At the time of writing six vessels have been launched from the southern yard, all for the Products Co., while the Federal yard has launched and delivered a total of forty-four. Of these thirty have been delivered to the Shipping Board and nine of the remainder have been taken over by the Products Company, the other five having been sold to other concerns. Although it is dubious whether, as a commercial undertaking, the two shipyards will prove very profitable immediately, there is little reason to doubt that they will eventually justify the expenditures on them, occasioned by the war, from the purely business standpoint. They are both favorably located for cheap manufacture and, making fabricated ships, can naturally build at satisfactory costs in comparison with yards constructing steamers under the old methods. For there is every reason to believe that the fabricated ship has come to stay. It has fully proven its right to existence in competition with other vessels. Its methods of construction are standardized, which is what made the cheap Ford car possible, and standardization should eventually mean as much saving in ship as in motor-car building. Whether the war had come or not the erection of shipyards by the Corporation was a natural development sooner or later. It was in line with the plans laid down by the Corporation’s founders. And it was also part and parcel of the big company’s export programme. With its exports mounting up to the two-million-ton mark annually the Corporation had necessarily either to own or charter a large number of vessels. Ownership, of course, was better in the long run and it was, for a concern like U. S. Steel, with its big steel plants and experienced organization, cheaper to build than to buy the vessels. The Steel Products Company’s need of a large number of vessels--before the war it owned nine and chartered constantly from thirty to forty--itself assures a steady demand, at least for a time. If the future of the fabricated ship is assured the Corporation, in its shipbuilding programme, starts with an advantage over most competitors. Now that it appears the great Hog Island yards, with their fifty ways, will be abandoned, the Federal and Chickasaw plants will be the largest fabricated shipyards in the world--and they should be among the lowest cost of all yards.