Show MARINE CORPS Another Step Taken by the House on the Naval Appropriation Bill WASHINGTON March 9Another step was taken today by the house naval committee toward the completion of its appropriation bill I was for the support sup-port of the marine corps which are practically the same In amount a those carried by the last bU were settled There remain the questions of the number num-ber of new battleships and the building of a dry dock at Algiers near New Orleans Or-leans which may be considered tomorrow tomor-row Since the appearance of Chief Hickborn of the bureau of construction before the committee last week two or three members have predicted that the battleships would be reduced from six to the number recommended by the subcommittee sub-committee to four because he asserted that the armor plate plants now at work could not turn out enough armor to keep pace with the building of more than four ships A difference of opinion exists In the committee on this point because Secretary Sec-retary Herbert and the chief of ordnance ord-nance of the navy expressed their views to the committee that armor plate could bo provided for six or more ships This view was brought to the attention of Commodore Hichborn by Mr Money of Mississippi when the matter was under consideration Mr Hulick of Ohio cited the delay in finishing the Oregon as an instance of the inability of the armor plate works to keep pace with the shipbuilding ship-building but Mr Cummings of New York said that the failure to equip the Oregon was mainly caused by the lack of a penalty clause in the contracts as well as the difficulty in finding railroad cars on which a 13inch gun could be shipped to the coast The same opposition js encountered by the advocates of the Algiers dry dock which the enthusiasts for this increase of the navy have met the determination determina-tion of Speaker Reed and the chairman of important committees to keep down tho appropriations on account of the con ditin of the treasury Chairman Boutelle has expressed his disapproval of the dry dock item in committee and other Republican Repub-lican members are understood to support sup-port him although possibly not enough committee Speaker for a majority of the Reed has communicated his views to the desirability of following a policy of econ to Republican members of the committee omy com-mittee He said the other day speaking expenditures that a man of government should not go into other schemes when ho was unable to pay his board bill Saturday Sat-urday nights |