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20 ie TRE MARINE REVIEW | DEVOTED TO EVERYTHING AND EVERY INTEREST CONNECTED OR ASSOCIATED WITH MARINE MATTERS "ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. Published every Thursday by The Penton Publishing Company CLEVELAND. CHICAGO: MONADNOCK BUILDING. PITTSBURG: PARK BUILDING. NEW YORE: 150 NASSAU STREET. Correspondence on Marine Engineering, Ship Building and Shipping Subjects Solicited. Subscription, $3.00 per annum. To Foreign Countries, $4.50. Subscribers can have addresses changed at will. Change of advertising copy must reach this office on Thursday preced- ing date of publication. : The Cleveland News Co. willsupply the trade with the MARINE REVIEW through the regular channels of the American News Co. European Agents, The International News Company, Breams Building, ee Chancery Lane, London, E. C. England. Entered at the Post Office at Cleveland, Ohio, as Second Class Matter. - ES ApRIrt, 26, 1906. IMPROVEMENT OF WATERWAYS. The present year will be rich in the number and variety of conventions which will be held in various parts of the country for the improvement of inland _ waterways. The National Rivers and Harbors Con- gress, which was organized in Washington last Janu- ary, is proceeding upon a liberal scale to interest various: sections in the supreme importance of water- ways upon national life: The waterway is the natural avenue of transportation and yet how continuously it has been neglected by the United States government. It is a natural leveler of rates, and yet the government annually expends five times as much on its navy de- partment as it does on its waterways. The mission of one is to destroy; the mission of the other is to up- build. No money which the government invests pays such enormous dividends as does the money expended in the improvement of waterways. In his very inter- esting report filed with the war department, Major Charles L. Potter, government engineer at Duluth, computes that the saving in freight in shipments from the port of Duluth alone for the single year of 1905 was. more than had been expended on the chain of lakes for waterway improvements since the founda- tion of our government. Surely with such returns as this congress should not be niggardly in dealing with waterways. The sum of $50,000,000 which the National Rivers and Harbors Congress set out to se- cure is none too great. When the annual appropria- tion for the improvement of waterways reaches $50,000,000 it will be seen that the freight rate will fall in proportion as waterways are improved. Navigation on the lakes has opened with some sur- prises for the vessel owners. Stage of water is fully one foot less than it was last year, with the result that some of the vessels loaded to the usual draft have been brought up abruptly in the channels, and thus do the pioneers at every opening of navigation point out at their own cost the obstructions for others to avoid with profit. AMERICA'S DUTY TO ITS MERCHANT MARINE. A nation. with a coast line should be self-contained in all things that pertain to the sea. Its maritime posi- tion should always be one of its chief concerns. It should not suffer any policy to continue that operates to lessen its maritime importance. It should main- tain at all hazards many efficient ship building plants in order that its war fleet may be effectively built and rapidly replenished in case of need. Without an ef- fective navy a nation with a coast line is in a bad way. It should also maintain a numerous merchant marine as the only natural cradle for its navy. If economic conditions operate to make the merchant marine a difficult thing to maintain, these conditions should be removed or compensated for. Such a con- dition obtains in the United States today and is re- sponsible for the fact that the country has practically no merchant marine in the foreign trade. The policy of the American government is protective. This policy has been extended to every department of in- dustry, but for some reason shipping has been ex- cluded from it and is a tremendous sufferer thereby. If the country were on a free trade basis, shipping would have nothing special to complain of, because it would be meeting equal conditions. But the ship- ping of a protected country which is itself unprotected, has a double burden to bear. 'It cannot possibly com- pete with high priced vessels and high priced labor with low priced vessels and low priced labor. This is precisely the condition in the United States today. The shipping bill, which was drafted by the merchant marine commission after a most exhaustive inquiry, is sustained to remedy the ills set forth in this article. It should be passed. If it is not passed, there is no hope that the American flag can long survive. SCIENTIFIC LAKE NAVIGATION. The course of instruction in scientific naviga- tion now running in the Marine Review under the direction of Mr. Clarence E. Long, will be continued throughout the year. The course will be unusually thorough, but everything will be subtracted from it that does not aid the lake navigator. All that will be printed will be meat for him. There will doubtless