Brazil Orders Two Battleships
Brazil has placed the building of two battleships with the Fore River Shipbuilding Company, of Quincy, Massachusetts, "after," says the London Times, "long-continued negotiations and the discussion of many competitive designs and tenders submitted by leading shipbuilders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States." It is said that the company will farm out one half its contract to the New York Shipbuilding Company, of Camden, New Jersey. The boilers are to be supplied by the British Babcock and Wilcox Company, and the guns and gun mountings by the Bethlehem Iron Works. Two years and twenty-seven months are the guaranteed times when these ships will be ready. The American bids were lower and the time less than those of any foreign firm in what the Times calls "one of the keenest competitions ever known in war-ship building business;" and the same paper declares that the result has "caused a great sensation in England and abroad." The reason suggested by a British shipbuilder for the low bids on the part of the American firms is slack business. The smaller powers are responding to Joel's prophecy, "Prepare war."