OUR LOSS IN SHIPS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17096, 19 February 1916, Page 8

OUR LOSS IN SHIPS.

Ax estimate of the number of British merchant ships sunk by submarines or mines from the beginning of the war to the end of November shows that the losses in this department- have totalled 226. 'To this figure must bo added 56 sunk by surface ships. Ol Allied ships 65 have been lost and of noutials 111. These figures, which refer to foreign-going vessels, have been used by Air A. H. Pollen as the basis ol a very interesting article on a much-dis-cussed phase of the war. Normally, he says, there arc about 8000 J.Vuo.. steamers engaged in foreign trade and the loss works out at 2i per cent per annum. But it happens that probably 25 per cent cl the steamers have been taken over by the Admiralty for special service, and so withdrawn from trade, and the loss of the actual working marine is thus about 6 per oo.nt. .me figures look big in themselves, but they are really small compared with the losses that. Britain suffered during the wars at the close of the eighteenth and tho beginning of the nineteenth centuries. In seventeen years of war the smallest number ol ships jlost in one year was 357 and the largest 019. In the first nine years the average was over 700 and in the last eight it was over •300. The loss of sea-going ships was about 7 per cent in the first period and over o per cent in tho Napoleonic wars. The comparison is still more striking when the tonnage of the ships is considered. liven during the war the clearances from British ports have averaged -00 a day and the average daily tonnage must be nearly 200,000. In 1792 the daily tonnage would be about 5000 and the number of ships clearing under 40. Considering the population, again, the foreign seaborne trade, of Britain is twelve times as great per head as it was at the close of the eighteenth century, and irom that aspect the loss of ships in the present war seems more trivial than evot.

All- Rollon goes at some length into another highly interesting and important side of the question, the influence of tho war on insurance rates. In the year 180.5, tho year of Trafalgar, the mean rate on ships to America was three guineas, rising to five and a half. To the West Indies it began at 8 guineas, rose to 15, dropped to 7 after Trafalgar and rose again at Christmas to 13. To Gibraltar tho rate varied from Id to 18 guineas. Even to the south of Ireland the rates went as high as 6 guineas. Even towards the end of the war, during the last, four or five years, for example, tho rates were on the average 5 guineas per cent above normal peace rates. In the present war the rates have been extraordinarily low, considering all the conditions. At tho outset, in the first confusion, there was a maimed rise, though the rate does not appear to have reached. 5 guineas on tho average. It steadied 1o 3 and, when the Treasury scheme was in full operation, it dropped to 1. at. least, for hulls, though the cargo rate has been higher. Tluire could not, well be a more emphatic proof of the thoroughness with which the Navy lias done its work. A hundred years ago, although the French fleet was rendered almost harmless, there were privateers sheltering in every bay. and it. was these irregulars of the occa.li that, constituted the danger to British shipping. To-day, if a. German armed ship appears on any of the ocean routes, she constitutes a seven-day wonder and tho world marvels how she got- there. Only the submarines are able to do serious damage, and. as Mr Pollen shows, their activity has not. caused above 30 percent- of the loss that Britain suffered even in the most favourable years of the wars of a. century ago. In the Revolutionary wars the total loss of British shipping constituted about, 50 per cent of the vessels afloat- and in the Napoleonic wars the loss aggregated about 45 per cent. Even if the rate of our losses should increase, we shall hardly suffer a, total reduction ot more than 15 per cent in t-lireo years of the present war, and Mr Pollen takes tho view that as the methods of dealing with the submarines improve tho rate of loss will fall. Indeed, lie goes so far ns to anticipate that, three years of this greatest, war in history will not levy a heavier toll on British merchant shipping than our ancestors suffered in a. single year of the. Revolutionary wars. This may be an optiimstw faith.

but the fact that such an estimate can he seriously framed is surely a magnificent tribute to the British Navy.