Norwich bulletin., 1921-11-26

One unexpected result of the confer 1 ence on the limitation of armament may be the establishment in this coun- l try of a wholly new and apparently i profitable enterprise. This is the unique work of ship destruction as opposed to ship construction; the salvaging of con- demned naval vessels chiefly for the iron and steel which they will yield writes Brigham in the Boston Trans cript The idea originated in the navy
 department, and has taken up with
 the officials of the chamber of com
 merce, U. s. A, who have expressed
 great interest in the plan and are now
 preparing to lay the subject before their membership for the attention of such capitalists as may be attracted to investment in the new field. The industry Is not new in England, where no less than ten ship breaking up plants were in operation before the war. Within the last few years, or since the unprecedented damage caus- 1 ed to shipping by the war, no less than | 200 more of these scrapping plants 1 have been established in Great Brit
 ain-evidence in itself that the busi- ness has been found profitable.
 l The United States naturally possess
 es none of these peculiar plants at
 the present time, for the simple req
 son that we have been trying to up- l build our Navy and not send 1t to | the junk heap, and that the Ameri- can merchant marine until recently has been so small that the problem was rather to increase it than to destroy the vessels in operation. The idea of
 establishing these novel plants is the
 outcome of a series of events. The present Navy has some ships which are about ready to go into the dis
 card, while the so-called disarmament
 proposal of Secretary Hughes pre-
 sages the retirement of many more
 war vessels. The shipping board has a few ships which are available fol
 no one but the junkman, and unles:
 American business men meet the pre-.
 sent opportunity, this new and at pre-. sent non competitive industry may gC l, abroad. The material fit for salvage , will be chiefly engines, boilers, pumps and all auxiliary machinery, includ , ing electrical, besides the iron, stee and copper of which, in various parts the ships are composed.
 The suggestion that this busines should be established here comes at , particularly fortunate time, when un teInp1Oyfnent or ShlpyarG workers threa l ten as one of the consequences of tn l reduction programme. Many of tn 3 shipyards are idle today, and more vii 3 be when the Government stops con l struction of naval vessels in accord ance with the pledge given to the con l ference by Secretary Hughes. It ha e been suggested even, that the Ameri cans programme will inevitably lea l to the abandonment of many of tn | navy yards. However that may be, tn navy yards are not and cannot b available for use as scrapping plant! e if for no other reason that the govern s ment will part with title to the shin e when it sells them, and that navy yard e cannot be employed upon private worl = But the cessation of naval constructio y will throw many men out Of worl t and these would make ideal employee f for the concerns which may be or y ganized to make junk of the ships. g is hardly true that it requires as muc e skill to take down a ship as to bull k one, but it would naturally follow thi e the men who have built ships wouI d have superior knowledge of how to tai