SUNK SHIPS AND CARGOES.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 69, 21 March 1919, Page 6

SUNK SHIPS AND CARGOES.

LOSS OF £1,000.000,000.

Tn a review of the war services of the British merchant navy the Mercantile Marine Service Association points out that, while the number of ships on the register at the outbreak of war was about -0.000, of a total tonnage of over -1,000,000, there were no more than 3600 steamships available and efficient for ocean service. "It is true that by reason of their size and soced the carrying power of these 3600 ships was enormous: indeed, under normal conditions they have proved their capacity to carry onehalf of the whole of the' oversea"trade of the world. But to meet war demands and to face war losses a fleet of 3600 ships was something very different from having -.0,000 to draw upon." The grand total of ships that traversed the seas in organised convoys from the inception of the convoy system up to a late date in October last was no less than 80,.72, and these ships were escorted through danger zones and in defiance of their piratical operations of enemy submarines with the remarkably small total inclusive loss of 0.51 per cent. In the last few months considerably over 300,----000 American troops were carried to Europe, fi-2 per cent of them in ships undo- British control. Throughout the war our mercantile marine carried 45 per cent of the entire imports of France and Italy.

Out of over 21,000,000 tons, we lost during the four years of war about 8,000,000 tons, and after allowing for what has been replaced, the net deficit, as compared with the beginning of the war. is 3,500,000,000 tons. Xo fewer thaa 2475 merchant ships and 570 fishing vessels were sunk by enemy action, making _ total of 3145 crews cast adrift. The number of merchant seamen and fishermen who lost their lives was 14,700. Vrging that bare justice demands the axaction of full reparation from the enemy, the association states: —

"The nation has an indisputable right to indemnity for the losses we have suffered from the admittedly illegal submarine campaign. These losses admit of exact calculation. Their value at war prices is placed at £320,000,000. Their cargoes have gone with them, and these are "placed at about £700.000.000. Unless those losses are made good, not only will an enormous load of debt be permanently laid upon this country, not only will funds be required to build new ships which might have set uo our demobilised soldiers nnd give., them farms and equipment, but also for a generation the price of every necessity in this country will be raised. The cost of our food and of our manufacture depends primarily most upon freight, and freight is the cose of moving material by sea. If the supply of shioDing is totally inadequate

—as it is at present —then freight must , remain at ruinously high figures. If the : Germans do not build shins for us, they will build those ships for themselves, and levy a huge toll on us as the reward of their crimes. Our shipping losses are,' in a very >-eal sense, th. 'Costs of the Action.' and they have fallen with spe- ■ cial severity upon us because our sea ' power is the foundation of onr prosperity. And. as this war has told us, sea power depends not only—or e\cn so much—on li-bting ships as on the merchant murine. Reparation, therefore, must mean primarily tor us a policy of ' ton for ton ' of shipping sunk in. the submarine war."