and cheap money, not a single ship is building for the trade, thoroughly as urgent need is conceded; Answering all suggestion of selling materials more cheaply abroad, for some fifteen years all material to build or repair ships for foreign trade have been quite free of duty. Free ships would not overcome the greater cost of operation under American con- ditions, Discriminating duties, besides involving treaty com- plications, would require the re-imposing of abandoned duties in order that there should be something upon which to dis- criminate, but also unless a mile schedule were made, the ship carrying a cargo of sugar 15,000 miles could receive no greater benefit than that which carried 1,500 miles. "What our league stands for, what we believe this country wants and needs and will have, is honest goods sent abroad in American ships, introducing where we are now not known in trade the American flag as the trade mark and assurance of fair dealing. Then our foreign trade will grow as has our internal trade, and the prosperity of the United States will be doubly assured." THE TELEMOBILOSKOP Consul Bardel of Bamberg, Germany, reports the invention of the telemobiloskop by a resident of Dusseldorf, an appa- ratus which merits the attention of all seafarers, and which is said to have gained the special attention of German mari- time circles. Describing the telemobiioskop, Consul Bardel writes: The telemobiloskop is to enable the pilot of a ship, in foggy weather, to discover the nearness of another vessel, even if the pilot of the other vessel neglects to give signals by which he could make himself heard. The apparatus works automatically, so that after it is once adjusted nothing what- ever has to be done until a ship is discovered by it, when, by an unimportant manual action, the nearness of the other ship can be disclosed. The invention is based on the principle that electric waves, such as are used by wireless telegraphy, are re- flected the moment they strike metallic objects in their course, while otherwise they continue on their journey. The accompanying sketch shows a part of the apparatus. The carrier of the same is the axle C, which has to be hung ww cae sik ee \ | oo 72 ). ~~ i Yy N ZN A N MSgosS SSS SSSSSSSSSSSS SL TAL ALLL ILIAD TAT AAA AI THE TELEMOBILOSKOP. so that with all the motions of the ship it has to remain in the same vertical position. Around this axle, moved by a machine, turns the large projecting box, which.slants off somewhat toward the water,and, standing on some high ele- vation, perhaps the mast, continually searches the ocean for another vessel. H represents the inductorium of the sparks. Here, as the little darts, indicate on the sketch, sparks gener- ate continuously, which sparks form the electric waves which - are sent out of the projecting box to the surface of the ocean. The inventor claims that every large ship can produce elec- tricity, and with the modern steamers and men-of-war it is only a question of tapping a small quantity. of it from exist- ing plants to properly feed H. _ In order to make the electric waves travel compactly in a body, two lenses, R, are adjusted inside the box; they are to shape the electrical waves into a cylindrical bundle. This mass of waves, now in constant rotation, with a slanting tendency toward the horizon, searches the surroundings. If the waves strike a ship (all ships have metal parts of some kind) a reflex will bring them back to where they started. To catch this a receiver, similar to those used for wireless telegraphy, is adjusted over the projecting box. A metal plate between the receiver and the box so separates the elec- trical waves that only those returning can strike the receiver.