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TAE Marine. REVIEW 19 shots in other navies, but I can say. this much, that as long as our people keep on as they are, you can sleep quietly at night in case you send these fellows out to fight. But the merchant marine, I think, is needed, not only for our commerce but for the navy, because in time of war when we put the whole fleet into active service, we will have more than double the number of men that we have in times of peace and the great question with the navy men is where we will get those other. men. You cannot make a, sailor over night. It takes two years at least to bring a bright young man up to the position where he is worth anything at all to the service, and if we have to double the number of men that we now have, where are we going to look for them? There are a lot of men training in the naval reserve. That will give us some men, but that will give us but a very, very small number compared to the whole number required. In time of war, with what ships we have authorized. already by congress, and taking into consideration the number of auxiliaries we _ shall require, I am almost afraid to tell you. the. number of men we shall probably want, but itis so large that it makes us lie awake at night thinking how in the name of heaven we are going to get them; and the only way that we will be able to get them when we want them is by means of the merchant marine. In that body of men we find the very material that we need, men who with a few weeks of naval training will make first-class sailormen. Of course, we _ shall not be able to throw them right into the best posi- tions in the ships, will not be able to give them the most responsible positions, but for those positions the men whom we are laboring with every day, whom we are teaching, who are looking so straight through the sights of their guns at the present time, will be the men that we shall assign to them. The others will have to do the lower grade of work. I think there is another point of view from which you all might look at the need for merchant marine,. and that is that we are paying out immense volumes of money to carry our product abroad. Why should we not have the money in this country? Why should not our own people be getting the benefit of it? Why should it go abroad? It may be that we are fostering the very men who are going to fight us in a few years. Nobody can tell. No one knows when war may come. God knows none of us want it. I do not think that any man here among you who has ever seen war, will ever want another one, if you can get out of it with honor to your country. I never saw a man who had seen the slightest bit of war. who would ever vote to have another one if he could avoid it. Then, think of the importance of building the ships in this country. Look at the ramifications that you go through to get the product, a ship. The metal from the ground even, the miners, the smelters, all the people through whose hands it goes, the rolling mills, all the laboring men; see the amount of money that is spent in building a ship! When we have none built, the money is not spent here, and the profits go somewhere else. But to give you just a slight idea of the amount of money that is used up in build- ing ships and taking care of them, I may mention that our little navy yard over in Brooklyn, of which I have the honor at present to be in charge, last year spent $5,600,000 in wages alone. That. sounds like a large sum and it is, and you have got to work for it, too. The times have arrived in our navy, and in our government at large, where you get the worth of the money that you pay out. The political grafter has gone out of the navy yards, and if anything is not done properly, it is the naval officers whom you must hold to account, and I assure you that they are very anxious to have the accounts square. ; So, I would ask you all please to bear in mind, and remember beside, what the secretary of. war has told you, and use your influence for the building up of our poor little navy, and see if you cannot use your influence to have congress so arrange that we may have the greatest need of the navy at present, and that is a merchant marine from which we can draw, should war unfortunately come upon us. BIDS FOR BATTLESHIPS. The Cramps of Philadelphia were the lowest bidder for the ships of the Michigan and South Carolina type with the machinery as prescribed by the navy department. The de- partment plans for machinery will probably be accepted by the navy department in preference to plans of bidders, as . submitted in other proposals. The bids for the prescribed machinery were known as Class 1 bids, and the Cramps offered to build a ship of this type for $3,540,000. The New York Ship Building Co. offered the next bid in this class, $3,585,000. The Newport News Co.'s bid was $3,673,000, and the Union Iron Works' was $4,250,000. As one firm is allowed to build only one of the ships the second bid will doubtless be accepted in case the department decides to accept the Class 1 plans. In Class 2 there was a great variety of bids, and the prices varied according to the plans of the various ship yards for machinery. Under this class the machinery may be of tur- bine type, and many of the bids specified turbine engines. The lowest offer in this class was that of the Fore River Ship Building Co. for $3,689,000, for a turbine vessel. The various offers were: New York Ship Building Co., with turbine engines, $3,900,- 000 and $3,850,000. Newport News Ship Building & Dry Dock Co. $3,945,000, $3,813,000, $3,963,000, $3,753,000 and $3,713,000. The last three bids provided for turbines. Fore River Ship Building Co., turbines, $3,945,000, $3,- 820,000, $3,719,000, $3,780,000, $3,680,000. William Cramp & Sons Ship & Engine Co., $4,100,000. The great variety in these bids is due to the difference in plans. The new battleships are to be 450 ft. long, and will have an extreme breadth at the water line of 80 ft. 25@ in. The mean draught at trial displacement is not to exceed 24 ft. 6 in. The coal bunker capacity of the ships will be 2,200 tons each. Each ship will have a main battery of eight 12-in, breech-loading rifles and two submerged torpedo tubes. The secondary battery will consist of twenty-two 3-in. (14- pounder) rapid-fire guns, two 3-pounder semi-automatic guns, eight 1-pounder semi-automatic guns, two 3-in. field pieces, and four machine guns of calibre .30. The 12-in. guns will be installed in pairs, in four electrically controlled, balanced elliptical turrets, on the center line, two forward and two aft, each with an arc of fire of about 270 degrees. The vessels will be driven by engines of 16,500 H. P. The senate amendment to the big 20,000-ton battleship item in the naval appropriation bill was adopted by the house after a vigorous fight. The amendment provides that before any proposals are received and accepted the secretary of the navy shall report to congress at its next session full details covering the type of such battleship. There was some ob- : jection to this on the ground that foreign navies could gain complete information of the ship, but it was held that they would get it anyhow.