MERCHANT SHIP LOSSES AND REPLACEMENTS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 248, 11 December 1940, Page 4

MERCHANT SHIP LOSSES AND REPLACEMENTS

NEWS that the United States will shortly release thousands of tons of mercantile shipping to Britain will be received with great satisfaction. No doubt exists of the need for Britain to secure every merchant ship that is available. The Minister of Shipping, Mr Ronald Cross, has not hesitated to tell us that the rate at which Britain is building ships is sufficient to make up for our losses. For the eleven weeks from September 1 the weekly losses of ships have averaged) about 76,000 tons, and that this figure is being wefil maintained is shown by the fact that the nineteen British merchant ships lost by enemy action in the week ended November 25 totalled 75,500 tons, whilst in addition three allied ships of nearly 12,000 tons were lost. Even then the dire predictions of June and July, when Germany seized the French ports, have not been realised —a loss of 85,000 tons a week was then thought to be a most optimistic caleulation.But the British shipyards are confronted by grave difficulties. They must siVTer to some extent through air raid damage and interruptions, they must repair damaged ships, and above all, they must give priority to naval craft, especially the smaller vessels which, are designed to counter the U-boat menace. During the last war, when the problem of building new warships was not so acute as it is to-day, British yards turned out 1,163,000 jtons of merchant shipping in 1917 and 1,348,000 tons in 1918 and when the present war broke out there were only 2,859,292 tons of merchant shipping under construction in the whole world! Since the British rate of loss has been for the past three months at a rate of over 4 ? 000,000 tons of shipping a year, it follows that every effort must be strained to see that this rate is not maintained, and that the losses are made good in every possible way. We have seen the beginning of the American reaction in the statement that the United States administration plans to release> every seagoing vessel the country can afford to spare, and in Mr Cross' announcement that the first order for the construction of 60 cargo ships had been given to United States ship-

** builders by the Admiralty. What America can do may be indicated by the following facts. In 1917, America built 821,000 tons of merchant shipping; in 1918 over 2,600,000 tons; while the~ peak figure of 3,580,000 tons was attained in 1919. This gives some idea of the shipbuilding potential of the United States. Against this, it must be pointed out that at the close of 1939 American shipyards,, including the Government-owned Navy Yards, had under construction only 506,000 tons of Government vessels and 1,122,000 tons of commercial ships, and this result was achieved only as a result of the vast aid given by the Maritime Commission set up at the end of 1937 to revitalise the shipping industry. Nevertheless, six new yards building seagoing vessels opened in 1939, and the satisfactory results they have achieved shows that the United States can achieve a still greater expansion in shipbuilding. The Americans themselves say during the last war they produced merchant ships at

a rate never equalled before or since in America or any other country; and their industrial structure should allow greater production now. But Britain, showing ominious signs of food shortage, is concerned with realities rather than with plans; and it is not too much to say that the out-, come of the war depends very largely on the help the United States can give in the near future from her shipyards.