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Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16167, 22 March 1918, Page 6

(hie of tho most important questions which ought to engage the careful attention of Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Want when they visit England is tho matter of Empire land settlement after the war. The New Zealand Government hitherto have been too prone to consider this as a purely local question. So far as public utterances go it would seem that they are only concerned with tho provision of land for New Zealand returned soldiers. That is undoubtedly part of their duty, and a most important part, but it is far from exhausting their obligations in this matter.

Wo have on several occasions urged that the New Zealand Government should, without loss of - time, frame a comprehensive colonisation scheme for adoption after the war. "With the huge addition to our debt, it is imperatively necessary for us to increase the national production. It is well-knoAvn that the prominence which Xcw Zealand has gained owing to tho war hits caused a great deal of enquiry regarding the conditions of life in the Dominion, and that many people liavo already expressed a desire to come here and settle. So long as they arc of tho right class, every inducement should be offered to them to carry out their intention. An unexampled opportunity will present itself to this Dominion to go in for a policy of expansion on the right lines, and it would be criminal negligence if our rulers do not rise to the occasion.

The importance which is attached in England to post-war land settlement •within the Empire is shown by the conference of representatives of trado unions and otliors roportod in our cable news to-day. It will be seen that .a resolution was; carricd urging the Government to deal immediately with tho settlement of soldiers, 6ailors, and others as a national Imperial enterprise. Items under discussion include proposals that the Imperial and Dominion Governments should cooperate in raising loans for railways and advances to settlers, encourage land investment, and establish a Central Emigration Department. Those are very effective and practical means of promoting tho unity of the Empire, and wo hope to see them carried into effoct.

The figures relating to the sinkings of Allied and neutral ships by the German submarines, which Sir Eric Geddes has now made public, are very impressive. During the year of "imreStricted" submarine warfare, which ended on January 31st, the sinkings were roughly 6 million tons. Tllis agrees fairly closely with an estimate printed in the New York "Evening Post" on January 31st. The "Post," on the basis of known figures and calculated averages, put the total losses at 6$ million tons, the British loss being just over 4 million tons. Sir Eric Geddes's statement as to the total British losses is not given, but 4 million tons is doubtless a close estimate. The British loss in the last quarter of the submarine year was 780,000 tons. This fact shows the diminished effectiveness of the U-boats, and another fact pointing in the same direction is the loss (for all countries) in the last quarter of only one-fifth of the total. In the same quarter the new construction, by Allied and neutral countries, was 912,000 tons, as against a loss of 1,200,000 tons, making a net loss of 300,000 tons.

Serious as these losses have been, they are small compared with the German expectations. The Germans, Sir Eric Geddes says, claim to have sunk 9$ million tons. The "Hansa," of Hamburg, quoted by the New York "Post," recently declared that the monthly average of merchant vessels destroyed was 821,000, tons, which works out at over millions for the year. A good feature of the figures is the lowering of the rate of loss. If the British loss of 260,000 tons a month in the fourth quarter was the rate of loss for the third quarter also, the losses in the two quarters would be only three-fifths of the losses in the two first quarters. The Germans, it will be remembered, led their people to believe that the Üboats would destroy a million tons a month, and that in six months this would bring Britain to her knees. It is very evident, from the figures given by Sir Eric Geddes, that the German hopo is entirely vain.