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Show PLAN TO FOIL GERMANY. More significance by far attach os to the conference of wooden ship builders in Washington than is suggested by the dispatches. The meeting was called by the federal shipping board, which, through the aid of engineers, has devised a method of frustrating the object of tho German submarine campaign. That object is the starration of Great Britain Brit-ain and France, and can he accomplished only if the United States permits its merchant marine to bo wiped off the seas. The board plans the construction of small motor-driven ships not only for commercial needs, but also for transporting trans-porting supplies to Great Britain and France, whose interests would be identical iden-tical with our own in case of war. Americans may object that the United Unit-ed States as a nation should not be interested in-terested in preventing the starvation of firouf "Rrifain nr VrarifP PVOIl thoillh that result must be preceded by the destruction de-struction of bur merchant marine. Evi- ; dently the government at Washington ! takes a different view. That view was expressed only a few days ago by Henry Hen-ry A. Wise Wood in a speech which he delivered before a joint session of the Aero Club of America and the Motor Boat Club of America. The importance of the subject and the fact that Mr. Wood explained in full the benefit of a fleet of small motor-driven ships warrant war-rant an extended quotation from that speech. Mr. Wood said in part: The reply (meaning the reply of an American engineer to Germany's submarine campaign) is to the effect ef-fect that the Zimmermaun note has at last made it plain to the great masses of our people that Great Britain is the only barrier that stands between America and destruction; de-struction; that they are aware that that barrier will hold so lone as the British people are fed, and that they are now making up their minds to feed the British people until their work shall have been done. The American engineer has perfected per-fected a plan whereby we shall be able to create cargo tonnage faster than Germany can sink it. This will be carried out upon our forested forest-ed coasts. It will require but little' plant, but little time and no skill higher than that of the ordinary longshore shipwright. Every beach at the foot of a forest provides all the yard necessary. Such a beach, simple wooden ways, a few cheap tools and standardized patterns are all that are needed to produce the cargo carrier that will break the German strangle-hold. This vessel may be termed the Ford of the seas. It can be built in great numbers, quickly, at small cost, bv men of little skill. For $100,000,000 a million tons of it, making a nine-knot speed, can be put anoar, in a year s Time, a million mil-lion tons of it with a fourteen-knot speed can be launched for $150,-000,000. $150,-000,000. A million tons of these motor ships would comprise 1000 vessel?., eah of 1000 tons' burden. These vessels, mastless, smokeless and of diminutive size, would have such a low visibility, when compared with the usual 10, 000-ton steamer, that oTie would be invisible to a submarine subma-rine at a little more than a third the distance at which' the 10,000-ton 10,000-ton steamer could be seen. Furthermore, Further-more, the motor ship would offer a smaller mark, would be more agile in the event of an encounter, and by reason of its small draft, of but eleven to thirteen feet, many 'torpedoes 'tor-pedoes that would sink the usual steel cargo vessel would pass idly beneath it. But this is not yet the whole of the story. When a 10.000-ton steel ship is sunk a costly and slowly-made vessel goes to the bottom with 10,000 tons of food, of supplies, of costly munitions, and a laree crew are left struggling for their lives. Such a huge and unwieldy craft is easily hit. A thousand-ton, shallow-draft, shallow-draft, quickly handled, wooden motor mo-tor ship presents a far greater problem prob-lem to the submarine, particularly if it be fast and carry two guns. It is far less easily hit, more torpedoes torpe-does need to be wasted upon it, and it can be more agtrressive. But if at last such a ship be sunk a cheap, 1 an easily replaced era ft is gone, ! while a small cargo, instead of a great one, is lost and a few men only are left to shift for their lives i at sea. Finally, as the small motor ship j is three times as difficult to see as j the customary cargo vessel and. it ! is estimated, is three times as diffi-i diffi-i cult to hit. and as it is planned in build it in vast quantities upon our Atlantic, gulf and Pacific coasts, it is obvious that there will shortly bo put upon the German submarine system sys-tem such pressure that it must inevitably in-evitably wholly fail of its purpose. In conclusion I should like to point out that our coastal wooden ship yards already have a capacity . of 250,000 tons a' year, and that to enlarge these yards requires nothing noth-ing more than the clearing of additional addi-tional beach or bank, tho laying down of additional cheap wooden ways and the setting up of additional addi-tional lumber planing and sawing machinery. As for the necessary labor, this is easilv created out of the rawest material. This, then, being the plan of F. Huntington ('lark, an American engineer, en-gineer, who well deserves the thanks ' of many nal ions, is the engineer 's reply to the German pea threat. |