THE SHIPBUILDING EFFORT

Taranaki Daily News, 20 March 1918, Page 6

THE SHIPBUILDING EFFORT

SPLENDID WORK IN AMERICA. (By Fullerton L. Woldo, Associate Editor of the Public Ledger, .Philadelphia). Philadelphia, Dec. 21. The statement made by Chairman j Hurley, of the Shipping Board, to the i investigating senators is the soundest warrant for optimism that has yet been issued. We have among us a few busyi bodies who seem to think it, their business to pull a face of gloom whenever ; people say cheerful thingsv and Hurley's explicit facts and figures are'a 1 bomb In , their camp. i Hurley tells those who talk about "micumatic optimism" and "cabled chloroform'' that 1427 ships of 8,573.108 dead weight tons are under construction and contract where 0,000,000 tons are l needed. He tells them that seventyj four new shipyards have been started j in the United States since January 1, 101". I was examining the bluo-prints I cf one of the newest of these yards last j night. The -whole outfit is being put I together with the resultant easy-run-iiing compactness of an Elgin or a WalIham watch. For the yard in question ■fn't simply a paper incubation; there are nearly 17,000 men "on the job" at this hour, as busy as hornets. In a few days they are going to let me study the growing plant from top to bottom ;ind from end to end. On all the merchant ships of Chairman Hurley's census taken December S there were 140,272 i 'lien at. work—an increase of 4f>.2 per rent, in nine weeks. Tu the plant of which I have just spoken more than '0 not) men will be employed when it is in full blast. There are now two or lliree shifts where there was one in many of the yards. i Mr. Hurley tool: hold at the end of ! July. Then there war, a tonnage of i F-10.000 in wooden ships under contract. ' -W7.000 tons of composite;shins, .'587,0011 i -'mis of steel ships. Since that time tho ; contract growth'has added 3.373 200 tons •■f steel shipping and 504.000 tons of ( wooden shinning to the above figures. j On the Pacific coast "the tide lias turned" .'A few months ago the outlook

there was not hopeful. Now they are .turning out big ships in two months. The month of November alone shows forty-six contracts for 192' vessels of 1.05-1,400 tons.