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ESTABLISHED 1878. VOL. XXIV, No. 35 CLEVELAND -- AUGUST 29. 1901 -- CHICAGO. $2.00 Per Year. 5c. Single Copy LAKE CARRIERS” ASSOCIATION: To consider and take action upon all general questions relating to the navigation and carrying business of the Great Lakes, maintain necessary shipping offices and in general to protect the common interests of Lake Car- riers, and to improve the character of the service rendered to the public. PRESIDENT. A. B, WoLvin, Duluth. ‘IST VICE-PRESIDENT. Capt. J. G. KEITH, Chicago, SECRETARY. oye CHARLES H. KEEP, Buffalo. TREASURER. GEORGE P. McKay, Cleveland. COUNSEL. ‘ HARVEY D. GOULDER, Cleveland. EXECUTIVE AND FINANCE COMMITTEE. JAMES CoRRIGAN, Chairman, Cleveland. COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION. Gipson L,. DotGLas, Chairman, Buffalo, COMMITTEE ON AIDS TO NAVIGATION. GEORGE P. McKay, Chairman, Cleveland, NAVAL TRAINING SHIPS. Capt, F. E. Chadwick, U.S. N., president of the Naval War College, wrote a letter for publication advocating sailing ship training for seamen apprentices for the navy. The letter was sent to a number of officers, some with much ex- perience and others with less, for comment. Fifteen officers, all told, approved the view of Capt. Chadwick, and accepted the suggestion that a sailing ship training is a good preparation for service on a mastless battleship or cruiser. Capt. Chadwick thinks that the sail- ing ship training makes character and produces the handy man and the active man. The whole tendency of his letter is to magnify the importance of the training with sails as peculiarly adapted to the development of desirable, manly qualifications rather than bookishness in the sailorman. Capt. Charles D. Sigsbee, U.S. N., alone appears in the discussion in the negative. He says that it takes too long to make a seaman of the old kind to attempt to get him through the training stations, and thinks that if we want a ‘‘seaman’’ who “‘is seven-tenths soldier and mechanic, then the best place to make him is not on board a sailing ship.’’ For the ships of to-day men are needed to perform new duties. “Tt would not be thought necessary on shore in haymak- ing to keep a man at the old-fashioned scythe for six months in order to educate him up to a seat on a mowing machine. That illustration about epitomizes Capt. Sigsbee’s whole argument. The necessity for knowledge of sails seems to him likely to pass with the abandonment of their use. The training on sailing ships is good as gymnastics, but he thinks that setting up drill and plenty of practice with oars, instead of resort to steam launches, would keep the muscular form of the men. Preparing a boy for service on sailing ships to put him on a man-of-war for which he has had no training confronts him ‘“‘with sanitary conditions of which he is ignorant, with a complex terminology, routine and construction, and also a multitude of duties and an all-pervading and rigid discip- line” that discourage him. ‘Itis his opinion that much time is wasted at Annapolis in teaching seamanship with sailing ships and frankly admits that the influence for sails were too strong for him when he undertook to make a new definition of the word, suggested by the modernization of the fleet.» The fight to keep sails reminds him of the efforts to prevent other new things— rifles for smooth-bore guns, metal for ships’ hulls instead of wood, and steel foriron. He has held his views for fifteen ‘and $291 was collectsd as penal taxes. years, and he says that they are nearer realization than they were fifteen years ago. He would not bring up the naval apprentice on antiquities to prepare him to understand modern construction and modern terminology. rr TONNAGE TAX RECEIPTS. The Bureau of Navigation reports that tonnage tax receipts during the last fiscal year amounted to $903,139, the ‘largest annual total since the change of the law in 1884. The tax rates, however, are lower than those in the principal British and German seaports. From corresponding light dues Great Britain received $2,421,903, and expended on its light-house and buoy system $2,393,142. The appropriations for the Light-House Service of the United States were $3,894,591. American vessels paid only $67,704 tonnage taxes, the number engaged in foreign trade, chiefly with near-by ports, being very small. British vessels paid $559,357. Steam vessels paid $755,991, sail vessels $146,857, At New York the collections were $294,120. At Honolulu $22,160 was collected, an amount about equivalent to the total increase over the previous fiscal year. —_——$—$_$_$—$ eae REFORM SCHOOL SHIP. In Sydney, Australia, the government.has a nautical school ship which is used asa reform school. Upon it some 450 boys are put through a regular course of education and training. They have the studies of the common schools, and at the same time are drilled so that they are fit to be sailors when they leave. The ship is called the Sobraon, and is as well equipped as school training ships anywhere. The boys also have land quarters on one of the islands of the bay, and altogether they are well treated and asa rule are made into good men by their training. They have their cricket grounds, their swimming pools and all sorts of games. They are taught to swim and are put through a daily course of gymnastic exercises. They wash their own clothes, keep the ship in order, but do not contract work of an industrial character. After leaving they are apprenticed to farmers or business men