EFFICIENCY IN THE OPERATION OF STEAMSHIPS. 131 
ber that Mr. James McKechnie published a paper in the Proceedings of the Institute of Ma- 
rine Engineers in 1901, showing how the coal expense per ton-mile went down with the 
length of the ship. That is only natural. We all know that surface friction is helping along 
the water as it goes further aft, and therefore the long ship has an advantage. 
The 390-foot ocean ship steamed with 8 pounds coal for 100 ton-miles, and we got 
down on the 570-foot ship to 4.4—that was going from 390 to 570, coal in pounds per 100 
ton-miles, the coal being burned by triple-expansion engines. 
This data sheet I have here shows 2.1 pounds per 100 ton-miles which, turned into sea 
miles—which, of course, is the basis of the ocean calculation—comes to 2.4 per mile, so you 
can compare these two somewhat in your own minds. I reduced the mileage and got 9.64 
knots, where Mr. McKechnie’s figures showed a higher speed, but this boat had her place 
in the class of boats from 520 to 555, where the ocean-going boat is 4.97 and 4.8, as against 
2.4 for the lighter boat. 
I was extremely glad to hear from the professor yesterday, because I am intensely in- 
terested in this subject, and I believe that we will see a real new ship possible. We are going 
to build it, if we have to put the same brains and efforts into it that enable us to lead the world 
in sewing machines, locomotives, agricultural machines, typewriters and many other articles 
of production in this country. Germany tried to build the Ford automobile, and Germany is 
paying about one-tenth the actual wages that Henry Ford is paying. It was a failure in Ger- 
many. A Ford can be made in the United States and sent to Germany and sold cheaper in 
competition with the German made machine. We know that steel made in the United States 
is land down in Great Britain at as low a price as the English people can make it. I think 
that the day will come when we will be able to build a standardized ship as cheaply as it is 
built anywhere in the world. 
I just want to give one or two more figures. With reference to the comparison of 
motor ships and steamers, a carefully calculated tabulation of the run of the Siam and com- 
paring the two ships together, came to this—that the operating expense on the Siam was 
cut down to .16 of a mill per ton-mile, and in the case of the Arabien, one of the most eco- 
nomical steamships they could buy anywhere, built in England, it was .48 of a mill. That is, 
the expense of fuel itself was .04, and I have multiplied that by 4, because the fuel expense 
amounts usually to about 25 per cent of the operating expense. The point is this, that .16 
of a mill per ton-mile is the actual cost of running the Siam against .48 of a mill per ton- 
mile in the case of the Arabien. 
Mr. CHRISTOPHER Story, Jr., Member:—In regard to standardization, I believe that, 
while it is very excellent in principle, it would be almost impossible to work out in practice, 
because we cannot build ships on a few standardized designs and efficiently and economically 
operate vessels of one or only several sizes and characteristics, for there are so many varied 
and absolutely different trades and conditions to be faced by practically every individual com- 
pany that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to standardize boats and construct them 
the same way that Mr. Bogert spoke of in standardized typewriters, automobiles, and the like, 
which indeed cannot at all be compared with ships. 
I am not overlooking, however, the very beneficial results from standardizing certain 
ship parts, such as fittings, hatches and various machinery. 
In regard to wages, I believe the argument that we cannot compete with foreign ships 
due to our higher wage scale has possibly been overemphasized, for Captain Sullivan very 
