Morning journal and courier., 1881-07-15
Friday Morning, July 15, 1881.
A MILITIA FOR THE SEA.


 In the North Ame7Tean Reoteao for August Mir. John Roach makes a strong appeal for the restoration of American power on the ocean, and sets forth well considered and apparently practicable plan for attaining the desired end.
 The plan starts with the construction of ] one hundred fast iron screw steamships to be divided into five classes, and all to be en- gagged in the foreign trade. Twenty of these ships to be of 4,o0o tons burden, with speed of 16 knots; twenty of 4,O00 tons, with speed of 15 knots; twenty of $500, with speed of 15 knots; twenty of 5000, with speed of 15 knets and twenty of 2,5Oo with speed of 15 knots the last twenty to have a draft of water not exceeding, when loaded, fourteen feet, so as to enter some of our southern ports. These vessels would give, according to MT. Roach's calculation, with our present shipping, a carrying capaci- ty of g, ,50O, GOO tons of commerce, and an earning capacity of $70, COG, 1000 yearly. To accomplish this result Mir. Roach's plan follows precisely the method pursued by the great maritime nations. England during the last forty years has expended on mail ser- vice and in opening up new markets which I give her the grand position she holds to-day on the ocean, S2OO, 900, ,OoO, or an average of $5,00O,oOO per year. Suppose, says Mir. Roach, our government were to appropriate each year from three to five million dollars, as might be required, with the objects in view of carrying our mails and opening new l markets to our increasing manufactured and agricultural productions thus guarding against the complications of a European war by having our commerce under our own flag, and building up steam navy superior to any we have ever had, and equal to any now adoat under any flag. 'Such a course, say, with the present cheapness of capital, and the knowledge that our Government had adopted similar policy to that of England and France, would inspire such confidence in the minds of our merchants and men of capital that they would furnish the capital for the ac- comphshment of so grand an object, not merely, perhaps, through any patriotic mo- tive, but from the knowledge that the invest ment would pay. I know one man from whom one-quarter of the amount needed to
 
 at onee'' Con basis of free. competition both for the building of the ships and the mail service to follow.)
 MT. Roach would have these vessels built so as to be in time of war a resource of naval strength. He asserts that they could be al- tered into iron-clad cruisers in thirty days, and in closing asks s'Can there be any doubt as to the advantage it would be to this country to have such a fleet of swift steam ships, in time of peace developing the na- tion's wealth by opening up new markets for our surplus products, and in time of war or in case of emergency, ready with trained American engineers and seamen to defend the nation at it's call ?" It would certainly have been great advantage if we had possessed at the beginning of the war of the rebellion fifty such ships which could have been al- tered into effective cruisers in thirty days A strict blockade of the southern ports in the first year of the war would have been very damaging to the rebel cause.