He said that not only did the British government subsidize and otherwise aid their ships and ship-owners, but that they also brought to bear all the tremendous resources of their navy to help and encourage British ship-builders. Notwithstanding her enormous and well-equipped public dock-yards, the English government built a very large percentage of its hull construction in private shipyards, and not only that, but _all_ their marine-engine work was let out by contract to private engine-builders, mainly independent establishments. He stated that the result of this policy had been to develop the industry of marine engine building in Great Britain to a degree unknown anywhere else in the world. On the contrary, our own government had done little for its navy since the war, and what little it had done had been carried out entirely in navy-yards. This not only deprived private ship-building of the kind of aid and encouragement which England lavished upon her private shipyards and engine-shops, but the navy-yards themselves were a constant menace to the good order and content of mechanics working in private shipyards. Moreover, he said that the same class of mechanics who, immediately prior to the war, worked for $1.75 a day, now (1870) demanded and received $3.00 to $3.50 a day; whereas ship-building wages remained the same in England as in 1860. He warned the committee that the day of wooden ships, particularly steamships, was past, and that the iron ship had come to stay, not only in England but everywhere else in the world. He said that to enable the business of building iron ships and heavy marine machinery to become firmly established in this country, a very large amount of manufacturing machinery must be supplied, and in view of the present outlook no one would invest any considerable amount of capital in that direction without assurance of some aid and encouragement from the government similar to that which England rendered to her ship-building industry. He then dwelt at considerable length upon the demoralization among mechanics produced by the government’s policy in confining its naval construction to the navy-yards.