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my mind along that line, but it so happens. that I have some 15 or 16 of these crafts, which this year will show «an average earning and divi- dend to their owners of perhaps 22 per cent on their cost. I do not be- lieve any fleet of steamers in the United States will show the same record. Those of us who build ships for money, and design our own ships, and raise the money with which to build them, have to furnish dividends for our owners, and we have a treble problem. The steamer usually has only one problem, which is set- tled by the young fellows just out of a teciuinal school, and = who sit around and spend millions of moriey, wasting their energies and other peo- ple's money over the drafting board, but some of us have to build ships -and run them for money, and I think that is the real test of the usefulness of a ship. Now, Mr. President, they will con- tinue to build these fore .-and aft schooners just as long as hard pine grows on the hill. We have not be- gun to touch it. After we are all dead they will be still having some type of fore and aft vessel, large ves- sels, fitted for the coastwise trade. Then, too, there is just this thing to remember. We have learned through all these generations, in the evolution of that type of craft, how to preserve material. These ships last longer than 'ever they did, and meanwhile with the higher tensile strength of steel comes its shorter life, so that in point of age, the wooden vessel and ithe steel vessel are approximate. The percentage which you charge off each year for depreciation, the figures con- tained in the percentage of deprecia- tion, that is the thing not to be for- gotten. Just a word further about this sup- ply of hard pine which is the chief material we use today. me as though there will be aplenty for. 50: years. -They still grow oak frames in Virginia, enormous 'big oak frames, four of them in a tree,/17 by 17, and sometimes 18 by 18, and a large ship takes about 600 tons, or 40 cubic ft. of these frames. There is another thing about these vessels. We build them with about three times as much timber as they should have, to provide for their decay, knowing there may come a time, perhaps in 10 years, when one rib in three will have to furnish the strength, and we provide to have it adequate. There is another thing about these ships, they have grown and evolved until they are today in an almost perfect condi- It looks to' THE MarRINE REVIEW tion. Your fathers, your grandfath- ers, and your great grandfathers, were engaged in that line of marine work. They have perfected a great many things: Ina great many of tne steamers, you see all sort of crudities, in vessels of th's type, and it would seem as if the owners are content to have some young fellow with his suspenders over his breeches design their ships and build them for them. I object to that kind of work with any ships in which I am interested. The minuté. a man gets ft for his work he goes to something else, and the aforesaid young fellow, with his suspenders over his breeches, makes the designs for ships. That would not do if you competed with us, you could not compete with us. We have it attended to in a better way. Once more, if there is such a thing as schol- arly respect for the evolution of ages, and for the breed of an animal to fit his' perfect conditions, | say that these large fore and aft vessels are very nearly to the limit of present conditions' "of matefial We have heard some wonderful stories here about the speed of well-known ships. I have some 15 or 16 captains who ™ bring in these yarns to me, and I have watched the coming andthe go- ing of vessels, in both the coastwise and foreign trade. The best yarn I can vouch for is that of 15 knots for five' hours in succession, but as some one has suggested in this discussion, it is not the fastest vessel which is necessarily the most profitable vessel in making these runs. We build ships for money, we build them for their average dividend. I submit, as long as these are vessels of commerce and not war vessels, nor racing vessels, that they shall be judged by the rate of return they make to a limited per- iod of time, and on that basis they still: fly their flag 'clear to the royal truck. ae The President: I should like a few comments to be made on the steam collier. © Mr. Palmer: Just along that hne, as to the steam collier, in which you are interested. vessels have 'filled every form of steamer transportation,., with which they have been brought*in competi- tion. "We can live and pay dividends with these wooden vessels, when the iron steamers cannot earn their salt. These same wooden The proof of 'this "is a' long period' of years in which we have been do-. ing just that thing. I do not say it will last forever. I do not know when conditions will change, but I believe their usefulness will remain unim- 2 19 paired in that direction for many years to come. Of course, I recog- nize if we could build ships as they do on the Clyde, with the price for labor and material which applies in that place, it might be an altogether different thing, at all events, I should instantly begin the building of steel vessels right today, or tomorrow, if the circumstances warranted. Let us see what we have had in recent times along the line of these steel colliers. We have one large company in Boston that-built a lot of , them. They were immediately taken out of competition with us, and put into the Pacific trade, The largest concern which has built these steam colliers has stated over and over again the impossibility of competing with these large fore and aft sailing vessels under their conditions. Now, these conditions are peculiar. It is in the nature of a distinction between hay and grass. In the case of 4 steel collier carrying 7,000 tons or 10- 000 tons, if you can always have the dock ready, and get a passage, have the cargo ready, of course in such a case as that 'there is no such thing as competition with steam colliers by the 'wooden vessels. When, however, the cargo is not ready andthe steamer has to wait for her berth, and there are other troubles and annoyances arise, so that she is delayed, then costing so .much to build, and cost- ing so much to operate, the fore and aft schooner will be more profitable on the whole. Now, when this delay becomes very excessive and the ves- sel has 'to lie out over night wait- ing for her load, or her discharge, then the schooner is just between the steamer and the barge. We are now witnessing in the last days of one of the most magnificent characters in this country, the failure probabl} of a great dream, to take coal from the mines to the docks, holding the trans- portation facilities, the docks at both. ends, and the steamer--to take the coal by one process all the way from the mine to the gas jet of a very. large portion' of our country. The man who has endeavored to do that shall be without name, we all know hint, and we all know that his gi" gant'c fortune is probably going 'to be much wasted in the endeavor to carry out that problem, if, indeed, it does not go down in' final defeat, and for this*reason, that the fog will go -against the steamer and if you run six of them together, you must slow down. The northeastern gale still comes around Cape Cod, and we must remember that the fog still-impedes &