HOW TO BUILD SHIPS.

White Ribbon, Volume 24, Issue 286, 19 April 1919, Page 15

HOW TO BUILD SHIPS.

\Ve are continually told by our (iov erntnent that the increased cost of living is due in part to the scarcity of "hipping, also that there is great difficulty in getting ships to take our produce away. Hearing in mind that "hips are urgently needed the following facts bearing on shipbuilding are of interest. Mr Schwab, head of the Shipbuilding Hoard for l .S.A ~ visited Seattle, the largest dry town in the States, and found that the record of that town stood out unique in the history of the movement to defeat the Hun by building ships faster than they were being sunk. Here is the record: Seattle delivered 26J per cent, nf all the totrl new tonnage completed and delivered to the Shipping Board the first five months of the year. The total for the whole country was 505,000 deadweight tons. Seattle's share was 217,300 deadweight tons. One Seattle plant, that of Skinner .mil Eddy, delivered the first five direct contract ships of any k:nd completed, and all five were 8800 ton steel ste.unships. After Seattle had the first five delivered and a sixth almost ready for delivery, the other shipbuilding ports of the country woke up. Seattle, the saloonless metropolis, huilt nearly twice as much as any other American shipbuilding port. When Mr Schwab left Seattle this was his message, as published in the ‘Seattle Sunday Times”: —“Boys, 1 am leaving for the East to-night, and I'm going to see President Wilson and tell him that you fellows out here in Seattle are doing the l>est shipbuilding work in the United States. And there is no person in the country who will be gladder to hear it than the President. (iood-bve again, boys. Keep up your splendid work.” Seattle shipbuilders work on milk; they are the heaviest consumers of dairy products in the city. Every noon there is a long procession of shipbuilders with a bottle of milk in one hand and an ice cream cone in the other. The employees in one plant alone get away with about fifty gallons of the frozen cream every day.

\ leading Seattle newspaper thus writes under the head of “A Dry Nation” : —“There will, of course, be legal actions of various sorts taken by the liquor interests. All these efforts, however, will mean time and monev

wasted. The prohibition issue is dead—dead as the slavery issue, and without the slightest hope of resurrection. Those who are opposed to it, like those who deal in liquor, are fond of grasping at straws and seeing vigns of changing opinions. Some hank on the returned soldier vote, on the theory that the soldier in France has developed a taste for light wines. These are all delusions, in which the wish is father to a jK>or, frail ghost of ;i thought that can never mature to

reality'. I.ike every other issue, economic or otherwise, it has lx*en settled by the vote of the people, and that’s the end of it. Those of us who are dissatisfied may as well reconcile ourselves to the fact now as later. Resent it we may, if we like; demonstrate conclusively that it is wrong, harmful, and will lead to the moral and economic ruin of the country. Rut the glass has been turned down, and down it will stav.

We will never, it is true, have perfect prohibition. There will always be whisky. Hut neither have we perfect honesty, though we have locks, safes, and policemen. But for all practical purposes alcohol will vanish. This is no longer a prophecy, hut a statement of undeniable fact.” Exchange.