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sels but the order has been placed and work has com- menced. In addition to this regular run the CALIFORNIA and VirGINIA of the Panama Pacific line, fully as finely appointed and actually larger and faster than the CARONIA, serve the traveling public in making Havana a port of call. The Grace line with its two fine new vessels the SANTA BARBARA and SANTA MariA, with a third turbine electric ship now building, also makes Havana a regular port of call in its service from New York to the west coast of South America. Then the United Fruit Co. always noted for the particular ex-" cellence of its ships and service have sailings regularly for Havana. The Dollar line with its round the world fleet of large and finely appointed ships makes Havana a regular port of call from and to New York. It seems clear from all this that as far as service is concerned the Cunard line only imagined they heard the call in thinking of the profits possible for its vessel during the peak of the season. At any rate the CARONIA sailed from New York for Havana on her initial voyage in this service on Jan. 5. It is understood that she did very well ‘and that Cunard officials are entirely satis- fied with the results. Since the sporting instincts of the Cunard line could not be appealed to to keep away from a territory ciearly belonging to someone else, we think that Chairman T. V. O’Connor of the United States shipping board was fully justified in meeting fire with fire by placing the United States liner, PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT at the disposal of the Ward line for use in this service as an,offset to the Cunarder. Incidentally this action has received the sub- stantial approval of the American public with such good effect that the PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, sailing from New York for Havana on Jan. 5, the same day set for the sailing of the Caron, had all accommodations sold —every berth taken. Furthermore reports indicate that there is an active demand for accommodations not only for the future trips of the PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT but also for all of the other excellent American vessels. This incident is of much more importance than its im- mediate and local effect. It shows that American ship- ping can be seriously attacked in services which it has looked upon for years as uniquely and particularly its own. Needless to say the most careful consideration should be given to possible measures for permanent relief from the possibility of such competition. By this we mean that careful consideration should be given to the possibility of placing the direct trade of the United States in somewhat the same category as coastwise. What particular moral or ethical right has a foreign ship in the direct trade of the United States? Anyone it seems to us will admit that the priority of right in such trades clearly goes to the ships of the nations involved in that trade. In the case of the United States and another nation, if neither of these nations are par- ticularly well supplied with ships, it is of course per- fectly all right to invite the foreigner in to carry the goods at a price if he cares to; but as a sensible man this foreigner must realize that when the two nations he is doing the delivering for get appropriate delivery wagons of their own that it may then be in the nature of things to dismiss him. Haven’t we about gotten to this condition as far as our direct trade with Cuba is concerned. Complete Huge Graving Dock by Fall ESPITE unusual difficulties en- D countered in excavation, rapid progress is being made in the construction of the Todd Shipyards Corp.’s mammoth graying dock at its Robins plant in Erie Basin, Brooklyn. The 500-ton floating steel gate for the new dock, which was fabricated 20 at Todd’s Tebo yard, was launched recently. Everything indicates that the dock will be ready for service in the fall, at which time the Todd Shipyards Corp. will be able to dry in one day 175,000 tons of shipping. The new graving dock is .715 feet long, 113 feet wide at the top and MARINE. REVIEW—February,. 1929. 93 feet wide at the bottom and will be the largest dock in New York harbor, thus providing greater facil- ities for handling large liners that the port has never before possessed. Surveys made preliminary to the commencement of the work indicated that similar soil conditions, found at the time of the construction of the Brooklyn navy yard dock, existed in the Erie Basin area. In the navy yard job the con- tractors started to use steel sheet piling, but when boulders were en- countered the piling broke up and when attempts were made to dig out the boulders sand ran through the breaks. A settling of buildings in the vicinity followed and a sewer broke. To complete the job, the site was sur- rounded by a cut-off of concrete pneu- matic caissons which was an effective but a very expensive method of over- coming the difficulty. Admiral F. R. Harris had charge of the navy dock at that time and it is under his super- vision that the Todd corporation is building the new dock. For this job a very effective steel sheet piling is being used. The Beth- lehem Steel Corp. had a piling known as the Lackawanna arch web and the AIRPLANE VIEW OF NEW GRAVING DOCK AT ROBINS PLANT OF TODD SHIPYARD German Larsen company had a piling