The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1919-03-26
sells In good years before the war.
Few Liners launched

Practically no large first class liners
were launched. This work was al.
most wholly confined to the Belfast
and Clyde yards of Messrs. HarIand
and Wolff, where five such vessels
were turned out. But of these the
largest were only of II POI tons. which
is not large when it is compared with
the big Cunard, White Star, Hamburg
American, and other vessels which fig.
ured in shipbuilding records in pre-
war years. The contribution of liner
tonnage to the 1918 total was, indeed,
almost negligible, while, of coasting
vessels and other special service mer
chant steamers there were remarkably
few.
The hopes of large output rested
solely on the standard shipbuilding
program, and the war did not last
long enough to give it the chance for
which Lord Pirrie was preparing-the
chance of proving that British ship
building could and would rise to the
height of the great occasion. Whether
1t would ultimately have done so is
now only matter of academic dis
cussiOn. Certainly, so far as avail
able figures show, it did not seem,
when the armistice was signed. that
it was likely to do so in the then near
future.
The wonder work of the war period
is to be found not in mercantile ship
building, but in naval; and above all
things in naval engineering. Taking
the record of the Clyde alone, we find
that during the war 4S1 vessels of
770,347 tons and 6,093,S3 l.. h. p. were
constructed, as additions to the navaI
strength of the country.
In this total there are included no
merchant vessels ordered by the gov
eminent ESQ that the standard ship
building program is completely ex-
cludedD and no general service trawl-
ers, or tugs, or handy craft built to
government order.
All Actual Fighting Ships.
All are actual fighting ships, carry
ing guas and designed-each within
it's own sphere of action-for taking
part in naval operations. The list is
composed of battleships, battle-cruis-
ers, light cruisers, destroyers, subma-
rines, an armed merchant cruiser,
seaplane carrier, monitors, mine.
sweepers, those new vessels known as
''sloops," but which are really little
light cruisers or low speed destroyers,
gunboats, patrol boats, hospital steam
ers, and also those Q boats and p @
boats of which so very little could be
said while the war was on, or can be
said even yet for that matter.
1t is an extraordinary list, and as
tabulated it looks more like navy
in itself than the record of the work
of one river during the war. 1t is
headed by that great Sheffield-Clyde.
bank firm, Messrs. John Brown & Co.,
Limited, who turned out no fewer than
forty-seven vessels of 155, 1853 tons and
1868, 800 horse power, and in whose
work there were included the great
battleship Durham and the great bat
tie cruisers Tiger and Repulse, not to
speak of the still greater Hood, about
which even yet nothing can be said
except that she exists, and is being
completed at Clydelbank.
The Hood was the greatest of all
British mystery ships. She and the
Rodney Cat another Clyde yard-that
of the Fairfield company would have
been the great surprise packets of the
war. In speed and gun-power they
were to have exceeded anything af1oat,
and what they were intended for only
our naval authorities and the builders
knew. Only the Hood, however, will
be completed.
When it became evident that the Of
fensive power of Germany was waning,
and that the naval power of Great
Britain and her allies was Overwhelm-
ingly sufficient for all likely pOssi-
bilitieS. the question of proceeding
with the construction of two such
great vessels came up for serious con-
sideration. If they were not to be
required for this war they would be
lost, as they could never be required
again. Even granting the possibility
of another war they would be out of
date before it came.
Decision to Complete Hood.
But while the Rodney was in the
early stages of her construction at
Fairfield the Hood was well advanced
at Clydebank. So it was decided to
complete the Hood as a great speci-
men of the latest in British naval
architecture, but to scrap all that ex-
listed of the Rodney. That is how
we are likely to have, for many years,
one great odd ship, capable of out
running and outranging any other ship
of war afloat-unless it should unfor'
tunately be the case that it will be
necessary to carry naval designs still
further, build still larger, faster and
more heavily armed vessels.
Meantime the Hood is the worlds
greatest fighting ship, and if ever the
Institution of Naval Architects are al
lowed to discuss her designs in public,
there should be revelations of extra
ordinary interest.
PI1t II iS raaI1v in marine onpiOpprs