THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 1917. SUBMARINES AND BRITISH TRADE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16946, 7 March 1917, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 1917. SUBMARINES AND BRITISH TRADE.

More suggestive and more significant than ths destruction that is wrought in the shipping of the world by the fierce submarine warfare which is being carried on by Germany is the evidence as to the volume of shipping that passes unscathed through the- danger zone. The figures which M. Marcel Hutin has been publishing with respect to the number of vessels that are entering French ports are not instructive merely but actually remarkable. During the first week of last month in which the Germans, with resounding threats of the dire havoc that was to be made of the shipping engaged in the trade of the allied countries, let loose their fleet of submarines with instructions to destroy mercilessly and indiscriminatingly, there was a distinct reduction of °the sea-traffic. Shipowners were plainly alarmed, in many cases, by the renewal, on a scale of unprecedented fury, of the German policy of "frightfulness," and there was a partial suspension of the movements of shipping. Yet in that week the arrivals at French ports averaged 108 vessels a day. But as the sensations of consternation produced by the enemy threats were allayed, doubtless as the results of the pix> tective measures adopted and directed by the British Admiralty, the sailings of merchant vessels were increased, and it is recorded that the arrivals at French ports on three successive days in the end of February averaged 142 a day. A record such as this indicates plainly enough the ineffectiveness of the submarine campaign and makes it sufficiently clear that the object which Germany had in view in proclaiming her " blockade " —that of so crippling Great Britain and France by the interruption of their foreign trado as to reduce them to a frame of mind in which they would be prepared to enter into peace jxegotiatdoas— cast-

possibly be attained by lier. Serious losses of merchant vessels have been caused, and will be caused, by the activities of the German submarines, but they represent such a trifling proportion of tho merchant shipping that is at tho service of Grea.t Britain and her allies as to leave an immense fleet of powerful cargo-carriers, all of them (it may be supposed) now capable of themselves offering resistance to attack, available for the performance of the necessary work of maintaining the trade between Great Britain and France and between both of them and the producing countries from which they draw supplies. And this immense fleet will be steadily augmented as the outcome of the programme for the construction of now shipping that is being ceaselessly prosecuted on plans that admit of greater expedition in building than has ever previously been known. Moreover, the ability of the merchant shipping service to fulfil the essential requirements of Great Britain, the country against which the submarine policy of Germany is specially aimed, will be appreciably increased through the decision of the Government last month to prohibit the importation of goods that are not essential to the sustenance of the population and consequently to secure that full advantage will be taken of the available cargo space for the conveyance of commodities that are actually required. Germany will continue her submarine campaign as long as it is possible for her to do so;—of that there can be no doubt for. a secondary purpose of the campaign is to reduce the mercantile marine of the world in the interests of German shipping after the war, —but we may confidently believe that she will fail utterly in her grandiose scheme of starving Great Britain into submission to her premature proposals for peace.

An examination of the trade returns of Great Britain for the past year creates no impression stronger than that of the success with which in the face of colossal difficulties, the Mother Country has maintained, her normal industries and developed her permanent trade with many neutral markets. The imports for the year touched the exceptional total of £949,152,679, exclusive of importations on Government account. The exports amounted to £506,546,212, and as there were re-exports to the value of £97,603,502, the total export trade was brought to £604,149,714. The foreign trade, as a whole, of the United Kingdom exceeded that of 1913, the year of the previous record,, by £149,752,000 —a circumstance which, remarkable in itself, becomes the more astonishing in view of the conditions under which the trade was carried on. The country is engaged in' the biggest and most exhausting war in all history. She has placed in the field armies "on a Continental scale. Vast numbers of her workers in addition have been withdrawn from civil industries and transferred to the munition factories. A large proportion of her mercantile marine has been diverted to war purposes, and the submarine attack has been almost continuous for more than two years. Yet her oversea commerce has attained the figures we have given. These figures, it is necessary to add, are swollen by the fact that they are represented by war-prices. In the volume of imports and exports there was a marked diminution. The extent of this shrinkage is indicated by the Board of Tirade shipping returns. These show that the total of the freighted shipping which entered British ports last year was 30,059,428 tons, and that the vessels which cleared with cargoes were of an aggregate tonnage of 35,596,754. As compared with the preceding year this was a reduction of 3,664,476 tons in the arrivals and of a somewhat larger total in the departures. As compared with 1914, even though that year included five months of war, the foreign shipping of Great Britain, which is an index to her foreign trade imports and exports, fell off last year by over one-third. The explanation of this consists, of course, in the diversion to war purposes of a very large number of steamers. The increase in the value of the foreign trade in face of the striking decrease in the number of vessels engaged affords its own indication of the great rise which the war has caused in the price of goods.