THE LUSITANIA'S FATE.

Auckland Star, Issue 123, 24 May 1919, Page 19

THE LUSITANIA'S FATE.

lIOYI THE GREAT LINER MIGHT HAVE ESCAPED. While the Commission is Investigating tlie complexities of the coal problem, busy ni'rds are everywhere endeavouring to solve tlie questions relating to the adop-ti.-u of oil as a substitute for coal, says it correspondent in the "Weekly Mail and Record." In many parts of the world, notably America, Mexico, ami Russia, nature provides fountains of oil which navo only to lie collected and transported, lv anticipation of greatly-Increased trade In its export. Mexico is building tankers or unprecedented size to send Its natural virlls of oil into all parts of the world to substitute coal. The day Is not distant when oil will be extensively consumed as file: in steamships, locomotives, and steel works, and wherever steam Is raised. Sixty.live per cent of the world's supplies of oil are possessed by America; and the Ya-ikees are much ahead of us in its utillsatirn. Many of their locomotives burn oil. About :i. 000.000 tons annually are consumed on their railways In place of coal. Experl'i" Jits are being conducted in this country for it-; adoption on our locomotives also. Steelworks in the I'nlted States have .".Iμ. Introduced oil fuel. Furnaces for smelting and heating ingots for forgings h:nc been litted up for oil. It gives Intense heat, much more llerce than coal. Its introduction in steamships Is also coming on a very extensive scale. Many of the finest and fastest ships In the Xavy are oil-burners. Tlie Queen Elizabeth type of battleships burn only oil. Owing to the less space required for oil fuel, larger powered engines were Introduced, with the result that the Queen Elizabeths were the fastest battleships In the Navy—:u or 4 knots an hour more than the coal-fuelled battleships. FEWER STOKERS REQVIRED. In order to provide adequate supplies of oil for lhe.se great battleships and the very fjst oil burning torpedo-boats, a pipe was laid down by the Government connecting the Clyde, where the oil was brought by American steamers, to the Forth, where tl'e Xavy was assembled, a distance of over tHrty miles. A pipe connects the Persian Gult with oil nelds In Persia. Before the war broke out American const rm-tora were asked to Inspect the Lusltabla wilh the object of conversion Into an oil burner. They reported favourably on n.r project. The Lueltania, as also her Tyne sister, Mauretanla, consumed 1000 tons of coal per day, and SOOO tons were slacked aboard for every voyage before i'.ie.v loft port. There are 102 roaring furnaces to be fed day and night with coal, renulring a staff of over 300 stokers. , The Americans declared that the conversion was practical, while the results would be economical. One-tenth only of the army of stokers would be required— ">0 against 300. The Americans assert that If the suggestion had been adopted to convert her into an oil-burner, the Lusltania would not have been destroyed by 'the German submarine 'in May, 1015, -when IGOO people lost their Hvrs ou her. When leaving on her last tragic voyage to Great Britain, the Lusitanla was short of stokers. Some allege the Government ha J issued orders to economise in the use o! fuel on account of national shortage. At any rate, the Lusitania ran across the Atlantic with two of her boilers out of commission, and the speed was in consequence reduced from 20 knots to 21, She arrived off-the Irish Coast early on Friday afternoon, whereas if all her boilers had been in operation and full speed obtained, ishe would have speeded into the Irish Channel during the darkness of the Thursday n!j;ht, and this would have cloaked her movements, while her extra speed would hr.vc provided a more difficult target for the submarine. The probability is, say the Americans, she would have escaped.