have surveyed. We keep such as we deem necessary confidential and we issue them only to our ships, and they are required to report every three months, so that we may know whether those charts are properly accounted for. Those confidential charts we do not send to other nations, but all others we do. Similarly, I have no doubt the British and other nations have many more confidential charts than we have. But the charts that the merchant sailors use we send to other nations as complimentary.

Mr. TALBOTT. I think we ought to appropriate enough money to complete those.

Mr. ROBERTS. The captain tells us it is not so much a question of money. He says if he had two additional draftsmen or two negative cutters he could do that.

Mr. TALBOTT. That comes under appropriations.

Capt. WASHINGTON. Could this appropriation in any manner carry the publication of these books?

Mr. ROBERTS. I think we could do that all right.

Capt. WASHINGTON. If you could do that it would be an immense help.

Mr. ROBERTS. We could provide in our legislation an appropriation for that.

Capt. WASHINGTON. I am more interested in that than the other. Mr. ROBERTS. It strikes me it is a more important matter.

The CHAIRMAN. You have stated what it would cost you. How much would you want each year, for the first year, for instance, for printing those sailing directions?

Capt. WASHINGTON. You see we are limited to three officers besides myself, and we would have to take these books and go over them and correct them up to date, each one, and the corrections in some cases would possibly amount to as many as 300 to 700, sometimes as many as 1,200, and they have to be incorporated in the text of the books. But I think we could get out 8 or possibly 10 if we put all our energy on it.

The CHAIRMAN. It would cost $10,000 or $12,000?

Mr. ROBERTS. You could do better than that even, Captain, knowing that your money would be available the 1st of next July, could you not?

Capt. WASHINGTON. I think, then, we could take these 38 volumes. and make an enormous showing.

Mr. ROBERTS. You could make a pretty good dent in them? Capt. WASHINGTON. Yes, sir; we could finish over half of them. After that they would be no expense to the Government at all, and if they will average $1,500 per volume that would be $57,000.

Mr. ROBERTS. I do not see why that book should cost so much. Capt. WASHINGTON. I am figuring on the basis of what the Public Printer charges us for reprinting our own volumes.

Mr. ROBERTS. There is no tabular work in this; this is all straight work.

The CHAIRMAN. How many would you get out?

Capt. WASHINGTON. We would usually get out a thousand copies of each volume.

The CHAIRMAN. And they cost you $1,500?

Capt. WASHINGTON. Yes, sir. We sometimes run over that, depending on the popularity of the volume. For instance, in the West Indies there would be more used than the South Atlantic or the South

Pacific. But the money all comes back to the Government-it is only borrowing it, you might say, for the first two or three years, and the sales of the book bring it all back.

Mr. BROWNING. You could not pay for them out of this appropriation of $80,000 or $90,000, could you?

Capt. WASHINGTON. Last year, sir, we thought inasmuch as this appropriation was $90,000 that we were going to save something on it by reason of the ships having been drawn off from the work.

Mr. BROWNING. What I mean to ask is this, Whether you could pay for the printing of the book out of that appropriation?

Capt. WASHINGTON. I have tried to stretch the thing in every way. Mr. BROWNING. We have got to incorporate some different language to let you do that, of course.

Capt. WASHINGTON. Yes, sir. I tried to get the Navy Department to print them for us, but there are many difficulties in getting printing done.

The CHAIRMAN. For instance, right here on line 3 you might say "and for the printing and purchasing of nautical books and charts and sailing directions."

Mr. BROWNING. Yes; and then increase the appropriation the requisite amount to take care of it. We could do that.

The CHAIRMAN. We could do that.

Capt. WASHINGTON. That would help us along very much.

I wanted to show you just a difference. Here [indicating] is the British Admiralty charts catalogue of what they publish, and this [indicating] is ours. You can see the difference in the size of the two. They publish every chart of the world, and this catalogue has a price list with a big profit added on, and this [indicating] is ours, which, as you can see, is probably less than half the size of theirs.

Another feature I would like to mention is that Members of Congress and Senators are frequently writing for charts for their constituents, and by the law the Hydrographic Office is forbidden to give them. It is a matter that puts us in a bad light, because the law flat-footedly prohibits it, while the Coast Survey, the Geological Survey, and other branches of the Government surveys can give you as many as you wish, and I know you gentlemen do not want the Hydrographic Office to refuse your requests.

Mr. BROWNING. You sent us a letter on that subject a short time ago, did you not? Some one did. At least I have a letter on that very subject.

Capt. WASHINGTON. Yes, sir. And then the Lighthouse Board of the Coast Survey can give away these catalogues, and there is no good reason why they should not, because it is an advertisement for people to buy them. If a man wants to get our catalogue from us he must pay us 50 cents for it. But the other branches of the Government are authorized to give them away, which I think ought to be done in our case also.

The CHAIRMAN. If you can get permission to get them printed you will waive the question of giving them away, I suppose?

