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Progress, Volume II, Issue 4, 1 February 1907, Page 138

needed to make an inviting dwelling, pleasing to the eye and a pride to the owner. The chief iault of block structures is monotony. A square house made of four block walls, with blocks all of the same size and made from the same mould, windows equally spaced, and the same everlasting blocks used for piazza posts and perhaps perched on the roof to form an open-work cornice, reminds one of the houses children build from the wood blocks of the nursery. What is needed is variety and artistic design. No other material is so capable of this as concrete, for blocks of any pattern and shape, also columns, capitals, cornices, friezes — all these can be turned out by the million at a trifling cost, if architects will only tell us what make There are multitudes of people about to build who would adopt concrete blocks without a moment's hesitation if they could see something tolerable in the way of design. Here the block industry is under a heavy handicap Architects are slow to take up a new material and study its capabilities and to change their habitual styles of design to suit its requirements. Domestic architecture in stone is a branch of art which has been but slightly developed in any country, and yet its possibilities seem to be unlimited It is, of course, only a question of time when many architects will see the opportunity which this material offers and the advantage to be gained by making a specialty of this new type of construction Without their assistance the block-maker is helpless, and the growth of his business must be slow Perhaps it may be in the artistic utilisation of concrete, both

tons gross on December 31st, 1905, and 474 vessels of 1,325,328 tons gross on Sept. 30th, 1905 The returns, remarks Syren and Shipping, merely compare the totals of the two Septembers, and from these it appears as if there had been a gradual decline from 1,325,328 tons to 1,264,767 tons But as the figures which we have given show there was a slight revival, which is now apparently subsiding Of the vessels on hand 478 of 1,253,531 tons are steamers and 34 of 11,236 tons sailing vessels. One of the steamers, representing 500 tons is of iron and 14 of the sailing vessels, representing 1400 tons are of wood or of composite construction The rest of the tonnage is steel lhe June total, it may be pointed out, came to within about 4000 tons of the record of September, 1901. Compared with it the total is now 144 000 tons down "No such striking decrease within one quarter has," says Lloyd's Register " taken place in the shipbuilding industry of the country for the past 22 years, it being necessary to go back to June 1884, to find so rapid a diminution of the work on hand " Considering that wages questions aie " local " problems and that their solution depends or ought to depend, on the amount of work on hand, we think Lloyd's Register would be well advised to amend Table II so as to show the fluctuations from quarter to quarter in each district \\ c do not say this in any spirit of dissatisfaction w th the leturn as it is We incline to the view that Lloyd's teturns would make the basis of a first-rate sliding scale and we should like to see the compilation so clear that the meanest of the shipyard

appear to be need for an elementary text book of commercial practice, which should include such obvious maxims as " Do not sign documents you have not read " " Note carefully the difference between monthly and yearly rates of interest." The story might be useful also of the moneylender who was always content with a modest five per cent It was an attractive modesty until one discovered it to be quarterly Then the sweetness of its simplicity disappeared