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16 | _. MARINE REVIEW. [July 8 MR. CHARLES H. CRAMP ON THE STEAMSHIP MERGER. In the current issue of the North American Review Mr. Charles H. Cramp has a splendid article upon the Morgan steamship merger. He has written it in reply to questions from various sources as to what effect the merger is likely to have upon the future of ship building in this coun- try. In his preface he says: "T see in the situation no cause for alarm either to the American ship builder or ship owner or'to the people in this country who rely upon trans- atlantic steamship lines to transport their products abroad, provided our government will take adequate measures to meet the policy already ope- rating in Great Britain and Germany. I am sure that it is not the inten- tion of those who control or are to control the merged lines to raise materially the prices of ocean freights either way. Their object is rather to maintain a uniform rate or schedule of rates, and to add to their profits Sy the general reduction of operating expenses; also to prevent the ruin- ous rate wars which have occurred under the old regime. If they can establish and maintain a uniform schedule of rates upon which shippers may confidently rely fora long time in advance, they will confer a sub- stantial benefit upon the commercial public. "Coming now to consider its effect upon ship building in this coun- try, I may say that it is commonly reported and generally believed that part of the arrangement under which the merger has been formed is an agreement that all of the new vessels to be built abroad from time to time for the combination shall be constructed at the great Belfast ship yard of Harland & Wolff, now under the management of the famous British architect, Mr. Pirrie. Such an agreement or understanding is a proper thing in such premises. The Belfast ship yard is among the first of the best foreign yards, and vessels built in a single yard and under the same management must be more nearly homogeneous in design and structure, and better in all respects, than they would be if constructed promiscu- ously in all sorts of ship yards and by people of varied capabilities. The Belfast concern, however, extensive as it may be in plant and organization, would hardly be able to keep up, at the highest standard of efficiency, the number of ships that the great new merger will need. The agreement with the Belfast concern, therefore, will by no means prevent the manage- ment of the merger from building some of their ships in the United States, if a section of the management is to be, as it ought to be, American, and if our government will enact legislation which will enable any American to build and operate ships under the American flag as favorably as under foreign flags. But, even apart from this consideration, it can easily be shown, or must logically appear, that it would be of the greatest import- ance to the success of the new company to stimulate energy and ingenuity abroad by building American ships, whose performance and quality would be put in competition or in comparison with those built abroad. I have no doubt that some sort of an American section, or department, or sub- ordinate company, will be maintained in the organization of the merger." Mr. Cramp then recounts the history of the ill-fated Collins line and asserts that that line would be in successful operation today if congress had not withdrawn its subsidy. He adds: "At this time, the competition of the French and German lines was not sufficient to disturb the British monopoly. The English went on from that time increasing the size and speed of their transatlantic passenger ships, and turning out immense numbers of the cheapest kind of freight ships, called 'tramps;' but the improvements they made in ocean liners were not commensurate with the rapidly increasing demands of the travel- ing public. As for the freight ships, no improvement was attempted in them at all during this period. On the contrary, as has been wittily said of the tramp ships in those days: 'The English built them by the mile and cut them off in lengths to suit.' " Mr. Cramp attributes the decline of British supremacy in the ocean carrying trade to the South African war when such an immense quantity of tonnage was withdrawn for transport service. He then recounts the rapid strides made by Germany during the past ten years and says: 'The result is that Germany has practically taken the first place in the ocean carrying trade and Great Britain has been relegated to the second place. Of course there is a great deal more British tonnage than German ton- nage, but the German ships are nearly all of: modern types, many of them new and in the total average superior in capacity and performance to the total average of British tonnage in the ratio of more than two to one." Mr. Cramp then adds: "At this moment, certain American steamship men, perceiving the desperate condition of the British merchant marine, and not having ob- tained assistance to American shipping from our own government, saw that there was an opportunity for heroic treatment, and they secured the assistance of Mr. Morgan in a scheme to Americanize in fact, if not in name, a very large amount of hitherto foreign ocean steam tonnage. This, however, was only the beginning of what has since occurred. The so-called merger as it stands, though not of British conception or British origin, may prove the salvation of the British merchant marine. The English were helpless in the matter, because they apparently had no mind or personality of their own capable of organizing it. the British public from the lethargy of years' duration and has turned their normal self-complacency into an almost feverish realization of the actual conditions which confront them. This was the reason why certain English steamship lines so readily and so gladly fell in with the plans of Mr. Mor- gan and his associates in the merger. The British newspapers and other organs of public expression took great alarm, and professed to see in this merger the beginning of their downfall. The greatest British newspaper coined the term 'Morganeering' as a descriptive epithet. Still, the com- mon-sense left in England even on this most delicate of subjects, has been strongly and ably voiced by Lord Brassey at the annual meeting of the London chamber of commerce, of which he is president. This meeting occurred on May 28 last, and it was so numerously attended that the room in which the annual meeting has been held from time immemorial could not accommodate the crowd, so that it had to be adjourned to a more spacious place. In the course of his presidential address, Lord Brassey said that it was idle for the British to expect or claim a monopoly of the North Atlantic; it was certain that, sooner or later, some movement simi- lar to that initiated by Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan would be brought about by the United States. He then proceeded as follows: 'Let