The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-22 00:00:00

rIiIIIPBUILDING FOR THE ADI►IIRALTY

THE MERSEY v. THE TYNE.
Tuesday last the Lords of the Admiralty de-
eded to accept the tender of Messrs. Laird, of Bir-
kenhead, to build an iron screw steam transport, at
£26 per ton, and that of Messrs. Samuda Brothers,
of Milwall, to construct a sister ship at £24 ss. per
ton. The Army and Navy Gazette, of Saturday, in
annouueing these contracts, has the following re-
marks ;—" It strikes us that this determination on
the part of their lordships is open to very grave
criticism. Here we have a difference of £1 15s. per
ton, or a gross sum on the tonnage of £4,900 ; and
when we take into consideration the fact that the

Mersey shipbuilders have an advantage over their
brethren of the Thames to the extent of 10s. per

ton in the purchase of their iron, Bs. per ton on
their coals, something considerable on their scale of
wages, and no small trifle in the difference of the

value of their premises—taking all these matters,
we say, into consideration, we might arrive at the
conclusion that either Messrs. Laird will make a
very handsome sum out of this job for the public, or
that Messrs. Samuda will have to regret their par-
ticipation in it ; but from information which has
reached us we are enabled to say that a very emi-
nent London shipbuilder, who has never failed to
give satisfaction to the country, was prepared to
build the ships at even a lower price than Messrs.
Samuda. The same can be said of another firm on
the Mersey, another on the Tyne, and another on
the Humber. All these gentlemen are of high
standing in their profession, and were perfectly
ready to enter into the required bond for the due
performance of their contract, and were thoroughly
willing to comply with all the requirements of the
Admiralty. We may therefore safely say that
Messrs. Laird made a hit of rather an enviable
character on the 9th inst. We can scarcely believe,
as several parties have insinuated, that the calling
for tenders from eight firms was a mere farce, and
that it was predetermined to give the contracts to
the two houses already mentioned. It is to be
hoped that the Government will be afforded an
opportunity to explain their conduct in this
matter, for as it stands at present it is
" beyond our comprehension." It is rather difficult
to see what is aimed at in this paragraph, the whole
of the complaint seeming to be that Messrs. Laird
have got a better price than Messrs. Samuda, and
that the Government did not accept the lowest ten-
ders. Other firms on the Thames, the Tyne, and
the Humber were prepared to build the ships at a
lower price, and to enter into the required bond,
.&c. But what is there in the arrangements made
to warrant such comments, or to call for explana-
tions from the Government ? Eight firms were
invited to tender, and the Admiralty, not being
bound to accept the lowest offer, gave the contracts
to the two firms which they considered, from their
reputation and experience, the most eligible for such
engagements. Mr. Laird's tender was, it seems,
£1 15s. per ton more than Messrs. Samuda's ; but
both builders are, it is only fair to suppose, equally
good judges as to what is the lowest prices they can
afford to build at in a manner worthy of their re-
putation, and Mr. Laird could not be expected to
lower his price to Messrs. Samuda's, with any more
fairness than he could be asked to execute the work
at the prices named in the tenders from those yards
on the' Tyne and the Humber which the Army and
Navy Gazette does not name, but concerning some
of whom the report of the Galway Contract Com-
mittee, to be issued to-morrow or next day, will
probably not exhibit quite so much squeamishness,
if we may augur from the evidence. The total
failure of the penalty system in the case of the iron-
eased ships has, it is believed, shown the Admiralty
the necessity of employing only builders of the
highest eminence, and who have worked in a punc-
tual and a proper manner, for the department be-
fore ; and to this cause, it is but reasonable to assume,
the selection of Messrs. Laird and Messrs. Samuda
in the present instance may be ascribed. It is no-
torious, and the lesson cannot have been lost on the
Admiralty, that the firms on the Thames and the
Tyne failed to complete the iron-cased ships by the
time stipulated in the contracts, though working
under heavy penalties for non-completion, because
they knew by experience that the penalties would
not be enforced ; and the lamentable break-down of
the Galway liners built on the Tyne and the Hum-
ber at prices several thousands under what any
builder of eminence on the Mersey or the Clyde
would have constructed them for, is at once an
example of that false economy which appears to be
recommended by the Army and Navy Gazette, and
a warning against its adoption by the Government.
The Engineer of last week, probably a better judge
of practical matters of this kind than the Gazette,
after stating that the Galway Company paid
S:60,000 for each of their vessels, and, after losing
one on her second voyage through springing aleck,
are now employing Messrs. Laird to make the
others seaworthy at a cost of about £20,000 a-piece,
observes very judiolougly, that "bad they given
£lOO,OOO per vessel at the beginning, they might
now be running four splendid steamships, built by
such firms as Laird's or Samuda's and engined by
Penn or Maudslay, and be returning ample profits
to their shareholders." What is best for private
companies must be best for the State also, and we
are glad to see that the Government is at last alive
to a truth so obvious. Lord Clarence Paget, if
interrogated on the subject of these contracts, may
justify the selection of Messrs. Laird, notwithstand-
ing the difference :of price, by the facts that the
Dover, the first vessel built by the firm for the
Admiralty, though more than 20 years old, is still
in good condition; that the same firm have since
built about 40 vessels for the Government, and 50
or 60 for the East India Company, all of which are
known to have done good service ; and that the gun-
boats built by them during the Russian war, as
fully shown by the report, were the only vessels of
that class that were not found, two or three years
afterwards, more or less affected by dry-rot. Surely
it is better for the country to have its ships built
by such a firm, than to follow the "penny wise and
pound foolish" example of the unfortunate Galway
Company, even though by the latter course there
should be a seeming saving of a few thousand
pounds in the first instance.—:Liverpool Albion.

