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Canadian Ship Building Col. Miller, President of the Polson Iron Works, Discusses its Present and Future Development adian shipping interests would con- fine the bulk of their vessel con- struction to Canadian builders, every ship yard in the country would be humming with activity, thousands of new work- men would be required and enormous sums of money enlisted in home det velopment which at present pours into non-Canadian pockets." Lieut. Col. J. B. Miller, president of the Polson Iron Works, of Toronto, one of the leaders in ship building in this country with 800 men under per- [: Canadian' governments and Can- manent employment, is a thorough believer in the future of the indus- try even though past and _ present influences governing it have been anything but auspicious. What pro- gram now faces the ship building yards, what prospects for increased employment of Canadian workmen, to- gether with other associated facts were indicated by Lieut. Col. Miller in an interview. The American Ship Building Co., at Port Arthur, the Collingwood Ship Building Co., the Kingston Ship Build- ing Co. and the George Davie yards at Quebec are engaged at present in fepair work, with: very little. new. construction. The Canadian Vickers yards at Montreal are at work on a new ice breaker with the likelihood of a new contract for a large govern- ment dredge which could not be built above the canals; the two latter con- tracts alone total. about $1,500,000. The Polson Iron Works, Toronto, have recently launched a large dredge for the Canadian Stewart Co., and another is under construction, in ad- dition to a large derrick scow. Two lighters for the Hudson Bay railway were completed during the past month and are now on their way to Hudson Bay; a third lighter was launched on July 25. In course of building are a buoy boat for the Dominion gov- ernment and a 5,000-ton ferry for the Ontario Car Ferry Co, to run between Cobourg and_ Rochester. Since June 1, 1913, the Polson Iron Works have launched a full dozen boats of various designs. What these contracts amount to in money may be estimated by such sample quotations as $300,000 for a dredge, $175,000 for a buoy boat, while the large dredge under way at the Canadian Vickers yard runs to about $500000. "Looking at the hopeful signs for ship building in Canada," observed Lieut, Col. Miller;." One must retog- nize the valuable impetus to be de- rived from the deepening of the new Welland canal to 25 feet; That will necessitate an immediate deepening of Canadian lake harbors and a con- struction of new docks; old docks cannot be adapted to the new stand- ard by merely cutting their founda- tions lower for that would cause a cave-in. Thre public works, like canal, harbor and dock building during the next 10 years must of necessity be enormous, placing heavy demands for new vessels of all sorts; nor will the life of such vessels probably be great- er than the duration of the work on which they will be engaged. "Wile the Great Lakes. carrying trade in lumber must continue to de- crease, the amount of transportation by water in. coal, iron, cement, etc., is going up by 'leaps and bounds'. The carrying of our western grain cfop: forms, of course, the -- main source of profit and the possibilities of development along this line are scarcely computable. Probably few people are aware of the increase in package freight business between Montreal. and' Port Arthur. About 25 'boats .of the 2000 "to 73,000-ton class leave Montreal every month with package freight consigned to various points up the lakes. It is a profitable branch of transportation, too, although of necessity it is con- fined to the smaller vessels. How the expansion of our Canadian _ cities places fresh requirements for shipping facilities may be noticed any day in Toronto harbor where three vessels are permanently occupied in supply- ing the city builders with the single commodity of sand. These and many | other evidences of the future growth of water transportation establish the faith of Canadian ship builders that under proper conditions the construc- tion of vessels must become one of the great industries of the country. "The deepening of the Welland canal will free us from the present handicap of tendering only on large vessels this side of Lake Erie. Ob- viously we shall be subjected to com- petition by builders on other of the lakes, but we welcome the chance to tender in a wider market. "Today the ship building industry ble measure of support. in Canada is obliged to submit to enough unfair conditions to smother the life out of enterprises with less optimism and tenacity. Recently the Canadian government endorsed the policy of confining their vessel orders as much as _ possible to Canadian yards, but in the past British yards have taken the cream of the orders even from governments committed to develop our home industries, and Can- adian companies in the passenger and freight business have frequently shown a total absence of concern for their native ship vards. No less than 105 ships from 500 to 12,000 tons on Can- adian Register in' 1913 were found to have been built in Great Britain, while 41 additional vessels, all above 700 tons, were owned in Canada and op- erated on the Great Lakes but. built and registered in Great Britain. Sup- plementing this heavy list. of non-Can- adian built ships were 34 ships built in the United States and entered on Canadian Register. This made a total of 180 vessels, which were constructed outside of Canada and which could have been produced in this country on a basis quite as efficient, even if higher Canadian wages compelled a better price. "The Great Lakes and St. Law- rence fleet of steel steamships is to- day overwhelmingly American--about 92 per cent; about 4 per cent of the total tonnage is owned in Canada and 4 per cent in Great Britain. Of ap- proximately 90,000,000 tons of freight carried up and down the lakes the volume carried by Canadian built ships was almost inconsequential. "How serious is the handicap im- posed on Canadian shipping needs only a glance at the scheme of pro- tection adopted by the government of the United States. An American- built ship passing into Canadian own- ership pays an average duty of 27 per cent. But a Canadian or British- built ship cannot be imported. into the United States on any considera- tion whatever. It is not a question of high duty but a straight prohib- itory law, the United States govern- ment taking the position that in re- turn for the stringent protection granted to American coastwise marine, the American ship building industry must be guaranteed the largest possi- Under such legislation, shipping and ship yards