The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-04-19

number more than eO.O0o year. It is capitalized at 20 ,0O0, 900. and 1t earns more than 10 per cent on that amount. It has now 127 ocean steamers, more than 150 river steamers and about B,oO0 employees.
 The chief competitor of the Hamburg American line Is the North German Lloyd, which sails from Bremen. The two com panies were founded along about half century axo, although the North German Lloyd Is the younger by nine years. They both started small and both now pay big interest on large capital. The North Ger man Lloyd, for instance, Is capitalized at s2600o. 600. It employs in the neighbor- hood of 1900 men, and vies with the Hamburg-American as having the fastest ships upon earth. In this company there are seventy seven large ocean steamers( and among them ships sailing to Asia, South America and Australia. as well as across the Atlantic. I am told that its steamer lines now number about thirty, but these include some branch lines and minor lines in other parts of the world.
 South American Steamers.
 Germany has . large steamship connec- ton with South and Central America. It competes with England and France for the trade of the east coast of our hem isphere and also does . large business on the lower western part of it. One or the chief lines is known as the kosmos' This sends ships clear around the con tinents via the Strait of Magellan. us ve.seIs often 70 as far north as san Erancisco and 1t has big trade with Mexico, Peru, Chile and Argentina. An other steamship line goes rom nere .o Brazil and German vessels sal Tar up the Amazon Most of the South American ships are paying good dividends. me Kosmos Company made proht ol ID pe. cent in 1900 and some other compa'es pay almost as well.
 The Asiatic Lines.
 rt used to be that the English had the r,ononoIv of the Chinese and Japanese trade They had the best steamers ana II was the aristccratic thing to go on tne p and O. Of late years the Enshsn boats have fallen of. They are Tar pe- hind the times in comfort and speed, anu the Germans are getting the travel. Ine hext. accommodations from Asia to Eu- rome are now found on the North German Lloyd steamers: and they carry iarse number of passengers, both nrst ana sec ond -ciass The same is true or the Aue- traiian ships of this line.
 The Germans now trade along the coast of China, and they are ever trying .o cap ture the rivers. They are building steet sbips on the American plan for the Yanxtse Kiang which shall sail under the German flag. They will make twelve knots an hour, and will have triple expansion engines. worked by crude pe- troIeum, They will run from Shangnai to the great tea port of Hankow' aoout seven hundred miles in interior China, and there connect with smaller German steamers, which will go as far up as the gorges of Ichang, or altogether aoou. 1000 moles from the coast.
 They have also regular lines of steam CTS to Kiauchau, their port on the Chi pese coast.
 German Ships for Siam and Philip
 .. pines.
 The Germans have ships which call at Tien Tsin, and they regularly trade at the Japanese ports. They have recently put on line to the Philippines. The ships TO from Hamburg down to the Mediter- ranean and crossing that through the suez Canal to Ceylon, Singapore and thence to Manila.
 They now practically control the ship ping of Siam. Five years ago the Brit ish had Ss per cent of this business put now SC per cent of 1t IS carried on under the German flag The German capital ists bought out the British steamers and added more. The service now is better than it has ever been, and the Siamese trade is going to Germany. It !s the same in many other parts of the globe, and were 1t not for the Reorganization of our lines. as the merging of the steam ships by the Americans Is called, they | would have a fair chance to eventually capture the commerce of the world. Fortunes in Shipbuilding. The Germans are not only making mon- ey out of commerce, but out of ship | building as well. They rave now some of the largest of the shipyards. They make the biggest and the best ships, and they i are manufacturing them, not only for | themselves, but also :or foreign coun- tries. The Krupps have big shipyards | at Kiel, not far from Hamburg. There are other yards at Flsnsburg and Bre- men, and the largest of all at Stettin on l the Oder, not far from the Baltic. All of these establishments have increased their capital within the past year or so to the amount of more than $2,00Oo0O, and | they are all making money. In 1900 the
 Flensburg yard paid IS per cent on its capital stock, and the Vulcan Company, which builds the greyhounds for the North German Lloyd and Hamburg American Companies, paid 12 per cent.
 The Kaiser is doing all hs can to en- courage shipbuilding. He thinks Ger many ought to depend upon its own ships | and in case of a protracted war should be able to make it's own gunboats. He | frequently visits the shlpyards; and is very proud of the fact that the Germans rake the fastest ships and the best. How the Germans Build Ships. I went from Berlin to Stettin to see | how the Germans build their best boats. | The town is on the river Oder eighty-four miles by rail from Berlin and sixty-nine miles from the Baltic. The way is through a thirsty country, where women | spade the fields under men as overseers. | and where all toll in the sand for a bare | living. The soil is so poor that 1t will grow little more than Christmas trees. Some parts of it are planted with pines and the forests are as carefully kept as we keep our gardens.
 After several hours we came to Stettin. It has about 2500O0 people and its ship building works and other factories are making 1t grow. It has like Hamburg A free port so that steamers from New York can come right to the city and un- load the food stuffs which are shipped there for the North German trade. The Vulcan Works.
 Its shipyards are on the edge of the city. They are known as the Vulcan works and are celebrated the world over as having turned out the Deutschland, the Kronprinz Wilhelm and other famous vessels. The new steamer Kaiser Will helm der Zweite was still in the yards at the time of my visit; it is prophesied that it will surpass anything now on the ocean in speed.
 I saw ships building there for the czar ] A-HN-