BRITISH SHIPPING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1297, 15 September 1914, Page 4

BRITISH SHIPPING.

ITS SAFETY AT SEA. K O GROUND FOR FEARS. WHAT NAVAL STRENGTH MEANS. For the British Empire to carry on a war such as the present successfully, it is essential that the trades routes be kept open, so that commercial relations with the Dominions may be carried on without hindrance. Reasons have been adduced by Colonel Foster, R.E., Director of Military Studies, University of Sydney, showing why the war has so far failed to interfere with British commerce to any appreciable extent. Colonel Foster contends that any alarm as to safety at sea is ill-founded. British trade has been increasing year by year, and is of an amount difficult to realise, says Colonel Foster. The sum of the exports and imports of England alone, foreign and colonial, is enormous, and to this must be added the trade of the rest of the Empire with foreign countries. The total in 1913 attained a value nearly 1500 million pounds. But this does not represent all that has to be protected while passing over the sea. There is the value ot the ships themselves, under estimated at too millions, and a great trade carried tor foreign nations, which cannot be less than 400 millions. The whole wealth to be safeguarded at sea, excluding the land trade of Canada with the United States, exceeds 2000 millions sterling in a year, to which must be added the profits from freights charges, underwriting, and handling the bills of exchange by which the goods are paid for, which is effected in London banks. The number of British ships carrying this trade exceeds that of all the other ships in the world, and comprises far more of the larger and faster vessels. ADEQUATE TRADE PROTECTION. The protection of the British ships is less difficult during war than might be imagined at first sight. It has always been adequate during past wars to allow the trade to expand, in spite of numerous captures. During the conduct of the Seven Years' War by Chatham from 1757 to 1761, British trade increased by 7 per cent., and again during the wars of the French Revolution, 1792 to 1800, by 8 per cent. In a modern great war tbe security of trade is likely to be belter assured. Privateers, which inflicted great losses in home waters, are now abolished by international agreement, and the numbers of hostile cruisers ready to attack British shipping is less than of old, while, what is more important, the use of steam nas reduced the time available for them to prey in from mouths to days, and also made their pursuit by British cruisers more rapid and certain.

In short, while the numbers of merchant ships at sea have enormously increased in the past century, the means ot capturing them have diminished, so that the number of captures likely at worst will bear a far less proportion to the whole than of old. In fact, the great volume of British trade, so tar from being more vulnerable, is now positively a guarantee that its losses in war will be a smaller percentage. Commerce destroying at sea is not likely to be any more effective as a method of war than it has proved in the past. WHAT HISTORY SHOWS. History gives no support to the view that a superior naval Power can be vitally affected by attack on her trade at sea. in fact, Sir George Clarke has remarked that history clearly shows that effective war against commerce can only be carried out by the belligerent whose battle fleets are either victorious, or able successfully to contest those of the enemy. No weaker navy can pursue a policy

of attacking trade very long, or very effectually, ior want of naval support to its cruisers. Owing to telegraphy, by cable or wireless, hostile cruisers are now more easily located than of. old, and their pursuit is no longer dependent on winds and weather. Steam allows a ship to take the shortest course. British cruisers can coal with certainty at defended ports conveniently situated about the world. Those of the foe, as Admiral Colomb wrote, “must load with coal in neutral ports, in shore measure, and in haste and fear,” for the few coaling ports they possess will be blocaded or taken, the colliers despatched to meet them will be captured on the way, and British coal is stored at defended ports which cannot be raided. In days of sails a cruiser could keep the sea for months. Now she can only carry coal for a few weeks, and must always keep enough in hand to return to a safe port with. The amount available for cruising is thus very limited, while high speed in chasing will consume it rapidly. Hostile cruisers will have but a short and precarious career of commerce destroying. Even when they evade capture by speed and luck, they must soon be driven off the protected trade routes into waters sterile in prizes, and eventually into neutral ports, where they will be disarmed like the Russian ships in 1904, England has not only far more cruisers than her foe, but a number of dockyards about the world where they can dock and refit and replenish with coal and ammunition. She will be hunting down the enemy’s ships whose position is marked before the war began, and must before long capture or drive them into port. This subject has long engaged the attention of the Admiralty. A Royal Commission “on the supply of food and raw material in time of war” stated in 1905 that there “was not only no risk of stoppage of supplies, but that no material reduction in their volume would take place.” In 1908, a committee on “National guarantee for war-risks of shipping”—which has been brought into force recently stated, among other favourable considerations, that British imports are drawn from widely scattered sources, thus reducing the danger of scarcity being produced by captains of ships. Imports will be stimulated by rise in prices, in spite of risks. It may be confidently expected that British trade will be carried on much as usual during the war, no matter how long it lasts. The risk of capture at sea will soon diminish, though it may never be quite absent, THE EFFECT ON GERMANY, The protection of trade afloat is obviously closely connected with the destruction of that of the enemy. The same British cruisers which are engaged in protecting British trade are in the best position to capture the enemy’s merchant ships. Before long, all will have been taken or driven into port, and lew will be sent out. The effect of the stoppage of sea trade will soon be severely felt by Germany. General Bernhardi has pictured it; “Eet us imagine the endless misery which a protracted stoppage, or definite destruction of our oversea trade will bring on the whole nation, and in particular on the masses of the industrial class, who live on our export trade,”

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