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Show MARITIME COMPETITION. News has come from Loridon to the effect that the United States is now ahead of England in shipbuilding output. out-put. The British output for the year is l"545,S25 tons. The American output is 1,636,403 tons. Thus America is 90,-57" 90,-57" tons ahead, and we are enjoying our first supremacy on the sea in seventy sev-enty years. A correspondent of the Boston Xews Bureau makes some very interesting comment on the situatipn. "It is only a few- years sfnee the Panama Pana-ma canal was the standard British joke," he writes, the point being the folly of the United States in building a transoceanic canal when she had only seventeen liners flying her flag on all the seas. Five years ago. he says, he heard an English statesman suggest, as a pleasantry, that England would be willing to swap Ireland for the Panama canal, "because we don't know what to do with the Irish and the Americans have no ships. ' ' The other day the British statesman learned that in August alone American shipyards slid sixty-six new ships into the sea 226.000 tons, or 42 per cent of the total new tonnage of Great Britain Brit-ain in 1916. The Britishers were very naturally astonished, and began to wonder won-der how much longer Britannia would rule 'the waves. But it must be conceded con-ceded that Great Britain has a long start of us in tonnage, and the correspondent corre-spondent calls attention to the fact that "after the war, when we beat our swordB into plowshares and our warships war-ships into cargo carriers, there will be merry competition between American and British shipyards." Incidentally, he remarks that "America will have to build sixty-six ships a month for twelve years before she has as populous a merchant fleet as that which is still sailing under the British flag." Perhaps the competition in shipbuilding shipbuild-ing between the two countries will not be as fierce as the correspondent thinks. We shall undoubtedly provide a merchant mer-chant marine of sufficient size to take care of our own ocean-carrying trade, and this will require a great number of vessels. Before the war we were dependent upon Great Britain and other foreign nations, and their vessels were thus given employment. When we lake over the entire sea business of the United States, the, European nations, Great Britain included, may have more bottoms than they can use, and the result re-sult will be disastrous to the shipbuilders shipbuild-ers on the Clyde and elsewhere. This is a matter which does not seem to be taken into consideration when competition competi-tion in shipbuilding after the war is discussed. We have been forced to build great yard? in which ,to build ships for war purpq;-e,s. The government owns these yards and v.'U o'.vu the ships they turn out when peace returns. If congress legislates properly all t'ne-.e vessels and such others as are slid down the ways will be used in our foreign and domestic do-mestic trade to the exclusion of all foreign for-eign bottoms, and the latter will have to depend upon their own manufacturers, manufactur-ers, merchants and exporters for ton- ; nage. The day has gone by when British Brit-ish merchantmen and London bills of 'exchange were the whole thing in the commerce of the world. New York is tiie financial center at present, and we are not going to transact all our busi-j busi-j ness through London in the days to i come. Of course, it is impossible to , tell just what is going to happen on -:ea or iand, but we are satisfied the United States is not going to give away ull the advantages it now possesses. |