us not lose our national dignity in unavailing and groundless alarms. Our position as a maritime nation is assured, and we shall hold our position against all But it has aroused comers because we build:ships more cheaply and, with or without foreign crews, sail them more cheaply than any of our rivals. : : "Lord Brassey admitted, however, that the British ship builders must look to their laurels in the construction of ocean steamships of the type of the Hamburg-American line steamer 'Deutschland,' and he urged more liberal subsidies for mail-carrying." : : Mr. Cramp hopes that a great English merger organized upon some- what similar lines to the British merger may be effected on the ground that it will be to the general advantage of the commercial and shipping world at large in preventing a universal merger of all the great lines. Manifestly, he says, the power and resources of the Morgan merger can be adequately met only by a combination equal in financial strength and material equipment. He discusses the probable effect of the Morgan merger upon ship building in the following language: "In the first place, it is bound to stimulate or, a better phrase would be, to compel a very marked advance in the type and character of British- built ships, and it must also, for reasons which I suggested early in this paper, beneficially affect American ship building, particularly in ship yards which represent a high state of modern development in plant, appliances, methods and organization. At this time American rivalry is a subject that has awakened the interest of the British more than at any other period in history. The reason why first-class American ship builders and their capacities should be considered by the merger is, that it must stimulate all parties to the development of vessels of greater speed, greater comfort and greater relative economy in fuel consumption and in other elements of operating cost. The sudden augmentation in the size of merchant ships has revolutionized all the methods of work and of manipulating the vari- ous materials of construction. 'Man-handling.of the materials that enter into the make-up of the mammoth ships now in vogue is out of the ques- tion, and the introduction of powerful and newly designed machinery, together with increased yard space, is imperatively demanded to handle, fashion and work into place the elements of these immense structures. At this point in order to illustrate my meaning by a practical object lesson it becomes necessary for me to refer briefly to the establishment under my own control. Radical and sweeping changes have been made, amounting to a complete revolution of plant, methods and working organism. These changes are now complete; but they have been made so quietly and with so little self-advertisement that the importance and significance of the progress achieved has but just begun to be suspected, and is hardly yet realized by the trade at large, or even by those who should be interested in it above all others. The ship yard with its miles of railroad tracks of standard gauge, and with its locomotives, traveling locomotive cranes, and freight cars able to load and unload at every point necessary for re- ceiving plates, etc., and for their transshipment to the localities where they are worked, may be viewed as one section of the great work in the new departure; the electric overhead traveling cranes and their appliances for giving the highest effectiveness to its power, plant, etc., as a second sec- tion; and as a third section, the great air-power plant with its riveting, drilling, chipping and caulking appliances, making Cramp's the foremost ship yard on the planet in its preparations for the new departure: Diffi- culties experienced by the builders of large ships abroad have compelled their appreciation of the gravity of the situation there, and they have just discovered the great strides that the Cramp company has made in provid- ing for the future. The present result is that that company is in continu- ous correspondence with the foremost ship builders in Great Britain (some of whom have already visited' the works), who have recently organized a committee of their most prominent men to visit the company's yard for the purpose of personally investigating the design, construction and operations of the new system." NOTES FROM NEWPORT NEWS. Newport News, Va., July 2.--July 14 has been set as the date for the builder's trial of the new United States monitor Arkansas, which is building at the ship yard. Work is being rushed on the little defender in order that there will be no delay in sending her out for her prelim- inary trial. The Arkansas will probably only be out one day, leaving the yard early in the morning, going outside of the Virginia Capes and return- ing the same evening. The date of her commissioning will follow close on the official trial, which will take place shortly after the builder's trial. The cruiser Vineta, flagship of the South Atlantic squadron of the German Imperial navy, is still at the ship yard undergoing a complete overhauling. She will be here several weeks longer. The Pacific Mail steamship Korea is now well on her way to the Horn, en route to San Francisco, where she will arrive the latter part of this month or August 1. The Siberia, the Korea's sister ship, is rap- idly nearing completion and will soon be ready for her builder's trial. There was much rejoicing at the navy yard this week, when Admiral Cotton, commanding this naval station, posted a bulletin announcing that nearly a score of naval vessels will arrive at the yard within the next few days for repairs. This means that considerable more men must be taken on in various departments. Among the larger vessels coming are the Abarenda, Topeka, Leonidas, Nero, Dolphin, Caesar,-monitor Terror and the naval towing steamer Standish. The captured Spanish gunboats Alvarado and Sandoval, the Dale, the Choctaw, the Gwynn, the 'Manley and the Gloucester are among the smaller vessels ordered here for repairs. The United States cruiser Brooklyn arrived in Hampton Roads last week and after coaling sailed on Sunday for Annapolis, where she took aboard the remains of the late Sir Julian 'Pauncefote, ambassador of England to the United States. The Brooklyn sailed for England in com- mand of Captain C. C. Todd and having aboard Rear Admiral Coghlan, who goes as the personal escort to the remains, representing this gov- ernment. The Holland submarine torpedo boat Adder arrived at Old Point several days ago en route from Washington to New York. The Adder, which is a sister of the Fulton, now undergoing repairs, has been at Wash- ington demonstrating her worth to congressmen, government officials, naval officers and foreign attaches. She came to Old Point under her own steam and was towed to New York from Hampton Roads. Washburn Bros., Thomaston, Me., will build-a five-masted schoona: the largest ever constructed in Thomaston. Her dimensions will be: Length, 268 ft.; breadth, 48 ft.; depth, 20 ft.