The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

MARINE recourse is open for collecting damages for losses caused by delay in completion. The completion date for this ship was of the utmost importance, as she 1s scheduled and booked for service on a fixed date. One branch of the government can not very well sue an- other branch of the government for breach of con- tract. No vital responsibility rests its heavy hand on the repair people in such instances. If the ship is com- pleted on time well and good; if not, what are you going to do about it? Overhead is not the only charge which a navy yard can conveniently forget. Insurance is not reckoned in government estimates. Taxes, of course, are not charged against a federal estimate. The assertion also was made by one private yard that the draftsmen, al- 2o2 ways a heavy cost factor in a repair job, are paid . by a separate navy appropriation, but this statement was denied by Admiral Plunkett, head of the Brook- : lyn navy yard. The managing personnel, of course, REVIEW July, 1923 are navy officers whose pay is not chargeable to a specific task. .And the expense of a trial trip is not included in navy yard estimates. One big yard, which lost a repair contract through a slightly lower estimate by a navy yard, has decided not to bid again on federal work, since the mere cost of submitting a bid is heavy. The award of the PRESIDENT BUCHANAN to the Newport News yard was the occasion for a vigorous complaint from Brooklyn, led rather weirdly by the chamber of commerce of that city whose membership undoubtedly live -and prosper through their freedom from government com- petition.. Legitimate encouragement of enterprise, courage and initiative in the private shipbuilding and ship re- pair plants is essential for the growth of the merchant marine. Why take away all encouragement by pitting the navy yards against full, free and fair competition of a number of good repair yards? Use Old River Boat as Power House VERY time the Mississippi river in the air and is high and dry when service for 18 or 19 years. Old age floods its banks near New Or- the Mississippi is within its banks. finally made the boat unfit for the leans, the old river steamboat Occasionally the waters creep. up work in which she was engaged and A. Pappock, is tempted to get back in- around the props under the boat, but she was retired. About that time a to river service and vie with the craft she keeps on, resigned to her new task. power plant was required for the bunk- OLD RIVER BOAT NOW SERVES AS POWER HOUSE of a younger generation. But, true to In the old days the A. Pappock, was erage station and it was decided to the new and unusual service to which a towing steamer plying the waters raise the boat, jack her up permanently she now is relegated, the old boat, as of the canals and bayous of Louisiana and put her to work as a power house. an official of the Standard Oil Co. her and the Mississippi, drawing small That was done and she settled down owner, aptly expressed it, “sits and barges and oyster boats. Soon after the to her new routine. smokes” and dreams of the days when close of the nineteenth century the once she was young. Louisiana Petroleum Co., bought her Cart. V. F. Sparks has come out from More than 30 years old, the river to transport fuel oil from Donaldson- Plymouth, England, to take command boat now is a power house for the ville, Ia, to sugar plantations along of the cable steamer RrEsTorER stationed bunkerage station of the Standard Oil Bayou Lafourche and Bayou Terre- at Victoria, B. C. He has succeeded Co. Minus her paddle wheel but other- bonne. Cart. Bastt Coomsr, who was taken ill wise intact, the “Anny” of bygone days Later the Standard Oil Co. acquired while the vessel was doing cable work now is propped up on stilts, several feet the vessel and used her in the same in the vicinity of Honolulu.