The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-09-22

means not only tremendous naval docks
but also very deep harbors and the
navy yards that have channels deer
enough for the heaviest battleships vii
naturally be favored with appropria-
tions.
The plans for a reorganization Of the
department forces that have to do with
designing ships promise to be very i'm
portant. Criticisms have been pouring
in upon the Navy Department for years
because our Navy is so far behind other
countries in warship designs. England
was three or four years ahead of the
United States in the dreadnoughts, the
heavy fighting ships which have bat
teries of the all-big gun type. The
utility of those fighting monsters is
now fully acknowledged the world over.
But there is the equally important
question of motor power and engines.
England has led the United States in
the installation of turbine engines.
Several English dreadnoughts are NOV
ed by them. The United States has
built two scout cruisers with turbine
powers and has been experimenting in
recent month to demonstrate whether
turbine engines are as desirable as re-
ciprocating engines.
The English have also led in invest
igations Of fuel and, to some extent, are
using oil in place Of coal. The use OF
oil for fuel has enabled the English and
also the German navies to built torpedo
boat destroyers of far greater speed
than any American torpedo boat de-
stroyers. Of course speed la very
desirable advantage in warcraft of that
character. The British designers have
gone farther and experimental extern
sively with gas engines that develop
their gas on board ship. The fuel prob
lem is almost as important in the build
ing of great ships of war as guns or
armor plate IF the great space requir-
ed for the coal bunkers can be reduced
and steaming radius increased at the
same time, the fighting efficiency is
augmented Advance
ideas about fuel promise even to revolu
tionize the construction of warships and
even make the mighty dreadnoughts
back numbers.
Americans have beaten the world in
designing sailing vessels, and Secretary
Meyer believes our naval constructors,
all picked men carefully educated at
government expense, ought to lead the
world in designing warships. The
is very liberal with its
navy officers, pays them well in spite
Of occasional statements to the contrary
and has as much right to demand the
highest efficiency in construction as in
the operation of ships. But because
England is the first naval power the
habit has grown of looking to England
for new designs. This habit has become
50 slavish that certain supposed i'm
which were made in the
English navy and proven undesirable,
have been copied in ships of the Amer
lean navy, even after the Admiralty at
London has decided they should be dis
carded as errors.
Secretary Meyer is going to change
radically the organization which has
to do with ship designing. He proposes
to abolish the Board of Construction,
of the chiefs of bureaus in
The Navy Department. He is convinced
that those men are too much occupied
with other work to give the requisite
amount of time to studying out which
designs are preferable. The board has
been passing upon the work of the
Bureau of Construction heretofore. Now