FEDERAL SHIPBUILDING SCHEME

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 43, 14 November 1917, Page 5

FEDERAL SHIPBUILDING SCHEME

NO LABOUR DIFFICULTIES. A certain amount of light woe cast on the position as regards the Federal shipbuilding scheme by Mr. Hughes the other dav in his speech to (ho commercial men of Sydney. The Government, said tho Prime Minister, had been criticised uecausc it did not start shipbuilding, some Ifrne back, but it was not going to put tlie people's money into an enterprise unless it saw daylight. What Mr. Hughes implies in these words (remarken tlie Sydney "Daily Telegraph") is given fuller significeiico from an authoritative statement made recently in another'quarter. "The Government's intentions are known to all," said this informant, "but ' its accomplishments to dale must in detail remain unrevealed. The one gve.it hindrance_has been the securing of adequate supplies of material. Ono specialist has been sent by the Department to scan tho available sources of supply for our needs, and until he assures us that every bit of material is available there is no intention of goins forward in construction on a big scale. The price of too linsty attempts in shipbuilding has already been too ifigh". One case is, of course, notorious. A certain vessel was completed in a sort of way, and her cost to date is tlireefold the original estimato—a matter of over a million. We are not goinjr to be caught that way again. The most pleasing aspect of the matter is tho cordial support we are receiving from the unions. Suggestions have been made as tn the imposition of martial law over tho shipbuilding yards. Nothing of tho sort is required. The trouble is not men, but material."