Show AT REST A1 ri a 4ttsxnpyQeneral Garland has given his opinion concerning the Dol Ehin and that opinion ia th the vessel canno bp accepted In no respect does theDolphin cOme up to the specifica tioDPnndf > therequirements of the con JIC sid Jt < lm this the vese1 was not completed within the time specified L the contract requiring that the Dolphin Dol-phin l shQjilSL5be completecUwithiir t J year hsmng35p6cn 1 Bigjied by Mr Roach July 31883 Republican papers have sought to shift the responsibility for the failure oE the Dolphin from Mr Roach tthe Advisory Board or to Sec Tefa Ihitneyjbut it cannot be done Ieiespoisibility for the failure of the Dolphin and the professional ignominious ignomin-ious consequent theron must rest upon Mr Roach tIn 1882 Mr Roach was be forewCongressional committee on shipbuilding ship-building and in his testimony given before be-fore the conrmiltee February2d of that year he said regarding himself and the buildjngtQf ships Q r Ifarnerckant comes to me fltid ayff that ho wants a ship of such and sach a speed under conditions which I think will not permit per-mit me to get that speed I tell him that I will not build tho ship in that way that sricli and such changes mast be made In like manner I would have the builders criti ciae the plans of the Navy Department say ingVodo not think that as quite right f moeer or you want a ifttl < r Y1 ntn toe tliis weght If tho plans us prepared by the Navy Department are defective in any respect let the practical builders of the country suggest sug-gest changes and in that way you would secure se-cure the benefit of the judgment and skill of both the Navy Department and the outside builders Then when the plan is finally determined upon make your contract and throw upon the contractor all the responsi bilifytthaHieTTOuiaiavaloljearif he wen dealingwitha merchant In this way you will fcatyouf ships built by outside contractors con-tractors and at the same time get tho full benefit of the talent of Department hIe youlflr 1 jiaCurally inTer from this that1Ir oaclf would not build a boat HhaWfe did not approve in every particular particu-lar no matter by whom the specifications were made TfcfQr whom it waa to TM built When the Dolphin had failed in her trial trips Mr Roach in explana tiorjtJierco aid doubtless with a view to shittinrnfroirFhis own shoulders the responsibility IJ r I sponsibility for her failures on June 20 1885 said As to power and sp iIth Advisory Board under whose direct supervision the Dolphin was constructed made their own plans leaving no discretion to me in the selection of the material Not oven a nut could be altered in the vessel without the consent of the Board which assumed all responsibility re-sponsibility except as to workmanship There iS nbtla single pound of steel in the vessel thaf was not passed upon l > v the Advisory Ad-visory Board and its officers The whole vessel was built under the most rigid supervision super-vision offtlib Board Uhe contract required a trial to be made of the ship when finished The trial took place under the immediate supervision of the Board which made a report re-port thereon March 10th That report was disapproved by the Secretary of the Navy but Juis never been published When beforethe Congressional com Tnitteopair Eloach was far ore anxious top to-p Government in the matter of payment than himself and said It 1 ilEhan I aaia safeguard I would liold large amounts of the money back until the con tr tihhd performed his contract and on this plan and with those protections Ido not see why you will not be perfectly safe but if jyoujadopt any tjther plan The whole thing will bo a matter of experiment and if anything any-thing goes wron ns something certainly willnobody will uo accountable As a further fur-ther incentive to the OOntractor to do his work faithfully 1 would deduct so much frbmlhoccnlraoT price fur every knot that tho slrip fell behind the specified speed and X6f l every pm6t that she went beyond it Iwo I-wo dia Willing to pay something extra These are my views as to tho proper policy to be pursued in building your now navy Itflexpldihing his boats failure when Speaking on the question of payment he said The contract called for payments in in stalments according to tho progress in the donitruction of tho vessel The reserves were to be paid upon the acceptance of the ship The Advisory Board which under the law is tho sole authority possessing power to ipassi upon tho vessel made its report to the Secretary of the Navy on March 10 reccom mon3ingtho acceptance of the ship This report waft disapproved by tho Secretary of the Navy but it has never boon published When giving i his views to the committee com-mittee Mr Roach was very solicitous concerning the matter of speed inferring that If he were to build any boats they would possess this most desirable quality ina modern dispatch vessel Here are lusT views in 1882 < I think I have seen in the repoit of the Advisory Board certain statements in regard tospeed but I have facts and figures in my possession showing that England is now building ships of eighteen knots speed That as Ipoking to tho future I think that wo ought to build no ships of less than fifteen knots speed and that a portion of your fleet should have a speed of eighteen knots And when I speak of speed I do not mean speed