BRITISH SHIPYARDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 121, 18 November 1939, Page 13

BRITISH SHIPYARDS

GREAT ACTIVITY

NAZI SUPREMACY BOAST ,

TREATED WITH DERISION

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received November 18, 10.15 a.m.)

RUGBY, November 17

Practically every shipyard in Britain, is now working at full capacity. Admiralty orders account for a considerable but not a major share of this, activity. Over 150 merchantmen are at present being built in United Kingdom yards, and as soon as a new launching leaves a slip vacant a new keel is laid.

Germany's broadcast claim that she has displaced Britain as the greatest shipbuilding nation in the world and the most important supplier of ships is treated with derision by those familiar with the facts.

The only possible justification of the latter boast is that by selling of! her useless mercantile fleet, of which so many units have been sheltering in neutral ports* Germany for a few days may have been the greatest "ship sup? plier." These ships were not merely useless but had become an embarrass^ ment to Germany owing to the drain upon the depleted resources of foreign currency to meet harbour dues and other charges. , - As for rjew construction, it is common knowledge that Germany's shipbuilding resources are already handicapped by the shortage of labour and raw materials and in particular by the urgent demands by the German Ad- . mjralty to repair the unexpectedlyheavy losses of submarines.

Quite apart from the fact that U-boat attacks on neutral shipping disincline shipping companies to place orders in Germany, the unforeseen delays in delivery, indifferent materials and workmanship, and the actual risk attending eventual .delivery are undoubtedly arresting orders from neutral countries.

By special arrangemeut Keutera' world service, jn addition to oilier special sources of information, is used In the compilation of the overseas Intelligence published in this Issue, aud all rights therein In Australia and New Zealand are reserved. , , . . '