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10 THE MARINE RECORD. ESTABLISHED 1878. Published Every Thursday by THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING Co., : Incorporated. _ C. E, RUSKIN, - - - - Manager. CAPT. JOHN SWAINSON, - - - Editor. CLEVELAND, CHICAGO, Western Reserve Building. Royal Insurance Building. SUBSCRIPTION. One Copy, one year, postage paid, - - $2.00 One Copy, one year, to foreign countries, - = $3.00 wile > : and all our members will trade with you. Invariably in advance. ADVERTISING. Rates given on application. All communications should be addressed to the Cleveland office, THE MARINE: RECORD PUBLISHING CO., . Western Reserve Building, Cleveland, O. Entered at: Cleveland Postoffice as second-class mail matter. No attention is paid to anonymous communications, but the wishes. _of contributors as. to the use of their names will be scrupnlously nomex ded. CLEVELAND, O., MAY 2, 1901. a eae eee asaeaeaaa saa UNDER ordinary conditions men can enlist in the army or ship in the navy, but no one can ship in the army or enlist in the navy—that is—as terms go. oe ee ee OnE great bugbear i in the late engineers’ strike consisted ‘in the second engineer not always receiving as much pay as the first mate. exhibited. Jealousy ! oh yes, there was lots of it eee Tue days of the tremendously extravagant fuel and oil bills are fast being numbered in the lake trade. If ever there was a ‘main hatch’’ in these expenditures, it is now about being shut down, ey or irr iro _ GIVE us an advertisement for our annual roster and we This is what has = been pushed against, the ship supply men almost to a black- mailing extent. It ought to cease. oe oe oe It Is now quite a hand-full of years ago since the RECc- oRD advanced the argument that it would be found a pay- ing investment for the owners\of steamboats to salary a shore engineer, We note that the United States Steel Corpora- tion employs three of such practical experts, A ship’s-hus- band is an equal necessity for a large fleet. oo oe on A HEALTHY rivalry has been engendered in regulating the running expenses, daily cost, or trip disbursements of a boat. -. While this is a commendable feature from every standpoint » it “ought never to be’permitted to descend to the level of | parsimony in the food supply account, nor do we think it ‘| Swill, among the majority of the present generation of lake “vessel owners and managers.’ - a 5 . » GERMANY is right after maritime supremacy on the ocean. Ue tale! See 3 Not content with owning the Potosi, at present the largest ‘sailing ship afloat, and which is: 360 feet by. 494 by 31 feet 2 ~~ inches, but the firm of F;.Laeisy, Hamburg, have just placed -an order with German shipbuilders‘for a sailing vessel which - will be 4oo feet in length, 53% feet beam and 33 feet 7% » Evidently, all. faith in inches deep,-to carry 8,200: tons. ee the wind is not yet extinct. We are pleased to note that, a , Montreal and Quebec trader has now a handle, or “if you, please, a tail to his name, we refer to Capt. Main, F. R. G. Ss. and F.R.M.S., sailing an Allan Line steamer. Those who are not acquainted with _these apparently mystical initials may learn that they stand for a Fellow of the, Royal Geographical and Meteorolgical . Societies. Capt. Main is considered a high authority on matters relating to the navigation of the St. Lawrence and its approaches, THE SEASON OPENING. With the slightly delayed opening of lake navigation and the consequent detention of vessels already in service, through the ice blockade in the St. Clair river, the season ‘ean’ ‘hot be said “to ‘have 5 tigalds sab i ga for the owtiérs of floating’ property.” The Advent of atiifistitution; or sytidicate, like the United States*Stee? Corporation, narrows’ the genetal ‘business in- terests “bythe absorption of itidividual’ investments under one’ management, And, to'this extent, minimizes the expect- ‘Ant ultimate résults of a brisk'season’s work in the iron ore ‘art Yinlg tradé of the lakes, for, it is expected that this great fleet of over one hundred vessels having a carrying capacity of nearly half a million tons will be confined almost exclu- sively to the transportation of the company’s own products. _ As the recent transfers of the Leyland Line tonnage, (re- garding which we have this week learned particulars of from ‘‘across the pond’’) seemed to strike a sort of commer- cial paralysis within the circle of minor shipowning inter- ests, so did the combination exercise its influence among large firms and individuals when the Steel Co. at an earlier date, relieved several minor combinations of their vessel owning manageinents on the lakes. It is our desire, how- ever, to point out in this connection, that even the largest aggregation of capital can not but figure on making a pay- ing investment of each branch or department of their adven- ture, and, consequently, where one set of interests can exist, others engaged in a similar pursuit can surely survive, so that a combination of interests in floating property by no means argues for the total extinction of competition in the transportation of waterborne traffic. In so far as present indications may carry us, the eutlook for a fair season’s business need call for no suspicion of dis- couragement among the firms owning a moiety, or limited amount of high classed tonnage, so also is there an open field for the lower grades of bottoms in the lumber and coal trades, both of which promises to be exceedingly brisk at fair living rates of freight throughout the entire season, and, especially is this so regarding the former commodity or product. Granting that the Steel Corporation will trans- port ten to twelve million tons of ore with its own tonnage this season, it is simply a narrowing of the circle which con- trolled this class of trade during the past year or two, and that, too, without any very great disturbing effect on the major portion of outside or individual, as opposed to corpor- ate owned tonnage. The keynote of the season’s result seems to be found as usual, only more marked than ever before, in the economi- cal management, prompt dispatch at loading and discharg- ing ports, and last, but by no means least, in the successful handling and other contingencies entrusted to the care and judgment of the practical employes of the ownership. The keenest intelligence, prompted by efficient and skillful knowledge will, as ever, be found the attributes which