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52 DEVOTED TO EVERYTHING AND EVERY INTEREST CONNECTED OR _ ASSO- CIATED WITH MARINE MATTERS ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. Published every Thursday by The Penton Publishing Co. CLEVELAND. BUFFALO .......00000000000-932 Ellicott Sq. CHICAGO ...........+++-1362 Monadnock Blk. CINCINNATI .......First National Bank Bldg. . NEW YORK ..........1005 West Street Bldg. PITTSBURG 20. 0.00.3.000000..001 Park Bldg: DULUTH ...............411 Providence Bldg. Correspondence on Marine Engineering, Ship Building and Shipping Subjects Solicited. Subscription, U. S. and Mexico, $3.00 per annum. Canada, $4.00. Foreign, $4.50. Subscribers can have addresses changed at will. Change of advertising copy must reach this office on Thursday preceding date of publication. The Cleveland News Co. will supply the trade with the Martinez Review through the regular channels of the American News Co. European Agents, The International News Company, Breams Building, Chancery Lane, London, E. C., England. Entered at the Post Office at Cleveland, Ohio, as Second Class Matter. December 5, 1907. THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE. The message of the president of the United States gives us hope; but this is not saying much, for hope is a fountain fed by eternal springs. The message does not revive hope since hope is never ex- tinguished, but it nevertheless gives buoy- ancy and color to it. In this particular instance the president has approached the shipping question in a manner to which none can except. His argument carries conviction with it. Is it unanswerable. Subsidy and the fear of private gain are all put aside. He pleads for a simple ex- tension of the ocean mail act of 1891, and proves conclusively that our facilities for delivery of over-sea mail are inadequate on account of lack of suitable steam- ships. THe Marine REVIEW If a nation should be self-contained in any way it certainly should be in the in- terchange of communications. The great- est privation that the pioneers of this country endured was the absence of word from their families over long periods of time owing to the lack of means of com- munication. Consider what it must mean to a nation to be deprived of mail facili- ties; and yet that is precisely the situa- tion in which the United States 'is today. The president indicates the remedy. He shows that the net profits of the ocean mail service are annually over $3,500,- -000--a sum sufficient, if intelligently ap- plied, to project mail routes in places where they are now lacking. In other words, an adequate service can be per- formed without any cost to the people whatever, to say nothing about the sub- sidiary benefits that would be bestowed upon the whole people by the revival of so. important an industry as ship building. The' bill which was filibustered to death in the senate last March simply provided for the extension of the ocean mail act 'of 1891 by the projection of four addi- tional mail routes. The president proba- bly had that bill in mind when he wrote his message and his words must be taken as a desire to have that measure passed. His exact language follows: I call your especial attention to the unsatis- factory condition of our foreign mail service, which, because of the lack of American steam- ship lines, is now largely done through for- eign lines, and which particularly so far as South and Central. America are concerned, is done in a manner which constitutes a serious barrier to the extension of our commerce. The time has.come, in my judgment, to set to work seriously to make our ocean mail ser- vice correspond more closely with our recent commercial and political development. <A_ be- ginning was made by the ocean. mail act of March 3, 1891, but even at that time the act was known to be inadequate in various particu- lars. Since that time events have moved rap- idly in our history. We have acquired Hawaii, the Philippines, and lesser islands in the Pa- cific. ° We are steadily prosecuting the great work of uniting at the isthmus the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific. To a greater ex- tent than seemed probable even a dozen years ago, we may look to an American future on the sea worthy of the traditions of our past. As the first step in that direction, and the step most feasible at the present time, I recom. mend the extension of the ocean mail act of 1891. »That act has stood for some years free from successful criticism of its principle and purpose. It was based on theories of the obligations of a great maritime nation, undis- puted in our own land and followed by other nations since the beginning of steam naviga- tion. Briefly these theories are, that it is the duty. of-a first-class power so far as practicable to carry its ocean mails under its own flag; that. the fast ocean steamships and their crews, required for such mail service, are valuable auxiliaries to. the sea power: of 4a nation. Furthermore, the construction of such steam- ships insures the maintenance in an efficient condition of the shipyards in which our bat- tleships must be built. The expenditure of public money for the performance of such necessary functions of government is certainly warranted, nor is it necessary to dwell upon the incidental benefits to our foreign commerce, to the ship building industry, and to ship owning and navigation which will accomplish the discharge of these ' urgent public duties, though they, too, should have weight. ; be The only serious question is whether at this time we can afford to improve our ocean mail service as it should be improved. Aj doubt on this subject is removed by the fe. ports of the postoffice department. For the fiscal year ended June 30, 1907, that de. partment estimates that the nostage ol. lected on the articles exchanged with for. eign countries other than Canada and Mexi. co amounted to $6,579,043.48 or $3,637,226.81 more than the net cost of the service ex. clusive of the cost of transporting the arti- cles between. the United States exchange postoffices and the United States postoffices at which they were mailed or delivered. In other words, the government of the United States, having assumed a monopoly of carry- ing the mails for the people, is making a profit of over $3,600,000 by rendering a cheap and inefficient service. That profit, I believe should be devoted to strengthening our, mari- time power in those directions where it will best promote our prestige. The country is familiar with the facts of our maritime im- potence in the harbors of the great and friendly republics of South "America. Fol- lowing the failure of the ship building bill we lost our only American line of steamers to Australasia, and that loss on the Fa- cific has become a serious embarrassment to the people of Hawaii, and has wholly cut off the Samoan islands from regular com- munication with the Pacific coast. Puget sound, in the year, has lost over 'half (four out of seven) of its American steamers trad- ing with the Orient. We now pay under the act of 1891 $4 a statute mile outward to 20-knot American mail steamships, built. according to naval plans, available as cruisers, and manned by Steamships. of that speed are confined exclusively to trans-Atlantic trade with New York. To steamships of 16 nots or over only $2 a mile can be paid, and it is steamships of this speed and_ type which are needed to meet the requirements of mail service to South America, Asia (in- cluding the Philippines). and Australia. 1 strongly recommend, therefore, a simple amendment to the ocean mail act of 1891 which shall authorize the postmaster general in his discretion to enter into contracts for the transportation of mails to the renublics of South America, to Asia, the Philippines, and Australia at a rate not to exceed $4 a mile for steamships of '16 knots speed or unward, subject to the _ restrictions and obligations of the act of 1891. - The profit of $3,600,000 which has been mentioned will fully cover the maximum annual exnendi- ture involved in this recommendation, and it is believed will in time establish the lines so urgently needed. The proposition involves no new principle. but permits the efficient dis- charge of public functions now inadequatelv performed or not verformed at all. oe Concerning the navy department, it 1s a pity that Roosevelt, who is more fa- miliar with that department by inclina- tion and training than any president we have ever had, should not have looked the facts more squarely in the face. He refers to them, of course, but simply by inference. He says: But it is idle to build battleships unless in addition to providing the men and the means for thorough training, we provide the auxiliaries for them, unless we provide docks, the coalinge stations, the colliers and supply ships that they need. We are extremely de- ficient in coaling stations and docks on the Pacific and this deficiency should not longer be permitted to exist. In our opinion the president should Americans. have emphasized the collier as the great A coaling station, which 1s presumably a dock,:is a necessary thing, but it is useless without coal. The col- lier makes it efficient. Again the presi- dent says: The battle fleet is about startine by the Straits of Magellan to visit the Pacific coast. Sixteen battleships are going under the com deficiency. mand of Rear Admiral Evans while eight armored cruisers and two other battleships will meet him at San Francisco, whither el tain torpedo destroyers are also going. oo