SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1916. MARITIME LOSSES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 49, 26 February 1916, Page 4

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1916. MARITIME LOSSES.

In our cable news to-day there is an official' British return.- of the losses inflicted on shipping during the war. This is published after eighteen months of war, and shortly after the first anniversary of the German declaration of the "blockade" of Britain. The total number of vessels detained, captured or deetroyed by belligerents is 2,193, of a total tonnage of 3,774,000 tone, and an average of about 1,700 tone. The following table shows how the two principal naval antagonists andi neqtrab have fared:— Vessels. Tonnage. British <85 1,506,000 German % '601 1,276,000 •Neutrals ...... 736 *u,ooo In eighteen months of war, with the stream of British commerce 'flowing regularly, and the enemy using submarines to attack merchant ships, we have sufferci smaller lose in the num.her. ,r;of>' ships :jhan p "the. Germans, '■ITie3Binsieli mercantile mkrine, on the tdnnage;,of 1914rwas"beiween three and four times greater;than German at of the war.' Another interesting point 13 the losses-of ncutrala. "Many of the 736 neutral ships include<Li»' the table have been detained and released, but the fefl% and torpedo has been heavy. In. Qetober, for instance, five neutral ships were sunk to eleven' British, and in November eight ships to twenty-seven British. Up' to the end of November neutrals had lost 111 ships by mines and submarines. It must be remembered th>t the 601 German ships do not include the yeseeto held up in German ports by pur blockade. Seventy-six per cent of German foreign trade was water-borne before the war, and of that trade oversea exports have been cut off, and imports cut down to a fraction of what they , were.

The British losses froia all eausee. up to the end of November are the subject of an article by Mr. A. H. Pollen, pne of the leading English writers on naval questions, and as, with the exception of the Moewe'e exploits, conditions have been normal since then, his conclusions lave not lost interest Normally, saye Mr. Pollen, about 8,000 British steamer! are engaged in foreign trade, and I tiu low oa theie figure* work* out at

2J per .cent per annum. But probably 25 per cent of these, steamers have been taken, over by the Admiralty for special service, so that the loss on the service actually engaged in trade is about three per cent. To make us realise'how comparatively small these losses are, Mr. Pollen bidp ue turn to the wars at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. In seventeen years of war the smallest number of ships lost in one year was 387, and the largest 949, and in the first nine years the average was over 700. From 1793 to 1800, inclusive, England lost annually 7 per cent of her foreign trading ships, and during the Napoleonic wars 5 per cent. In 1792 the number of ships clearing daily from British ports was under 40, and their tonnage was 5000, while to-day about 200 ships leave daily, and their tonnage is 200,000. Then Mr. Pollen turns to insurance rates. In the year of Trafalgar the mean rate on ships to America was three guineas, rising to five and a-half. The rate to tb,« West Indies began at' eight guineas, rose to fifteen, dropped to sdven after Trafalgar, but rose to thirteen at Christmas. To Gibraltar Tose iio eighteen guineas?; and even to the south of Ireland was cix guineas. Even in" the'last' years of the war the rates were on the average five guineas higher than normal peace rates. In the present war there was a sharp rise at first to something like fire guineas, but as the iar.t of our sea supremacy was grasped the rate steadied to three, and fell at the end of last year to one guinea for hulls, with a somewhat higher rate for carjroea.

These figures are the most striking testimony to the wort of the Navy. A hundred years a::o moet of the damage was done by lurking privateers, but th? sensation caused by the Moewe'e appearance shows that if an armed enemy ship succeeds in getting out, it is regarded as a wonder. The Germans now, on the other hand, have a great advantage in weapons which cannot entirely be counteracted by the Fleet. Submarines have done the greatest damage, but Mr. Pollen shows that they have not caused more than' 30 per cent suffered even in the best years of a centucy ago. In the Napoleonic wars the total loss of British shipping was about 45 per cent of the vessels afloat, while even if our present losses increase, we shall hardly lose more than 15 per cent in three years of war. Mr. Pollen takes the view that ac the methods of dealing with submarines improve the rate of loSs will fall. The enemy may be presumed to be building more formidable submarines, but this improvement in British methods m-\- be relied upon to counteract, or perhaps more than counteract, the, .effeofc.of J;hese .''sub-, merged monitors," of which we hear again to-day. The enemy should nev»r be despised, but there are solid facte to give us confidence. Yon Tlrpitz announced last February that every enemy ship in British waters would be sunk; whereas he has eunk 225. How many submarines he has lost no one knows, but it may be safely said that never in history has destruction of enemy commerce been accomplished at such cost to the destroyer.