ADDRESS OF HON. WIIvI^IAM C. REDFIELD. .391 



capacity for receiving and discharging freight. In brief, the problem seems 

 to me to be more important to get the goods out of a vessel and other goods 

 into her and to get her earning again than the problem as to what it costs to 

 move her at sea, though I do not minimize the necessary importance of this 

 last. I believe that he who studies the cost of handUng freight by carts, of 

 piling it upon the dock by hand, and removing it again to the place where it 

 can be grasped by slings, and rehandling it again in the ship's hull and storing 

 it away will find that if this can, as I believe it can, be largely reduced by 

 specialized apparatus, a blow will have been struck at the cost of shipping 

 freight that may make the further saving in the use of fuel at sea beyond 

 our best practice look like a comparatively small thing. If to this can be 

 added vessels especially designed to carry freight of special kinds, so that 

 something, at least, of the principles applied upon the land may be put in use 

 elsewhere, a new light might dawn upon us in the cost of doing work, espe- 

 cially if these ships were given a large capacity relatively to the average 

 freighter now operating. 



I think there is no mechanical difficulty that prevents goods being taken 

 from a car by a conveyor which shall proceed into the ship, either horizon- 

 tally through a side hatch or vertically through a deck hatch, and shall within 

 that ship descend from deck to dock and then horizontally within her hull 

 deliver the freight to the point where it is wanted. This would not pay for a 

 small vessel, just as we could not carry ore upon the Lakes in loads of 500 or 

 1,000 tons, but for ships of 10,000 tons cargo it might be profitable. Nor do 

 I expect this to be done quickly, for we ought to have in mind that time is 

 just as necessary an element in development as is money or brains, but that 

 something along this line of thought will be developed and will be a great 

 factor in the cost of transportation at sea, I do believe. And if we, instead of 

 following the same lines of study that our European competitors do, diverge 

 therefrom into original thought on the serious matter of handling cost, pos- 

 sibly we might find a field as new as was that in the Great Lakes. 



It would be interesting if some seaport city, wishing to conserve its 

 commerce, would arrange special docks equipped for handling in the most 

 modem way the particular classes of merchandise which were there shipped 

 most largely, and would co-operate with open-minded ship designers in 

 adjusting its apparatus to a ship also equipped for the handling in large 



