Book Description

Excerpt from Shipbuilding and Shipping Record, Vol. 11: A Journal of Shipbuilding, Marine Engineering, Docks, Harbours and Shipping; June 13, 1918 E\v readers who know the United Kingdom's shipbuilding industry intimately will disagree with the view that it would stimulate production to copy the publicity methods of the United States. To date, far too much reticence has been practised by British industry, or its controllers, with the result that public interest in the production of shipping has declined to the point of disappearance. No doubt there were, for a time, sound strategical reasons for even the silence about merchant shipbuilding. We leave readers to guess what these reasons were. It would a'so have been to hurt military interests to allow much to be said about the details of the standard ships - about the details in fact of almost any type of merchant vessel in course of construction. But it is not to be harshly critical to suggest that the official reticence was, in almost every instance, carried to excess, and that if its effects on public interest had been clearly foreseen it would not have been. If it had not been carried to excess, the knowledge of the shipbuilding position eventually conveyed to the public would not have jarred to the extent it did. We have already expressed our opinion as to the unfairness of enforcing silence on British shipbuilding while its rivals were free ships and more ships. To impress the world of prospective buyers with widespread accounts of their achievements. But in this consideration of the matter we are less concerned about the industry than we are about its fulfilment of the national obligations which the wars necessities lay upon it. Increase of its output is vitally necessary. The manufacture of steel has been reorganised in order to assist in the bringing about of that end, and with a similar object the supplies of suitable shipyard labour are being improved. Under Lord Pirrie, the administration of the Admiralty Merchant Shipbuilding Depart ment has been recast and quickened. Already it is beginning to give results, and as the summer progresses these results should get better and better. Whether they show the anticipated progressive improvement depends, however, on the amount of extra efio.t which each yard, each employer, and each workman exerts. An 1 whether these extra exertions are, or are not, forthcoming seems to depend largely on the extent to which public interest is stimulated. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.