engineers began to interest themselves in the manufacture of iron and steel, either by establishing new departments and branches of their business or, more often, by agreement with and shareholding in existing undertakings.
Sir Charles Siemens, who made railway material for the G.W.R., succeeded in producing for the Admiralty a steel suitable for naval shipbuilding, so that warships and, afterwards, merchant ships began to be built of Siemens steel rather than of iron. Improvements in explosives resulted in the forging of more powerful and more rapid-firing artillery and in the making of a more destructive shell, and these developments created a demand for the mote extensive use and strengthening of armour-plate. Producers of ship steel and steel armour purchased shipyards and commenced to build swift and heavily plated warships. The craze for building swift torpedo craft and greyhound cruisers resulted in the adoption of the turbine engine, which was next applied to ocean liners, and made the marine engineers seek after better, stronger and more economical boilers, tubes, blades, etc.
The application of hydraulic and electric machinery to the working of the guns, mountings and other parts of a warship, and the general substitution of the light engine for hand labour on capstans, etc., brought electrical plant, cable, dynamo, pumping and other engineers into line with the naval contractors. The furnishing of luxurious trans-Atlantic steamships caused shipbuilders to combine with woodworking and furnishing firms, just as the use of water-tube boilers brought the tube-makers into relationship with the marine engineers, and the adoption of oil fuel resulted in a connexion between motor builders and shipbuilders.
The equipment of huge steel plants, shipyards, repair bases, harbour schemes, railways and power-works has linked up structural steel contractors, crane and bridge builders, cable and wire makers, cement mixers, electrical engineering firms and explosives and chemical producers into vast syndicates and associations of interests which, to all intents and purposes, form one industry or group of industries, one employer or combination of employers connected with the iron, steel, shipbuilding and engineering employers.
Now, the submarine menace, following upon the Government chartering of liners and cargo vessels for transport and supply services, has made naval shipbuilders into mer-
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