The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-06-25


 Arbor, Mich. as the place where designs could be tested. It was in this tank that the tests were made whereby 1t was later possible to build at a shipyard some 600
 miles away. what is now in carrying ea- pacity the greatest river navigation steamboat in the world.
 Two or three years ago reports came to New York which told of great activity in shipbuilding plants along the entire Atlantic coast. The building of the Pan ana canal was>the chief impulse for new ship construction. In addition, however, the improvement of rivers and the per fecting of self driven barges and motor boats of sufficient capacity for freighting purposes increased the activities of the shipyards. It is not, therefore, primarily due to the war>in Europe that the Amer ican shipyards are now occupied to their capacity, although the war. by reason of the fact that it has focused public at tention upon our lack of merchant ma rine. has undoubtedly stimulated ship building activities
 From New England there come reports that every one of the shipyards there IS now pressed with work and there are inti- nations that some of the shipbuilders who have made Bath, Me, famous are also contemplating the construction Of great shipbuildlng plant at Mobile. In fact, the location of this plant has already been fixed upon and the plans for the building, as well as the estimate of cost Inclusive of dry dock of large capacity. have now been substantially completed. The Mobile shipyard will undoubtedly represent the increase of our commerce which will be due to the construction of the Panama | canal But it will also represent develop ! ment of commerce between the United States and the West India islands as well as the northern coast of South America An estimate has been made that should | there be no further orders for shfps' nevertheless the chief shpyards of the I United States have now orders enough on hand to keep them occupied for at least I two years ahd it may be for longer | period than that
 | This great development of shipbuiiding may receive a sudden check unless Con- gress at the earliest possible moment after | it assemblies in December next should amend the so2called LaFollette shipping | bill. For there is now no question that 1 if this law is maintained unchanged ship | building will receive a set back and 1t will be useless to talk about merchant marine.
 | Sir William Van Horne and Cuba Intimate personal friends of Sir William l Van Horne, some of whom are assoclateu with him in his Cuban enterprises, report | ed last winter when he was Ill that ne would upon his recovery visit Cuba, feei- l ing confident that the great work he mas undertake there in railway construction 1 and in the development of agriculture Will speedily justify all the energy and capital 1 he has put into this work. It is sometimes l spoken of as extraordinary that the busi- ness capacity and constructive aplity which have done so much for the railway | development of Canada should also be oc- cupied with great development in cuDa. It is, in fact, particularly due to SIT Wi- liam's constructive work in Cuba that the sugar planters there are now harvesting one of the finest crops ever raised upon the island.
 | There is, however. another feature as sociated with the work undertaken by | Sir William. An American corporation whose output is steel and which IS m | dependent of the United States Steel cor 1 poration. is the owner of iron mines III Cuba the magnitude of whose deposits can be no more than estimated, but the minimum estimate is not less than oOo,- l GOO GOO tons. Years ago the late Abram B.. l Hewitt master of the entire field Of iron and steel manufacture, including mining l properties, stated that the day was not distant when in his opinion the very rlch l iron ore deposits in Cuba would be deVel- oped and would surely lead to the estab-
  somewhere in the vicinity of Chesapeake l bay The ore could be transported by water he thought, at comparatively small cost from the iron district of Cuba to | Chesapeake bay. It is with the develop
 ment of these mines in mind that Sir | William Van Horne in part undertook ms
 great railway construction, which in-
 yolved not only the building of the main l line east and west, but also the con l strueton of little branch lines which
 would serve as feeders to the main line | It seems to be the opinion of those who are familiar with the steel industry that after the close of the war in Europe there will be an extraordinary demand TOT | American iron and steel products. George w. Perkins friends quote him as saying
 that in his opinion the plants of the | United States Steel corporation will be driven to their capacity after the war, | although Mr Perkins qualified this view | by saying that there must be also res | tora ton of confidence and an end of 1n- discriminate attack upon business by po- 1 litical agita tors. There appear to have been occasional hints in various comments
 Judge Gary made that he thinks as MT. 1 Perkins does. Others who are leaders in
 the iron and steel industry, but who are
 not associated leaders in the iron and
 steel industry, but who are not associated
 with the United States Steel corporation, are inclined to thlnk that there VIII De great steel manufacturing plants estab-
 lished in Maryland and at Steelton, Pa., although it might be more accurate to say
 that this development will be an increase
 of the capacity of plants already located in those places. Probably these steel lead | CTS will utilize their iron mines in Cuba. | Nor much has been heard recently about | the great iron mine plant for which Charles M Schwab and those associated
 with him have received concessions from Chile for development. But before the war broke out announcement was made 1 that the plant in Chile was nearly ready for operation. and that the ore could be | transported by gravity railroad from the mi1ies directly to the fleet of six specially
 built steamships which were to be con stantly employed in the transporting of the ores from Chile through the Panama canal to Philadelphia, whence it would | be conveyed to the Bethlehem plant. There is no reason for presuming that this undertakingshas been suspended, although apparently the capacity of the Bethlehem
 works is fully occupied with the fulfill
 ment of contracts which are for war or ders