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LTT A IRRATT | | THE past year lived hence with many wood old Jancis. Take naval battles, for instance. Our schoolbooks gave us a mental picture of warships crowded together amid thick white smoke, with officers waving swords on a craft about to sink, while down in the lower left hand corner was a shattered spar all but submerged with its burden of drowning sallors, We know better now. A modern nasal action is foughe with the opponents miles apart. The flect with the fastest ships and the biggest guns wins. The actions at Heligoland Bight and the Falklands were settled, not on the ~ seas, but in the drafting rooms and shipyards of two iat ocean powers. : The United States is destined to be a maritime nation. We cannot escape our - : destiny. In peace or in war, the battles that must be fought for commercial or territorial supremacy or for the maintenance of our principles of government, will be waged on the oceans. And 3 in peace as in war, oe vital need will be ae more and more ae tonnage. In ondet to assume our rage place among i “great mmarilione powers of the earth, we must encourage and aid our own ship yards. Business sense and patriotism alike demand that the money we spend on new vessels be _ kept at home, to strengthen the hands of those who, of all great commercial enterprises, are the most directly interested in the nation's maritime develop- ment—the ship builders. These men have never hesitated or wavered in their _ faith. In spite of public indifference and adverse legislation, they have contin- — ously improved their equipment and increased the capacity of their yards until at present no competitors in the world can rival them in rapidity of work and quality of product. On the pages immediately following, The Marine Review presents the announcements of a group of representative American ship yards—plants that are now playing an important part in the revival of the | country's merchant marine. ; }