SUBMARINES AND SHIPPING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17324, 25 May 1918, Page 7

SUBMARINES AND SHIPPING

BRITISH PRESS OPINION. PIRACY HAS FAILED. Australian and N.Z. Cable Assoc ation. LONDON, May 23. J lie newspapers accept the April submarine statistics as evidence that piracy has failed, and that U boats are being sunk faster than they are being built I}'1 }' New 6 Etates that the sinkine of 305,102 tons of British, allied and neutral _ehippin<r is hardly more than a tliird of the devastation of April, 1917. while the blocking of Zeebrugge and Ost«nd and the laying of a big mine-field m tho North Sea from Norway to the Shetland Islands have not yet had time to affect, the returns. Doubtless Admiral von Capello was vorballv correct in savin" Hint the number of U boats was .Te'ater than when unrestricted warfare lxjrran •he rate of their destruction wilfnou- be acceloralcd. The convov system, the universal arming of merchantmen, the increased number of destroyers and hvdrophnes the unification of "the allied command, and the increased demoralisation and poor training of the German submarine crews are all helping to <xr. found von Capelle's boastings in. the Reichs.™ The British construction of mnv shipping ought, however, to exceed 200,000 tons a month. I