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Show I THE NEW CUNARDERS. H An eastern paper has drawings of the two Cull Cu-ll nard steamships now in course of construction, one on the Tyne, the other at Clyderdale. These I ships will have eight decks and will be eight H stories, over ninety feet, in height. They will I each be 800 feet in length, with a breadth of I beam of eighty-eight feet, sixty feet depth of hold, I of 43,000 tons burden, and driven by 75,000 horse-B horse-B power turbine engines. They are expected to B make twenty-five or more knots an hour in cross- I ing the Atlantic. There will be a passenger ele-B ele-B vator on each side of the ship each will be a sky-B sky-B scraper of the sea. B There is a picture of one of these ships in a fl scientific paper and beside it a picture showing I the relative size of these ships with the first ship n of the line built sixty-five years' ago. The con-jfl con-jfl trast is almost startling, and is an object lesson fl of the evolution of the ship since the invention of H steam and the adaptation of steam and electric H It is altogether wonderful. It will be remem-fl remem-fl bered that when, three or four years ago, the Ger- mans sent out the Deutschland, it was thought fl she was the perfection of ocean architecture. H These new Cunarders will be 175 feet longer, l twenty-one feet broader than the German ship, II more than double her tonnage and just twice her B horse-power. It seems that old England has no fl idea of taking second place on the sea; these ships l are a notice that she intends to restore her former II prestige. The turbine engines have never before H been attached to a large ship, but it is said that an S3 exact model of these great ships, a model forty I feet long, was first built and tried in every pos-B pos-B sible way, until the builders became absolutely fl satisfied that they could make the mighty ships a B splendid success. B It seems most appropriate for these ships to fl be built by the Cunarders. Their ships have been I ploughing the Atlantic for sixty-five years; the fl original projectors of the line are all dead, but P during, all that time, despite storms, fogs, ice- bergs, dangers from explosion and collision, not one life on that company's ships has ever been K lost. They have lost a few ships, but never a life. This shows what science, perfect executive ability H and perfect discipline combined can do. There is K no other 3uch record in all the world. There is only one regret connected with it all. The men of the United States are building no great ships and our flag is almost unknown on the sea, save where one of our great war ships enters a foreign port and roars a salute from its sullen guns. The great struggle of our manufacturers is to extend their foreign trade, and make such combinations com-binations as will enable them in foreign countries to exchange their wares for such products of those countries as they may need or such as readily sell in the United States. But they are forced to do their business with foreign ship owners, and then the freight money paid each way goes into foreign coffers. This is an impeachment impeach-ment of the intelligence of our people, a direct wrong to tens of thousands of poor men who, under wiser adjustments, would be earning generous gener-ous wages in producing the material out of which ships are built and in building, repairing and sailing' sail-ing' those ships. We all know the process through which Great Britain, France and Germany have built up their immense foreign trade. Are ours an inferior people? Would not the same work do as much for us as it has for the German Empire, which, in extent, is only one-third greater than California and has riot half her natural resources? |