New Britain herald., 1917-09-21

SHIPDU|LD|NG EASY
 IN BRITISH YARDS
All Material Accessible, Making Transportation Unnecessary

Glasgow. Aug. 2s. Correspondence ] of the Associated Press.-The ship 1 builders of Great Britain. who soon 1 will be turning out virtually nothing else but standard ships and war ves- sells, have one advantage over the shipbuilders of the United States that will be hard to overcome. They have
 nearly all their materials at their i back doors.
 From the decks of ships in one of
 the yards in the northi of England, for instance, everything used in the construction of vessels is within sight. Iron is extracted from hills that look to be almost across the street. Coal comes from the same place. On the other side of the yard
 are great coke ovens, smelters, fur
 naces and rolling mills. Plates and steel forms may be carried from the mills to the ships under construction in carts drawn by horses. A single company extracts the ore, prepares it with it's own fuel and sends it away from it's own plant as finished ships ready for the sea. There are many such examples here in the north. The success of more than one of the ship building concerns may be partially
 traced to the proximity of materials used.
 Makes Munitions on Side.
 So great is the supply at the dis
 posal of the shipbuilders that in many
 cases they have entered into the man.
 ufacture of other things than ships
 One yard, which owns a great roll ing mill turns out in addition too steel for it's own tremendous needs, something over 2,0O0 tons weekly of great steel forms which are shipped away to be made into projectiles. Another yard has turned over some 1 of its buildings and sheds to the ac- l tual making of projectiles from steel taken from its own plant. Still an other is engaged almost solely upon the construction of standard ships l and thereby has released quantities of it's equipment to making "steel | for the Germans"
 Another had large stretch of land | in the rear of its place which before the war was used mostly as a slag i dump and storage yard for steel. 1 All this has been cleared away and 1 now the site is covered by big air l plane factory. Needless to say, this plant is so isolated that the Germans l never could locate it. and if they did | know where it was they never could | damage 1t.
 The shipbuilders of Britain are in- l tensely interested in what the United l States is going to do toward increas- l ing the shipping tonnage of the l world; and they are anxious to do l everything possible to assist in the plans. Only one thing did they have to suggest; they were unanimously agreed that under no consideration should workers in the yards be per-
 mitted to join the armed forces. When l England went to war the shipbuild- 1 ing concerns encouraged their en- l ployes to enlist but now and for
 some time past, with assistance of | the government, former employees
 are being released from the army
 and the navy to return to their work.
 A shipbuilder or a man with a know
 ledge of shipbuilding Is worth ten
 times as much to his country in
 shipyard, company officials say, as he
 is in the armed forces.
 The builders of ships for Britain
 have all the material they need and
 gradually they are getting sufficient
 number of men to do the work that
 only men can do. Female workers
 are all very we'll, they say, but
 woman cannot handle an automatic
 riveter or swing a sledge