We read in the Times that arrangements are being made
in the United States to build " standardized " ships. One company proposes to build a ship a month. Although the cost of ship- building has hitherto been higher in America than here, the Americans, more sue, have minimized the expense under the given conditions by devices which are not practised here. For instance, a ship is launched at a much earlier stage and is com- pleted on the water, thus setting the stocks free. No doubt our climate is less favourable, but one would think that it is not a necessary bar to earlier launching. As for standardization, it is bound to come in shipbuilding, as in all other trades, if we are to recover quickly after the war. It has been an amiable fancy to regard a ship asalmost like a human being of highly individual character, but economy in production will be absolutely
necessary if we are not only to fill the gaps in our mercantile marine quickly, but add to it to meet the expansion of trade. The parts of ships should be turned out by the thousand, and the " assembling " of vessels could go on in yards now con- sidered inadequately equipped for building under the present methods. ' Leviathan 99' will be less of a character than her predecessors of to-day ; she will only be one of a huge class. But she will represent the great era of scientific organization which we believe is coming.
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