BUILDING BOATS.

Colonist, Volume LVIII, Issue 14407, 18 May 1917, Page 3

BUILDING BOATS.

104,000 MEN ENGAGED

An article by a Bremen naval officer, which \ appeared in the Hungarian newspaper "Fesfci Hirlap/" 7 reveals sonic interesting figures in connection with the construction of U boats. '.'The object of the article," writes the Milan correspondent of. the '.'Daily Telegraph" (London), "was to convince readers in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ot the fa.ble that Germany was able within the last year to raise, the number of its submarines to the figure of 500 necessary to destroy all Entente and neutral shipping. The figures are interesting, not on account of this exj travagant claim, but because they give I what seem to be fair statistics1 of the number of workmen and slips in the various establshments." TJie particulars are as follows: — Shipyards. Men. Slips. \Yilhelmshaven Imperial Arsenal ... ...l ... 10,500 16 Kiel Imperial Arsenal ... 10,500 1(5 ! lilohm and Voss (Hamburg) 10,000 15 Vulken v orks (Hamburg) 9,000 9 Vulken works (Stettin) ... 7,000 8 Vulken works (Vegesaek) 4,000 6 Soiiichau (Elbing and Danzig) ... 9,000 37 Werser (bremen) 6.000 * 9 Germania Arsenal (Kiel) 6,000 17 Howaidt (Kiel) ... ... 4,000 10 Teckleuborg (dcestemunde ... 2,600 10 Flensburger (Flensburg) 3,000 8 Reiherstieg (Hamburg)... 2,000 4" Ncptun (liostock) ..: _ ... 2,000 7 Seebeck (Geestemund'e)... 1.500 14 jOderwirke (Stettin) ; ... 1,200 11 I Frerichs (Einswarden) ... 1,000 11 jfc'tulcken (Hamburg) ... 1,000 12 I Koch (Lubeck) 1,000 7 i Brandenburg (Hamburg) 900 8 • Klawitlrer (Danzig) ... 800 7 •Richmers (Bremerlmven) 1,000 4 jl2 smaller yards 5,000 63 Austrian Yards (Fiume, Trieste, and Tola) ... 15,000 35 Totals 104,000 344 "The 5000 men employed by the Austrian works at Pola, Trieste, and i Fiume may be correct as to figures, but they are certainly not all employed exclusively in the construction of submarines" (writes the correspondent). "In fact, it i s doubtful whether they build any submarines at ail. JNaval I experts will easily conclude the capacity of construction from the figures given. Even assuming.- that all the I men and most of the slips are used . for submarine construction, the figures indicated might at most, warrant tie conclusion that- Germany wa.s able within the last nine months to build 300 submarines, which is'far from the 500 of which the writers in Germany and Austria, boast. The total of men I employed is 104,000, and to. build! say, 450 submarines, even supposing ■ that all are employed in '.submarine, construction, it would mean that about j 200 men are able to build a submarine in nine months, which is absurd." "From another source I learn that it is claimed that about 30 German firms construct tlie Diesel motors originally i used for submarines. The Diesel film ; itself, it is said, can tv-.vn out 10 complete motors per month. But. this may i have ]>een true in August, 19] 4, when ! the kind of engines required for submarines were not so complicated or powerful as they must be now. But naval engineers "will smile at the assumption that the engines of any ship, whether submarine or not, of 2000 or 3000 tons can be built in three days. Yet this is the prodigy that the Diesei works would have to accomplish to ; bear out the boasts of the naval experts who write for the gullible and ignnrarit Austrian and Hungarian public,'* . -_ ...