New Britain herald., 1917-06-27

ships on which quick deliveries could
 be obtained would be the wooden
 ships, and they might decide the
 issue of the war.
 The program of General Goethals
 apparently contemplated about three
 million tons of shipping in eighteen
 months Even If all of the wooden
 ships that possibly could be obtained
 in addition to this were built 1t would only be a total of five million tons in eighteen months and that would not
 be nearly enough at the present rate of loss Discarding the Hough and
 Donnelly designs. General Goethals
 decided upon a design drawn by The
 odore E. Ferris. . we'll known ma
 rine architect. The Ferris type of
 ship conformed to the conventional
 design. Unquestionably 1t was a bet
 ter ship than the Hough or Donnelly
 type. But for tho purposes intended. 1t had this one great disadvantage
 that 1t could not be built quickly nor in large numbers. It's construction required large number of ship car penters and these are nowhere availI
 able in this country today, In decid- ing upon the Ferris type of ship General Goethals cut down the wooden ship program to about one- fifth of its original size.
 I wish to note here the fact that MT. Ferris himself as consulting arch itect for General Goethals approved the Hough design.
 The adoption of the Ferris design only meant that to get a needlessly better type of ship-in other words. to play safe-it was proposed to abandon about four-fifths of the wooden ship program. and. more im- portant still. to postpone the date of delivery of the ships. In this grave war emergency the two controlling factors are time of delivery and the number of ships. It Is a question of how many ships you can get over to the allied ports and how quickly. In 1 this issue there is no question of comparison of steel ships and wooden ! ships. There Is no question of whether the Ferris type of ship is generally speaking . better type than that designed by MT. Hough or MT. Donnelly. It is solely and entirely
 a question of whether the ships can
 be built in time to aid our allies and our country in this war.
 The shipping situation Is constant l ly growing worse. The submarines
 sank 100000 tons of shipping in the first four months of this year. Italy's fighting power is crippled by | lack of coal. It Is said that ten ship ] loads of coal In Italy would release an
 army corps for fighting. Italy needs | 25O, ,0OO tons of shipping per month and is receiving no more than fifty thousand tons. The French and Ital- ian navies suffer for lack Of coal. Russia has bought in this country 1 5000 tops of material which she wishes to ship. It is said that 350.- Oo0 tons of this Is now waiting on
 our wharves for ships. The British situation has been made clear by the
 words of Lloyd George that "There
 are three things needed to insure victory, the first is ships. the second Is ships and the third is more ships' l Under these circnmstances can we af- l ford to overlook any available re- l source that will help us in the quick construction of ships?
 l It Is not . question of how long these ships will last or what value I they will be after the war;, It is
 solely . question of getting as many
 ships as we possibly can and as 1 quickly as possible. Sooner or later we will awake to our need of ships l and when we do we can have them. but we must awaken to this need be- ! fore 1t Is too late. Let Us hope that I Germany will not be able to say of us as she said of her enemies early l in the war. ''Too few and too late. :"
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