the employe will be measured with by his employer, and, as _ competition of the highest caliber is abroad, so must the circumspect zeal of the trusted wage earner be made to render the highest class of service in the accomplishment of the duties he is called upon to perform as well as the re- ‘sponsibilities shouldered. Time was, when managerial mis- understandings, minor casualties, breakdowns, etc., were simply matters of general occurrence, expected and looked upon as the exigencies of the situation and called for no further comment or action. This condition of affairs has now passed away, and, in the coming season, it can already be seen that the very best and successful efforts alone will be accepted as competent service at the hands of those engaged in the business interests of lake comm-rce. Ship and engine builders, boiler makers and underwriters are called into being and are as much a necessity as their own works warrant, but, it is just as well to remark, that it is not the bounden province of the shipowner to be contin- ually adding to the insatiable financial maw of, under other conditions, their very good and excellent friends. To obviate these frequent and nearly always undesirable calls, is the prime duty of those engaged in the practical handling of all classes of tonnage, and as we have said, this feature will be more closely scanned this season than ever before. i Oe NOTWITHSTANDING the shortness of the season, or rather the later fitting out, employes’ strikes and consequent higher wages, etc., vessels may yet earn enough to pay insurance, interest on the investment, cost of up keep, and allowance for the depreciation of the property, but they will need to be very fortunate to do 80. with the present ruling rate of freights. MAy 2, Igol. -POLAR EXPEDITIONS. History but repeats itself and this year witnesses much the same interest in polar explorations that characterized the dominant maritime powers just three score and ten yeas ago. To the person engaged in the ordinary walks of commercial life, there seems no relative good or corres- ponding advantages to be gained in simply having the opportunity of saying that a human being has reached the actual pole geographic, nor even to those who move over the ocean’s paths does the ‘“‘game seem worth the candle,”’ that is, the price that scientists will expend in their re- searches. However, the toothsome dainty is on the top shelf out of the ordinary juvenile ‘reach, yet, the more dar- ing and adventurous spirit will not rest until some means has been hit upon to arrive at the taste delicious, and so it is, or would appear to be, with the principals in polar expe- ditions, Arctic and Antarctic. = It is to be regretted that the United States has not joined | the other powers maritime, including our neighbor, the Dominion of Canada, in the several expeditions now being fitted out for exploration purposes in high latitudes. The practical turn of mind of the average American is wanted to leaven the scientific lump of the professional technique in galore carried north and south, and the field offers untold necessities in the more useful, if prosaic, work,of survey- ing actual and possible navigational localities, and especially so in the vicinity of the southern extremity, of, this ontinent as well as in the extreme north-west. sith About the middle of 1839 an expedition to the Antarctic regions was fitted out under the auspices of the British government with Sir James Clarke Ross in command and in charge of the Erebus, with Capt. Crozier in the Terror, when the two ships reached latitude 78° 11’ South they .encoun- tered a solid wall of the impenetrable, which forbade;:them from advancing another step further. A second attempt was made during the long daylight of the polar regions the following year, but with no better success, and, after endeavoring to find an ingress through the solid wall, of ice which towered to the south of them, the expedition sought the nearest port to pass the long, dark, polar winter, and to make further preparations for renewed attempts at Antarctic explorations, but beyond sighting a volcano or two in lati- tude 69° and visiting an island named Victoria’s Land in latitude 65° S, previously sighted and named by a ‘French exploring party, but little more was discovered, and the ex- pedition returned to its starting point after an absence of about four years, 1839-43. Soon after the return of this expedition Sir John Franklin set out on his expedition to discover the North-west passage, taking the same two ships, Erebus and Terror, in which were nearly all the members of the crews which sailed in the southern expedition, including Capt. Crozier. It is now history that the Erebus and Terror were both lost with all hands in the effort to discover the North-west passage if ex- istent, considering the postulant argued to a probability. Putting polar researches aside, itis beyond doubt or cavil that the United States has not been doing a full share of foreign survey work according to her grade among the family of nations, and we would suggest that several survey- ing expeditions be kept constantly at work in the future, es- pecially in the undeveloped regions of the western hemi- sphere. THE ways of the Steamboat Inspection Service are inscru- table. It is becoming a custom sanctified’ by individual whims to grant pilots licenses for vessels carrying’ Say 1,000 tons, but the same pilot is ineligible to stand watch on a boat carrying 1,100 tons. Thére seems to us a good deal ‘of a bur- lesque in going through“such a limited examination, irres- pective of the candidates’ fitness. The objective point ar- rived at by the licensing: board, or strictly: speaking, the local inspectors, is .a'vessel’s tonnage, not her loaded draft of water. There isan individual option exercised .in.grant- ing these licenses, which is not right. re ws rey Five handy lake-built steel steamers aré being dispatched to the Pacific coast to open up a new line there.’ The Asuncion and Paraguay have already started, to be followed by the Eureka, Tampico and the Meteor, the latter now being completed at the yards of the Craig Ship Building Co., Toledo, O. The fleet is consigned to the Johnson-Locke Mercantile Co., who will not as yet state what route they are intended for. There seems no doubt but that a consider- able fleet of these medium sized steamers could easily be disposed of at fairly good figures if they could be'had.