FOOD FOR BRITAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 55, 6 March 1937, Page 25

FOOD FOR BRITAIN

It is fully realised In naval circles that the Navy is no longer able by its own efforts to guarantee the safe arrival of supplies from abroad, writes Hector Bywater in the ''Daily Telegraph." The development of the air arm has introduced a factor which, from the viewpoint of trade defence, played only a negligible part in 1914----18.

. Outside coastal waters the principal menace to our food supplies wi 7J, it is believed, come from hostile sul/marines and surface raiders. It should be noted not only -that hundreds more foreign submarines are afloat today than were available in 1914, but that the modern U-boat is technically more efficient, has a wider radius of action, and carries more destructive torpedoes than its war-time predecessor.

■It is understood that the Admiralty war staff does not propose to institute the convoy system immediately on the outbreak of war. It contemplates instead a system of using evasive routes under which merchantmen would proceed independently, avoiding the usual traffic lanes as much as possible. Only if this system proved ineffective would convoy be introduced.

The evasive route system, however, has the serious drawback of prolonging individual voyages. For example, during the last war steamers plying between Gibraltar and London sometimes covered 2560 miles instead o.£ the normal 1300 miles.