The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-07-23
THE WORLDS DEMAND FOR WAR
 TOOLS

! TOOLS.
 1 George B. McWtlliams representing \ a steel company, was in the city yes ] terday, on his way home after trip to Texas. Mr. McWilliams, who is Scotchman by birth. was formerly connected with foundries in Birming- | ham, England and is familiar with the 1 iron and steel situation on both sides of the water. Talking of the subject | in general way yesterday atternoen' I he gave some interesting facts in re- l gard to the business that has been
 done in munitions of war.
 Dating from the blowing up of the | Maine" he said, everybody in the | world who has been engaged in the
 manufacture of what I might call roughly fighting tools has made
 money, and many of them have made enormous fortunes Prior to that time 1 business was slack. even with such
 great firms as the Armstrongs in EnG- l land, Krupp in Germany, and the | Schneiders in France. The demand was l barely enough to keep them going, and profits were very small. But with the ] Spanish American war all that was 1 changed, and for over two solid years every manufactory of arms and muni- | tions of war in existence has been run | ming at full capacity day and night, and making money like a mint
 "When l speak of fighting tools, continued MT. McWilliams. I mean not merely heavy ordinances and rifles but
 cartridges projectiles, fuses, bayonets,
 swords, pistols, machine guns, range finders, and everything else used in
 battle Most of the great powers have
 gun works and ordnance factories of their own but they are unable to sup ply more than a fraction of the de-
 mand and the surplus orders are placed with private concerns, many of which control valuable patents. The English firm of Vickar Maxim, for instance. has been so crowded with work that 1t has been compelled to enlarge three times within e twelvemonth. I un- derstand that the net profit on it's smallest size machine gun is about 5000 and as it hasn't been able to make them fast enough, the returns must be enormous. When the Spanish-Ameri- can war was declared, the agents of this government fairly begged for few dozen of these guns, and finally got some through the courtesy of Bra gil, which agreed to let the firm deliver a consignment already bought and paid for.
 There has been the same story ev- anywhere, and the demand has been especially great for light artillery The Krupp works turn out very handy little gun, ranging from 12 to inch- rI Ioc cf they have gotten virtually their own price. This government bought num- Der and while the Boer war was at it's height England is said to have pur- chased several complete batteries at more than twice their regular price,
 Tn this country the arm and ammu- milton makers have fared equally well, Since the war fever began q lot of con cerns that were formerly engaged in entirely different work began to turn their attention to projectiles and other speciaties, and have been reaping a golden harvest. I know one steel works that is now making nothing but small shells, nothing above three inches, and is perfectly deluged with orders. The buildings are ramshackle wooden af- fairs, and its insurance premiums are something enormous, but one of the members of the firm told me lately that they literally didn't have time to build although plans and specifica- tions for new establishment had been approved months ago. They were mak- ing so much money that they didn't want to stop a moment. Their orders come from all over the world, from England to Japan.
 Another concern which I call to mind on the spur of the moment is making an exclusive speciality of what are known as 'delay-action fuses They are intended for use in shells and ig- nlte upon impact, but do not imme- diately explode the charge. There is an interval of fraction of a second, which gives the shell time enough to get inside of ship or farther before it flies to pieces, and enormously in- creases it's destruetiveness. The fuse is an ingenious piece of mechanism, and when complete is enclosed in a brass tube about the size of a small wax taper. It costs s1.89. The concern of which I speak was a one-horse tube works few years ago, and never ultduitd ol HitbhlisS lliti4l'io'ic ci wal. It got hold of a patent covering the style of fuse it now makes, and found thath a very slight alteration of it's machinery would enable it to go Into the business, so 1t began operations and has since then declared the biggest dividends on record.
 Those are merely random instances out of dozens. The frearm makers were formerly devoting their attention almost altogether to sporting goods. Now they are turning out ten military rifles to one shotgun, and can't begin to supply the demand. They all make small calibre magazine rifles on the general plan of those adopted by the principal governments, and each con- trols patents of it's own. Most of the weapons go abroad and thousands have been sold In South and Central America. The cartridge makers have also been busy, I know of one Ameri- can agent who sold half a million homemade Nauser cartridges, put up in clips, to quiet gentleman he never laid eyes on before, who walked into his office one afternoon six or seven months ago and completed the deal in less than an hour. The price paid was a fancy one, and what became of them