100,000 TONS

Grey River Argus, 20 March 1940, Page 7

100,000 TONS

Monthly Loss OF BRITISH SHIPPING. [British Official Wireless.] (Received March 19, 5.5 p.m.) RUGBY. March 18. In the House of Commons the Opposition moved a motion relating to the Ministry of Shipping, regretting the absence of efficiency and foresight in the administration of the Ministry, and calling for the speedy expansion of the shipbuilding programme. It was contended there is serious misdirection of tonnage, and waste of facilities, lack of use of shipbuilding resources, and under-state-ment of shipping losses, which has, in the first s'x months of war, \heen three-quarters of a million tons. >

Replying, Sir Arthur Salter explained that, under the requisitioning system, the Ministry was ab’g to make a plan as a whole. He said thp-. 89 per cent of what came to Britain in Br’tish ships came as part of the pro-' gramme for the Ministry of Food, nr

the Ministry of Supply. Sir Arthur spoke of there being real combination of shipowners and civil servants, and he described the suggestion of’ the ascendancy of the latter as “fantastic.” He continued that tonnage required to carry exports from Britain was available, although here and there a route or a time might* experience difficulty. Britain, he said, would need not only the efforts of Navy and the mercantile marine, hut the full co-operation of the public, both in their homes and in industry, if the enemy attacks on British ships were to be overcome.

Dealing with the losses at sea, Sir Arthur said that British ships are being lost at the rate of one hundred thousand tons a month, but he ported out that, in the whole four and aquarter years of the last war the average rate was over 150,000 tons a month. "And after four years of that loss,” he said, "when our tonnage was lower than it is at present, we were still maintaining an army of two millions in France, and some halfdozen other expeditions as well.’”