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government sanction. Every move she makes is known. The fixed policy of the law is to make her safe, but it is also to facili- tate To seek to limit the field of her her employment. now operation is a blow at a privilege that was ancient when Rome was young and which has stood unchanging through all the ages. The right of the ship to pur- sue her calling has been safeguarded by but now she is asked under this ruling her through business, nations since time immemorial, to surrender both go her independence as a water car- passenger, and freight, or fore- rier. Both of these services are in- terwoven in the fabric of her business and both are necessary to her profit- Neither the one singly machinery of an able existence. nor support 'the established The building of these lines has the other could costly line. not been the work of a day or of a year, but of long periods of time. The trade has demanded steamers of splendid proportions, costly to build and costly to operate, and it has them. These an enor- mous outlay of capital and could not steamers represent be profitably operated on through business alone or port to port busi- this other must be ness alone, and yet if ruling stands one or the abandoned. It spells ruin to exist- ing lines. It puts the established line at the mercy of any pirate of com- merce. | The government has spent millions to develop its waterways for the sole purpose of cheapening and_facilitat- Why should an arm of the government now seek by ing transportation. an arbitrary ruling to render the economical administration of the waterways impossible? Waterways are nature's highway and are intend- ed to be free. Being free, the ques- tion of tates can safely be left to competition. It never was the inten- tion of the framers of the act that railroad should' This latest ruling inter- Prets the act in legislation waterways. in- a manner not tended by congress and is a positive Menace to capital' invested in steam- Ship lines, = Utes." include i TAe Marine ReEvIEw THE MARINE ENGINEER AS WE KNOW HIM. engineer' who recently called at our office expressed, during the course of conversation, some sur- prise that. brothers of te <icth" seemed to have the preference where a vacancy was to be filled in a posi- tion on land, especially when the po- sition was one calling for a man of marked ability as a practical engineer, possessed of an iron nerve and keen judgment. The engineer had recently called wpon a former shipmate filling an enviable position in one of our larger cities, and while there met the superintendent and his other assist- ant, all of whom were marine engi- neers. Our friend was enthusiastic about the positions held by the su- perintendent and his 'assistants, for- getting for a time, until we gently directed his attention to the 'over- sight, that he holds a position un- dreamt of a few years ago, when he was one of three engineers on -a steamer engaged in the South Amer- ican frozen meat trade. Whether it is that the marine en- gineer always has in mind the possi- bility of suddenly being called upon to display hitherto unthought of in- genuity in repairing a disabled set of propelling machinery, or realizes just how much is dependent on his ability o "hold down" the most complicated, compact and varied assortment of machinery in existence, the fact re- mains that he stands in a class by himself, a man of rapid decisions tem- A marine - pered with good judgment, untiring energy and marvellous patience. It is only necessary to look into the records of the past year or two, to see what the marine engineer has ac- complished in the way of meeting the demand for rapid travel, particularly in the trans-Atlantic passenger ser- vice, where the largest and fastest passenger vessels in the world are propelled by turbine engines. The past year or two also records some noteworthy marine repairs, made un- der in the case of the Eagle Point. It is not only the grasp of detail and capacity for work that recom- mend the marine engineer. His abil- ity to adapt himself to circumstances is one of his most valuable attrib- We remember on one occasion asking an engineer of a typical tramp steamer why he was so laboriously. constructing a hand-feeder oil can from some scraps of sheet metal, es- necially when an elegant can could be purchased by the tramp ship's most adverse circumstances, as . 'had been offered, man whose experience has so emi- 33 owners for a small sum. He paused long enough in this efforts with the soldering iron to gaze pityingly upon us and announce that there weré two good -reasons why he didn't ask for the hand-feeder. One reason was that his ship was' no millionaire's yacht, the other being that he was desirous. of preserving his job. On another, occasion we met two tramps engineers on the wharf of a port some few thousand miles from. New York. They were. bound for their vessel, one of the engineers carrying a short bar of steel picked up some- where on the dock. As it was a move than usually dark night, the steel bar, to the stranger, might thave had a rather sinister appearance. It devel- oped, however, that the bar would "come in handy" at some future time when the engineers of a certain tramp steamer would find it necessary to fashion some new machinists' tools: The tramp engineer is a happy-go- lucky individual, with a wonderful in- stinct for adaptation, Apropos of the versatility of the marine engineer we have in mind an assistant who, on the installation of a small refrigerating plant aboard his vessel, promptly proceeded to ac- quire, by contact with the men in- stalling the plant, endless questioning and buying up all available works on the subject, a good working knowl-. edge of the system. He it was who, when: trouble came to the system, haunted the little refrigerating room and nursed the striving machinery with untiring care. The ship was not overmanned by any means and his fellow engineers. were more pleased than otherwise to let him take voluntary watches around the leaking ammonia system. The pass- ing years saw this engineer sign on with various types of steamers and gain. a reputation as an expert on. re- frigeration. His fellow enginee:s re- ferred to him, not unkindly, as an "ice machinery crank," and gladly fell back on him when an unusual hitch occurred. We recently heard that he and accepted, the position of superintendent in a "targe refrigerating plant in New Zealand, and know that he will make good. And his is only one instance of many we could mention. Taking everything into considera- tion it is little wonder that the ma- rine engineer, as our caller remarked, seems to have the preference when a position is to be filled calling for a nently fitted him to fill it.