The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-09-09
THE MERCHANT NAVY.
Uncle Sam to be Asked to Furnish
Guns for Ocean Greyhounds.

Congress at its next session, it is
expected, will furnish the 100000
asked by the Secretary of the Navy
for buying guns for the auxiliary
cruisers. Of course, this sum will
only go part way toward providing
ornaments for the merchants vessels
which Uncle Sam proposes to en-
ploy in the event of war. Mr.. Her
bert has said that at least Al of the
ships subsidized under the postal
contract ought to be armed with as
little delay as possible. To accom-
plish this would require 159 four-inch
guns, 159 fve-inch guns and six
inch guns. All these would be of the
rapid fire kind. To them would have
to be added 377 six Founders, three
Founders and one Founders.
Should there be war, more than two
score of the swift steel and iron
steamships which now peacefully ply
the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific
under the United States flag would
be transformed into terrifying de-
stroyers of commerce within a few
weeks time. Once afoat in their
new guise they would quickly wipe
the trade of a hostile nation off the
seas. Obviously, they could tackle
armored vessels of war, but from the
latter they would not have much fear
under ordinary circumstances, mas
much as they could run away. Be
ing so swift, they could harry the
ocean like tremendous birds of prey,
while nothing short of steel-walled
ships would be able to withstand the
showers of explosive projectiles dis
charged from their rapid fire guns.
The fearful effectiveness of these
rapid five guns astonished the naval
experts who witnessed the battle of
the Yalu and other sea fights of the
war between China and Japan. The
projectiles literally riddled the OPP
posing ships, strewing the decks with
dead and dying, cutting everything
to pieces, and setting fire to the wood
work. Metsmorphosed into auxiliary
cruisers each of the four great steam
ships of the American line-the New
York, the st. Louis, the st. Paul and
the Paris-would carry 10 five-inch
guns. Each gun of this kind is sup
posed to throw % shells minute; in
action, giving time for aiming at a
moving target, it would discharge
about Is shells minute Each of
these shells weighs so pounds, being
made of steel and filed with powder.
The money wanted by the navy for
arming the mercantile vessels is for
the purchase of certain equipments
In addition to the guns themselves.
None of the subsidized ships have at
present mounts for guns; that is to
say, carriages and tracks. European
powers which grant subsidies to
steamship companies for like pur-
poses have all the arms and equip
ments ready for them, the mounts,
shells and ammunition being slowed
away in store houses, ready to be put
upon the vessels at a few hours no.
tice. Some of the Atlantic liners
that come into the port of New York,
sailing under foreign flags, actually
carry part of their mounts and other
equipments for war in their holes as
ballast. In case of a declaration of
hostilities, on their return to Europe
they could get the mounts ready, and
be prepared to take aboard the guns
and ammunition as soon as they
reached the other Washington
Star