xxxii INTRODUCTORY PROCEEDINGS. 



not, they certainly founded, for the membership of to-day and hereafter, a splendid heritage 

 worthy of emulation, a heritage for which present conditions promise with proper care a 

 great and glorious increase. 



THE world's shipping TONNAGE. 



The entire merchant tonnage of the world in 1916 did not exceed 50 million gross tons. 

 Of this there has certainly been destroyed by submarines and casualties not less than 14 mil- 

 lion gross tons, leaving of the original quantity not over 36 million gross tons. During 1917 

 and 1918 there will have been built at most 5 million gross tons, making a total of available 

 tonnage only 41 million gross tons. Following the normal increase per annum there should 

 be available at the beginning of 1919 at least 55 million gross tons. From this statement it 

 appears that there will be at the close of the year 1918, a deficit of at least 14 million gross 

 tons, without taking note of the depreciation and repairs which the excessive hard usage of 

 ships during the war will have made necessary. 



It is not intended that these figures shall be considered exact, but they are sufficiently so 

 to demonstrate the great necessity still existing for ships ; and further to show that our own 

 shipyards must still be urged to their utmost capacity in order that the now important Amer- 

 ican merchant marine shall be upheld in the future. 



AMERICAN SHIPYARD PRODUCTION. 



In the year ending June 30, 1908, the entire production of our shipyards was 614,000 

 gross tons, the greatest previous to 1915; but in the year ending June 30, 1915, the produc- 

 tion fell to 225,000 gross tons, the smallest output in seventeen years. In 1916 there came 

 an enormous demand for ships not only from our own citizens, but from foreigners as well. 



When the United States entered the war in April, 1917, it became apparent that there 

 was hardly a more important element for wiiming the war than ships, and the United States 

 Government, through the agencies of its Shipping Board and Emergency Fleet Corporation, 

 immediately proceeded to encourage the building of many new yards as well as the enlarging 

 of the old yards, with the result that there are now about 200 shipyards instead of 66 as in 

 November, 1916. During 1917 there was an output of 800,000 gross tons and the output for 

 1918 will apparently be about two and one-half million gross tons actually delivered and offi- 

 cially numbered. The increase in our registered shipping during the fiscal year ending June 

 30, 1918, was 1,053,481 gross tons, more than double that of any previous year and some- 

 thing over the total increases for the first three years of the war combined. At the end of 

 this year there will be over ten million gross tons of shipping under the American flag, or 

 nearly double the amount of three years ago. 



NEW METHODS. 



The demands upon our facilities for furnishing the usual materials for ships and the lack 

 of men capable of building ships in the usual manner, combined with the extraordinary need 

 of ships, and more ships, to carry on the war, have led to experimenting in building large 

 vessels of other than the usual wood and steel materials. 



The successful use abroad of moderate sized boats built of concrete reinforced with steel 

 has led us to go much further, resulting in the building of the Faith, a concrete ship of about 



