The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21

wv ILL Japan gobble the trade or w the s,o oF,en'' ,s 'av,nu her plans to do so and from now on will strain every nerve to that end. l have just returned from an investigation of one of the lines along which she is working. I refer to shipbuiding. Since her war with China Japan has established great shipbuildng yards in different parts of the empire, and she has now tens of thousands of men making steel vessels for her foreign trade. Coming into this harbor of Kobe the most striking things I saw were two huge, unfinished steamers just launched from the Kawasaki dockyards Each was of 5000 tons and is intended to form part of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha line, plying between Japan and Europe by the Suez canal. These vessels will be com pleted within few months, and they will be among the biggest steamers going to Europe. In addition to them half dozen 6o00-ton ships are now being built for the same line here and at Nagasaki and there are many other steamers under way. The country has over HOO steamers of various kinds which she has built at home, and of these 173 are of steel. She has 4000 home-built sailing craft. and the total tonnage of her steam merchant marine aggregates more than HOG, 900 tons.
 Some of the best and biggest of the home-built steamers have been made here at Kobe, and the largest in the Kawasaki shipyards, which I visited today. These yards are on the left of the harbor as you come in. They front the west shore and they cover more than 40 acres. The water front Is forest of scaffolding sur rounding the ships now under construc- tion, and the berths include two for 5000- ton vessels, one for 5000 tons, another for 14OO0 tons and one for 20 GOO. There are also berths for ships of from 800 to 5000 tons each and for ships of every kind from torpedo boats up to great ocean liners. Out in the harbor a 5o-ton steel crane Is being erected.
 The Kawasaki company has lately con- structed ten gunboats for the Chinese navy. It built a yacht for the late em- press dowager, and something like 30 of its steamers are now plying on the Yang tse Kiang and other Chinese rivers It has built one destroyer and three torpedo boats for the King of Siam. These have just been delivered and three more have been ordered A 6000-ton ship for the Pa- cic trade will be completed this month and there are other vessels under way Altogether since it's organization the Ka- wasahi company has built more than 800 vessels of different kinds. Its works have had in their employ during the past
 
 900 men. This force has been somewhat reduced on account of the hard times but the prospects for improvement are good and the managers tell me that they will be soon running full again. The com pany has a capital of $5. 900 and it pays dividends of 12 per cent.
 In going through the works l was in- terested in the up-to-date machines and in the masterly way in which these all mond-eyed laborers handle them. The ID 900 employees are paid from 121s cents to H.25 a day. the average wage being about 40 cents, or not more than one- sixth that of our men. For these wages these Japanese mechanics are doing all the work that you will see done in such shipyards as Cramps, or in our big naval gun factory in Washington The men were dressed in European clothes and, at . distance, they looked not unlike our American machinists. Here they are working at the lathes, blaming iron like paper; there punching holes in a boiler plate at one or more per minute; and in another mighty shop acting as blacksmiths at score of blazing forges. I saw them handling cranes, some of which were car rying 25 tons of metal at one time. The cranes ran on overhead tracks from one end of the shops to the other, and the turn of screw lifted the load One such crane was carrying 60 tons and nearby, steel planers, which take in an area as large as a good-sized par1or. were oper- ating.
 All of these machines are of the latest hvention and the most improved style. Many of them came from America and many are electrical. The works are run by electricity, steam and water power, and the central power iyuse is equipped