The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-11-08
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1896 IS STILL UNFINISHED, VOTE TO FINISH IT TO-DAY.
PULLING UNCLE sAM's LEG.

1 l War is never an econom cal op ra- tion, and history tesli' es t. at patr o- l tism seldom acts as a deterrent to mod- 1 fly the rapacity of those human sharks who consider the public treasu legit = mate prey at all times, and wh SC appe- | tite becomes phenomenal whenever an emerR ency arises in the life of a na- l ton. Cul nasty preparations for war with slain naturally cost enormous sun s. because the government was at
 great disadvantage in the market, par | ucularly in the purchase and hire of vessels, and there are many ses tco well known to need repst tion where the owners of comparatively wortrl ss 1 ships have gotten rid of their property at extraordinary valuations, But it may have escaped the notice of many who are interested in such details that | the expedition to the Philippines has been conduced with a most wasteful ex- penditure of money particularly for | he transportation of the troops. | Without going into confusing particu- | ErS. my state that in general terms, the stea mers which conveye tho | lloups were hired at rates varying fl, m eight to fifteen hundred dollars per | diem, the government to furnish the coal In addition to this price The ob- l Vious way of dealing with ttis rr1bl m would have teen to have put the trans ports in command of naval officers or, if that were impracticable, to have ap- l rontsd to each ship an expert whose duty would have been to see that the | vessel under his inspection fulfilled the | nnntran n In poo 1a of this sort was done or even thought of, as far as is known, and, consequent | ly, there was an enormous bid for fraud. Steamers which were claimed to have speed of sixteen knots never reeled off, under the most favorable circumstances, more than tn hrteel ! when the troops were on board, and on
 their return voyage that speed was di- unfinished by at least twenty per cent.
 1 A feet of these expensive transports lay off Cavite for weeks discharging cargo in the most deliberate way, and when they were finally ordered home | proceeded to take on their coal in a manner which would put even the | Spaniards to the blush. The case of one ship was particularly ridiculous
 she was coaling at the rate of only twenty-five tons day and burning from ten to fifteen tons to run her pumps, dynamos, distllers and ice ma- chine. Others to be sure, did better than she but not ore performed tn S l operation with anything like an ap- proach to the ordinary speed of coal ng.
 Once away from Manila and on the homeward trip the captains "sojered' | 0 ro1Irh oc th1u oh for +, ,rr1e O | check put on their navigation. The coal'ng operation becoming finally, al- | most a scandal the ships were ordered
 to take in only enough to last them to Hong Kong, and, after partially fill ng their bunkers there, to proceed to Na- gasaki and finish. By this plan it was proposed to save money, because coal is slightly cheaper in Hong Kong than in Nagasaki. But at the rate the trans- ports steamed on the way home 1t took two days longer to go by way of Hong | Kong, and they saved say five hundred dollars on the amount of coal they took in at Hong Kong at a cost to the gov | ernment of two thousand dollars in some cases and three thousand dollars or more in others. Their speed was | simply ridiculous The Morgan City dawdled along nearly seven days from Hong Kong to Nagasalki, less than eleven hundred miles. The City of Rio de Janero never did more than eleven | knots an hour although she eas ly | makes fifteen. She arrived at Hong Kong at eleven o'clock Saturday night, had finished coaling at four oclock the next day, and had everything aboard at that hour, but did not sail until the fol- lowing morning. At Nagaseki she made repetition of this farce, and finally fingered along homeward at the comfortable speed of eleven knots pre- sumably because she was not in de- mand to return to her schedule on the Pacific passeneer route until December 10. The Zealandia was caught in ty- phoon or at least in heavy gale, on the way to Mas asaki, lost some of her upper works, went into dock there for one month (the government paying twelve hundred dollars per diem for h T hire), was thoroughly refitted at the cost to the government of thirty-three thousand ven, or about $16,500 in gold
 and then sailed for San Francisco. The board of surveyors who inspected he1 found that she was in very bad condi- ton and had been for long time, but when she left the dock few days ago she was in thorough order. This story
 might be prolonged and the history oi every one of the score of transports which went to the Philippines might be related to the discredit of those who are responsible for the fulflment of theiI
 contracts. But I have said enough tc show how the game has been played
 They were chartered in good faith or
 terms most favorable to the companies
 which owned them but the way they have "saueezed' the government of the United States is now, and will be for a long me common talk in shipping cir cles in the east.
 The management of transports or voyages to the ends of the earth is not
 provided for in the army regulations
 hut there is among these laws for the
 government of the army an extraordi- nary one which is to the great advan- taee of some of the enlisted men and considerable loss to the treasury. Ac-
 cording to this regulation any soldier
 at tha eyDira tiOp Ot