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Show WE NEED CANNON. The united States Steel Corporation is to enter upon the manufacture of heavy artillery and projectiles for the government. It will first be necessary, however, to build the plant before the work can be turned out. This plaut will be located somewhere ia the interior of the country. As the government is to pay for the building, and, in fact, foot all the bills, the ownership will rest with the United States. This will bo all right so far as the . future is concerned; but. unfortunately for our present needs, some time will elapse before be-fore the big guns and projectiles will be manufactured. Wo should have constructed con-structed a great gun plant years ago, but congress would not provide the money, and the war caught us unprepared unpre-pared in this as well as in all other respects. The United States Steel Corporation Cor-poration is almost exclusively engaged in working ou war contracts at the present time, and owing to its highly efficient organization, it will be able to build and equip the new gun plant more quickly than any other concern in the country. There will also be less waste of money, and consequently little or no scandal in connection with the enterprise. It is evident that there has been some miscalculation upon the part of Great Britain and Franco as to their ability to make guns as fast as the Germans and Austrians, and in addition to furnishing the man-power necessary to win the war we shall also be compelled com-pelled to manufacture the cannon used to batter down the Hun defenses. The government at Washington took it for granted that the entente allies really had more guns than they actually needed, the French authorities claiming that it w-ould be better to send' over the raw material than , the finished product until we succeeded in getting a big army across the ocean. But the Russian debacle gave the Germans possession pos-session of hundreds of guns, and the Rritish have lost a thousand or more since the offensive in Flanders was launched. We do not believe the situation situa-tion of the allies on the west front is desperate so far as guns are concerned, but it is beginning to become apparent that, the United States will have to make its own ordnance. 1'nless the unforeseen should happen the war will last for some time. |