THE EUI'II.RATES VALLEY ROUTE TO

(From the London and China Telegraph.)
It is not too much to say that there is no existing
or projected railroad that can for a moment com-
pare, in point of interest and importance, with that
of the Euphrates Valley. It brings two quarters
of the__ globe into juxtaposition, and three continents
.biErope, Asia, and Australia—into co-relation. It
iron 11' the vast population of Ilindostan by an
Ink with the people of Europe, it inevitably
entails theof colonisation and civilisation of the great
valleys
in a h Euphrates and Tigris, the resus-
citation,
and the modernshape, of Babylon and Nineveh,
re-awakeningals of Ctsiphon and Bagdad
of old. It will
China—an
the. mail route to and
from Australia and Coortanna—an element of prosperity
of a very great importance, for the passenger traffic
coloenei
from the Australian
weekly, and ere the railwayes exceeds one hundred
be five times that number
ifanhbe completed will
will take the shortest route, while moreti than half
emigrants from this country who will
preferenumber of
sage of forty to over eighty days, may alsoleafrl-
expected to be very large. According to Sir
John
Macneill, who was assisted in the survey by n
Cap-
tain Burgess and the officers of her Majesty's steam
ship Stromboli, there is every facility for making a
harbour in the vicinity of the ancient port of Sileucia,
near the mouth of the Orontes, and the country
via Antioch, Killes, and Ailam, to Aleppo, ninety
miles in length, presents no engineering difn.-
(tufty. By making a detour a rich settled
country, dotted over with towns and villages, is
accommodated, and branch lines would be
unnecessary. A large traffic is already in ex-
istence, as the toll-books at a bridge on the Orontes
show that about 1,200 camels and horses laden pass
each day. This will be the most important portion
of the railway, from the Mediterranean to the Per-
sian Gulf, the link from Sileucia to Aleppo is in
itself a complete work, having a port at one end
and the chief emporium of Mesopotamia at the
other, to which the traffic from India, Bagdad, Sze.,
converges. Or should the railway be carried on to
the Euphrates, 60 miles beyond Aleppo, by the
route recommended by Gen. Chesney and Sir John
Macneill, there would be a still more perfect work
of about 150 miles in length, beginning at a port
in a great sea and ending at the head of a naviga-
ble river in a greater ocean. This would be of
itself, and by itself, a complete, perfect, and pro-
fitable enterprise; not only would a new country
be opened up to European enterprise, but a direct-
mess in the route to India obtained, which few would
believei who do not work it out on the map.
laking the line of the Austrian railways to
Trieste, thence by rail to Jabor Castle, down the
atresau of the Euphrates and by the I" •
to Re rya h
ee, where the Scinde Railway, the first
cornPletee
work waf Indiantl_ line, commences the future net-
a roue,s as direct
lines, the traveller will follow
pected. to avorreact as any railway can be ex-
will take the tra. Eight days and six hours
thence the railway
through Trieste to Sileucia,
the head of the ttaYvivilhl take him in five hours to
Three days and i'liregeale waters of the Euphrates.
hours more will see the river
voyage completed- to Bussorah ,
days—making in. all 14—bring andthe three
_merorteo
Kurrachee, where the Scinde Attu traveller
keeps the
webLein door of th :e railways of our Railway
empire.
Like most of the ( iater railways for which India
is indebted to •An Andrew, this line from
Sileucia to Jab or castle, though complete
in its,olf, is regal :ded by him as the parent of