Capt. WASHINGTON. Oh, yes, sir; I will not say anything about that at all.

Mr. BROWNING. If we incorporate that language of printing them we would have to increase this $80,000 considerably, would we not? The CHAIRMAN. It is $90,000.

Mr. BROWNING. Would the $90,000 do it?

Mr. ROBERTS. We could increase that about $30,000.

The CHAIRMAN. That would be a matter we can determine when we take this up in executive session.

Mr. BROWNING. I was getting at whether the $90,000 was a sufficient appropriation.

Capt. WASHINGTON. Last year, as I was going to say, sir, those two ships (the Paducah and Eagle) were called off the survey the 23d of April for duty at Vera Cruz, Mexico, and we had all of May and all of June unexpended of their allotment-I mean the time unusedand yet we had only about $3,200 left of that $90,000.

Mr. BROWNING. That is what I am trying to get at, whether $90,000, with the new language, would be sufficient? Mr. ROBERTS. We cut out the new language entirely. was for immediate work.

The $90,000 Capt. WASHINGTON. $90,000 is a very small appropriation for the survey carried on by the Hydrographic Office.

Mr. BROWNING. What I am getting at is in all probability it would have to be $100,000?

The CHAIRMAN. I stated if we incorporated that language we would have to increase the appropriation.

Mr. BROWNING. What I am trying to get at is how much it would cost to print those books.

Mr. ROBERTS. $1,500 a volume.

Capt. WASHINGTON. I do not know how much the United Fruit Co. pays for safe navigation of those vessels through the Mosquito Coast, Nicaragua. They maintain their own lighthouses, wireless stations, and they try to keep record of all navigable tracks, and I have no doubt it costs them a great deal of money. They have a great many vessels traveling back and forth over those shoals, and it will be a long time before we can complete our survey. It would cut off materially the cost of all navigation to the Central American republics, from the Gulf coast and from our Atlantic coast as far up as the New England coast. Vessels from New York and New England, on the return voyage, try to take advantage of the Gulf stream, and the current in the Caribbean, and for that reason they go over those shoals [indicating]. In many cases they get as much as 72 miles a day, or 3 knots an hour, on their speed by following the trend of the current, and for that reason the United Fruit Co. has to take advantage of the places where the Government has not helped them any, by building their own aids to navigation, buoys, and lighthouses, also signal stations, and maintaining them at their own expense.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, gentlemen, is there anything further? not, Captain, we are very much obliged to you.

Capt. WASHINGTON. I am very much obliged to you gentlemen. The CHAIRMAN. We will take a recess to 2 o'clock.

(Whereupon the committee took a recess to 2 o'clock p. m.)

If

[No. 5.]

The committee resumed its session.

Tuesday, December 1, 1914

STATEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL SAMUEL M'GOWAN, PAYMASTER GENERAL UNITED STATES NAVY, ACCOMPANIED BY MR. CLYDE REED, CIVILIAN ASSISTANT.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentleman, we have with us this afternoon the Paymaster General of the Navy.

Mr. Paymaster General, I notice that there are some changes in the different items, and that the total for "Pay of the Navy" is $41,370,563, as against $40,010,724 last year. Can you explain, in a general way, the cause of the increases?

Admiral McGoWAN. Yes, sir. The first increase is on account of the increased number of officers, an increase of $458,189, pay of officers.

The CHAIRMAN. "Pay and allowances prescribed by law of officers on sea duty and other duty."

ADMIRAL MCGOWAN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. What was the number of officers provided for in the last bill and what is the number provided for in this bill?

Admiral MCGOWAN. The last bill provided for 3,806, and this bill provides for 4,2 9. That is the estimate compiled by the Bureau of Navigation as to the number of officers which will be in the service for the coming year. That was the gross over-all number before any deductions were made for possible vacancies.

The CHAIRMAN. That is an increase of how many ?

Admiral McGOWAN. Four hundred and three over the number estimated for 1914. Having in mind the fact that there have been vacancies of about 8 per cent, we subtract 8 per cent, 336, leaving 67 increase. Then in addition to that, Admiral Blue informed me yesterday that in the figures furnished by the Bureau of Navigation and which we have used there were included 65 medical reserve officers who would not be needed if the Medical Corps were recruited up to its full strength. To that extent those 65 officers become a duplication. He requested me to omit $130,000 from our estimate already submitted on that account.

The CHAIRMAN. Deduct $130,000 from the first item?

Admiral MCGOWAN. Yes, sir; making the $10,728,933, $10,598,933. The CHAIRMAN. The next item is, "Officers on the retired list." That is a matter of calculation?

Admiral McGOWAN. Yes, sir. That shows a decrease of $29,000. Mr. BUCHANAN. I notice an item, "Officers on waiting orders, $500,000." What does that mean?

Mr. I EED. That is the estimated pay of the officers that will be pend while waiti: g orders for duty when relieved from one station Lefore they are seit to another.