Indeed, there is a future for sailing ships, notwithstanding the recent development of steam power. Sailing ships can still hold their own, especially in the transport of heavy merchandise for great distances. They can be built more cheaply than steamers; they can be worked more economically, because they require no expenditure on coal, nor on wages of engineers; besides, the space occupied in steamers by machinery is entirely occupied by merchandise, all of which pays its quota of freight. Another thing may be mentioned: the telegraph enables the fact of the sailing of a vessel, with its cargo on board, to be communicated from Calcutta or San Francisco to Liverpool, and from that moment the cargo becomes as marketable as if it were on the spot. There are cases, indeed, where the freight by sailing ship is even greater than by steamer, as the charge for warehousing at home is saved, and in the meantime the cargo while at sea is negotiable. We have accordingly, during the last few years, built some of the largest iron and steel sailing ships that have ever gone to sea. The aim has been to give them great carrying capacity and fair speed, with economy of working; and the use of steel, both in the hull and the rigging, facilitates the attainment of these objects. In 1882 and 1883, we built and launched four of these steel and iron sailing ships--the Waiter H. Wilson, the W. J. Pirrie, the Fingal, and the Lord Wolseley--each of nearly 3000 tons register, with four masts,--the owners being Mr. Lawther, of Belfast; Mr. Martin, of Dublin; and the Irish Shipowners Company. Besides these and other sailing ships, we have built for Messrs. Ismay, Imrie and Co. the Garfield, of 2347 registered tonnage; for Messrs. Thomas Dixon and Son, the Lord Downshire (2322); and for Messrs. Bullock's Bay Line, the Bay of Panama (2365). In 1880 we took in another piece of the land reclaimed by the Belfast Harbour Trust; and there, in close proximity to the ship-yard, we manufacture all the machinery required for the service of the steamers constructed by our firm. In this way we are able to do everything "within ourselves"; and the whole land now occupied by the works comprises about forty acres, with ten building slips suitable for the largest vessels. It remains for me to mention a Belfast firm, which has done so much for the town. I mean the Messrs. J.P. Corry and Co., who have always been amongst our best friends. We built for them their first iron sailing vessel, the Jane Porter, in 1860, and since then they have never failed us. They successfully established their "Star" line of sailing clippers from London to Calcutta, all of which were built here. They subsequently gave us orders for yet larger vessels, in the Star of France and the Star of Italy. In all, we have built for that firm eleven of their well-known "Star" ships.