in different parts of the colony of New ‘South Wales; and the reports frcm these are that they do exceedingly well. Theschool is asuccess, and has been so ever since it was organized, about 35 years ago. —————$aan oa eae COAST ENGINEERS’ WAGES RAISED. The Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association No. 33, of New York, have issued a circular to the various lines of steamships running out of New York under the United States flag, giving the schedule of wages to be paid and the number of assistant engineers to be employed. For the foreign trade, which takes in Central America, South Amer- ica and the West Indies, the vessels are divided into two classes. The first class comprises vessels of 2,500 tons gross and over.and all vessels bound to Pacific ports. The wages for this class are: Chief, $150; first assistant, $90; second assistant, $80; third assistant, $70 per month. Second class takes in steamers of 1,200 tons and under 2,500 tons. The rate of wages for this class is: Chief, $135; first assistant, $80; second assistant, $70; third assistant, $60 per month. All steamers in the above classes are compelled to carry three assistant engineers. The coastwise trade is comprised of two classes, vessels of 2,500 tons gross and over being in the first class, and those of from 1,200 to 2,500 tons gross forming the second class. The rate of wages for each class is the same as above given. All steamers on a run exceed- ing twenty-four hours will carry three assistant engineers, and those on a run of less than twenty-four hours to have two assistant engineers, CONDEMN THE CONNING TOWER. Before the next Congress is organized and its committees are made up to determine the character and extent of future expansion of the navy, plans will be completed for several new battleships and armored cruisers. It begins to look as though these plans might provoke very warm discussion about some radical innovations that may be prcposed. The most important change that may be suggested will be the abolition of the conning tower. Discussions in the Board of Construction tended to show that the conning tower was becoming regarded as a vast, useless weight. When this idea of uselessness was touched upon by naval officers quite a shock was caused to those who had looked upon the conning tower as an indispensable place of obser- vation for the commanding officer. When questions came to be asked as to where the conning tower had been put to use, answer was made that there was no record of any officer having fought his ship at Manila in a conning tower. From Admiral Dewey down every commander appears to have di- rected the operations of his ship from the open bridge. “Same was at Santiago,’’ put in a blunt but reckless mem- ber of the board. ‘‘All but one,’’ was the correction offered by the distinguished ordnance officer. At all events it is considered more than probable that the day of the conning tower is over. British designers and constructors are for giving it up, according to naval officers. The weight that would be saved by omitting it could, in the estimation of the advocates of its abandon- ‘ment, be more effectively employed in general or emplace- ment armor, in machinery, or in coal storage capacity. Other modifications may be madein the new ships. A British naval officer recently at the Navy Department, was interested to know whether the United States naval con- structors were disposed to regard with favor the suggestion now under consideration in England to cut down the top hamper of battleships and cruisers and to have everything aloft not higher than sixty feet. The necessity for masts, now that electricity is coming to be almost exclusively used for signaling purposes, seems to be diminishing, and the ‘‘mastless’’ ship may not be far off, even the military mast being threatened by the proposition to do away with the fighting top. Close-range fighting might justify top arrange- ments from which to pour fire into the enemy, but with guns effective at the great distances now observed in war, the fighting topis not regarded by advanced naval con- structors as of great importance. Still other agitation, in- dulged abroad, is for a ship with decks clear of all struc- tures except the turrets, conforming the vessel in fighting trim closely to a double-turreted monitor. These ideas make interesting reading of an article in the last issue of the Proceedings of the Naval Institute. OO OS FRANCO-CANADIAN STEAM LINE. The Franco-Canadian Steam Navigation Co., of Canada, (limited), has made application for incorporation. The purposes for which incorporation is sought, are: To own, charter and navigate steamships and all other kinds of craft including tugs and barges for the conveyance of passengers, and goods and merchandise between the ports of Canada and to and between the ports of all other countries, and to own and enjoy lands, docks, warehouses and other terminal facilities as are convenient for the purposes of the company. Their chief place of business is Montreal. The intended amount of capital stock is $1,000,000. The names of the applicants are Francis H. Clergue, managing director of the Lake Superior Power Co., of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.; Hon. Robert Mackay and Hon. Alfred U. Thibaudeau, Senators, Montreal, Que.; Hon. I. Melvin Jones, Senator, Toronto, E. S. Douglas, Philadelphia, U. S.; J. R. Booth, President of the Canada-Atlantic Railway; Geo. E. Drummond, W. E. Blumhart, Henry Miles and Ll. E. Geoffrion, Montreal.