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September, 1909 showing under the government's meth- od of charging costs that would start all the contractors in the country into the dredging business. At New York "only $231,000 is re- quired to complete the yard power plant". Last year the power plant and electric plant had $360,000 to spend, of which $140,000 was for the central power plant (which is not a _ central power plant at all) and which was not used. If we take the total for the "electric plant" and "power plant" last year and add the estimate for this year, without going any further back, we have $631,000 for two years on a power plant that any industrial concern would get three or four times the work out of for half the money. At Norfolk $200,000 is asked to widen the existing 600 ft. channel. in front of the yard because turning a battleship or a cruiser "is a difficult and hazardous operation". Seeing that the longest ship in the navy is not over 450 ft. long it will not str-ke avy sailor as 'being cither.. 1 ex pressly differentiate 'between naval men and sailors. Let the naval officials go up to the great lakes and see 600 ft. ships maneuvered in crowded har- bors and narrow channels without 25 ft. to spare and often without even a tug. These fresh water skippers would put to the blush any man I have ever seen handle a naval ship, for all that the latter are invariably twin screw and high powered, and ought to be as handy as a tug. At the same yard the new dry dock, building since 1900, it is now dis- covered cannot be used "efficiently" until a $95,000, 40-ton traveling crane is provided, with its track If is surely a "hand-tooled" crane and nickel plated track. The writer recently made a bid on a 60-ton floating crane, including pontoon, for a great deal less money and was not lowest bid- Ger at. that. The Guantanamo Dry Dock. At Guantanamo, Cuba, $2,250,000 is asked for a dry dock. If the reader has sufficient curiosity to go back over the report for 1906 he will find that the est'mated cost of "a dock of the largest size with 37 ft. of water over the sill", is $1,750,000, "but on ac- count of the increase in labor and material it is advisable to increase it to $1,850,000". But the report for 1907 boosts this again to $2,250,000 and doesn't even go to the trouble of giving a-reason, but, in effect, says to hurry up with it. : Examination of the report, which begs for this dock most piteously, will disclose that this does not mean "THE. Marine. REVIEW a dry-dock in the ordinary sense of the term. It is only a beginning. When it is about so far along it will be found that it is inland; like the Charleston dock, or that it will need pumping machinery like Norfolk, or bilge and keel blocks, or a caisson, or traveling cranes, and we will be asked for more for "urgent needs", I know a shipbuilding plant, one of the very best in the United States, that was built complete, including a 600- ft. dock, the latter one of the best in this country or anywhere, for less than the amount asked for this dock as a beginning, and the plant re- ferred to employs over 2,000 men and last year turned out close to 50,000 tons of steam tonnage, and it- was projected, built and finished, dock and all, i less than three years. At New Orleans we have one of the largest floating docks in the world, placed there 6 years ago, and costing over $1,000,000. The report of 1906 shows that during that yean this dock, together with the shore equipment, did business with 12 barges, lighters, dredges, schooners, etc., and nothing else, and during 1907 it docked 2 dredges, two foreign vessels and one col- Ker. For the same period (1907) the bureau of supplies and accounts shows an expenditure for account of this station of, in round figures, $364,000, without adding anything for interest or depreciation as is perfectly proper and which would bring the total up to over $500,000; all for the performance of perhaps $10,000 worth of work. Yet che wail for more docks never ceases Over $150,000 to Care for Four Small Vessels. At Guantanamo, again, the report shows that during the year ie bu- reau of construction and repair em- ployed an average of 52 men, ex- clusive of officers and foremen, and that the only work done was m'nor repairs to one tug, 'hauling out an- other and a coal float, and complet- ing a little wooden punt of a lighter This station cost us for maintenance alone, to 'handle this stupendous busi-. ness, over $150,000. The bureau of construction and pair makes heart-rending appeals to the country to provide quarters in the yards for its representatives so they won't have to take so much time going to and from work and "so that they can give more tme to the It appears that in one case the unfortunate Le- yard". (Charleston, S. > man thas to take an 'hour and a half each day for this. So we pay these people for the time they spend enroute also. How does the average citizen 301 like that? However, it looks a good deal more like an effort to provide free quarters than to improve the ser- vice, and the writer gives it as his deliberate opinion that most, if not all, of those constructors with whom he has come in contact really need more exercise, and if they will only put in the full hours paid for we will forego the improvement to the ser- vice and jet them continue to live outside the yard. Appeals are made for additional build'ngs at all yards, all in' the at- most haste, yet the records show that once the appropriation is made the necessity seems to disappear. A Most Misleading Statement. Before leaving the report let us pay our respects to the statement that "the impression is general that navy yards are extravagantly operated, while 'as a matter of fact, the expenditures for operation and upkeep are much less than the best industrial and rail- road corporations." Follow:ng this statement are tables showing that "Maintenance, Repairs and _ Preser- vation" run as low as 1.10 per cent of the valuation, 'while industrial con- cerns spend an average of 6 per cent of valuation, disregarding depreciation, for the operation of their plants". A more misleading statement it would be d:-fficult to find. It over- steps the line of departure from the truth. The figures quoted 'by the bu- reau do not include either the salaries of officers nor or the "civil establish- ment", which covers clerks, messen- gers, electricians, draftsmen, foremen. tug-masters, stenographers, etc. Where is the industrial concern or railroad that excludes such items from oper- ation? That statement was not made in ignorance either. The basis of valuation is absolutely misleading be- cause it is in no sense any indication whatever of the relative cost of oper- ation, has absolutely nothing what- ever to do with it, and is not used, in industrial plants at all events. The volume of bus'ness done is the basis of operative cost in every live con- cern. In a railroad the cost of oper- ation covers expense of every sort and description 'because a railroad pro- duces nothing, it exists solely to per- form a service, while in the navy yard even the cost of work. done in and by the yard for the ships of the navy is charged against those ships. As to valuation, no industrial concern, or railnoad either, could exist if its prop- erty investment bore, even remotely, the relation to output of that of the naval establishment. We do not ex-