according to the English standard stand-ard Tneirplnn is to take the speed of the vessel running n measured mile and count that the speed But the speed I mean is tho average speed of the ship in ordinary fair weather and she must be able to keep it up for twentyfour hours if necessary Twenty fourhours is about as long as you want to cllfiso an enemyor run away from him if you do not succeed in that time you may as wcllfgive tho thing up JTiuJglbst economical policy that can be pursued with regard to a steamship is to put ample power in her and when you do not want to uso that power the economy of coal in a ship that make fifteen or sixteen knots when she is reduced to twelve knots will bo almost great as you could get in a twelve knQtahjp that had to bolorced Therefore t youfdo otiin act lose much in tho consumption con-sumption of fuel and I think I can convince you that o ship euoh as I have spoken of here can bo kept at sea as a naval ship for ninety days with her own coal using high speed omyjwhcnyjhasing un enemy Mb IJ qgknationhoVery much modified modi-fied his vieTO i on this question No speed was specified in the original contract The only condition imposed was that the veWet should have a 2300 horsepower horse-power Theboilor originates the power and the engineiconvey it At tho first trial the cent and on the power fOU short about per ext f iiititWns OnlY 1tI per cent less than TermiludjU thQ contract Therewas n clause f itt Ta hatif the deficiency j the power q wdTnot caused by tho boiler or tho engines tho vessel was to be accepted As twliUUspeed < was expected Secret Secre-t 1Whltziey said The lawauthorizing the construction of 4 < i 4 h 4 k r SIi tho Dolphin providiln for a sec speSd of 15 knots per hour i Being a shipbuilder and one devoted t to all improvements Mr Roachs opinion i concerning the use of steel in preference to iron in the building of boats would naturally be asked by the committee Here is what ho told them There are many th 1ga connected with I the process of manufacturing iron which makes steel more reliable and if we were I building a navy or to build a navy I should I certainly build it of steel The navy you buildnovonght tobe our nnvyfQrth next fifty yerrs and nothing should be omitted to Poure the very best material and workmanship work-manship As to furnishing material facilities facili-ties for rolling steel in this country today 7fffrBUch thatif you wanted iobuild forty strips yotrwpald have no difficulty in getting the necessary efeel I have given this question of the comparative com-parative merits of iron and steel for shipbuilding ship-building qgreat deal of consideration At my age A naturally dI3 not desire to invest a dol18r ore in i Be iron interest but so thoroughly thor-oughly witsi convinced of the superiority of I steel as a material for shipbuilding compared com-pared with iron that I felt satisfied that inii fewTearsBteel wouldtake the place of iron forthesepurposes all over the world NowJTunderstand that ther6 has been some question made here with regard to the facilities I facili-ties existing in this country for the production produc-tion of steel Speaking only for myself I may say that I shall be in a condition by the 1st of March to produce inside of one year all thesteel that will be required for tho construction of twelve of these 4000ton ships As time changes all things it was natural nat-ural that Mr Boach should change his opinion concerning the use of steel in building ships and even as to the supply of steel What that change was may be seen from his explanation Why was wrought iron substituted for the steel shafts 11 have built hundreds of vessels in which I used wrought iron for the shafts and in none of them the shafts were ever broken I am a practical man and to me experience is the best teacher It has demonstrated tome to-me that the wrought iron I used in the shafts is Superior to the steel shafts Why was no penalty attached to the time limit in the contract within which the Dolphin Dol-phin should completed The condition of the steel industry our C untry aHhetime of the making of the contract was such as to make the completion of the vessel within a specified time an uncertainty un-certainty It must not bf overlooked that the construction of these vessels was a venture ven-ture and it was deemed unfair to impose a penalty for delay The country is to be congratulated upon the letter of Secretary Whitney and the opinionof AttorneyGeneral Garland It seems indisputable that had the Dolphin Dol-phin been accepted the navy would have suffered and the Government been defrauded The AttorneyGeneral expresses ex-presses the opinion that the amount of money that has already been paid to Mr Roach can be recovered and it is to be hoped that proceedings will be instituted for its recovery as such a proceeding would have a most salutary effect upon contractors who furnish worthless dispatch dis-patch boats and other things to the Government Gov-ernment An inquiry into the composition of the board that supervised the work on the Dolphin and recommended its construction con-struction should be made As the New York Eiening Post from which we got the extracts from Mr Roachs testimony and explanation explana-tion says He Mr Roach must see now what an error he made when he counted so surely upon Mr Blames election |