Lord Pirrie, in an interesting conversation which Mr. Edward Marshall
reported in last Sunday's Observer, declared that he, as a shipbuilder, welcomed the new American competition. "It is impossible," he said, "that during the next ten years we can build too many ships, even though we all build as rapidly as we can." It had always been his hope, he asserted, that America should engage in friendly rivalry with us in shipbuilding, instead of leaving the field open to Germany, our most formidable rival in the years before the war. He thought that competition with the American shipbuilder, who had to reduce the cost of production by using the newest and best machinery, would be beneficial to the British trade, in which wages had been permanently increased. Lord Pirrie faces the problem in the right spirit. Our shipyards are for the time being encumbered with ships under repair, but we have no fear lest our shipbuilders, with their fund of inherited skill and experience, should fail to do themselves justice when normal couclitione return.
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