Manawatu Herald THURSDAY, MARCH 20,1919. NEW LEVANT COMPANY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1954, 20 March 1919, Page 2

Manawatu Herald THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1919. NEW LEVANT COMPANY.

AN important outcome of the preparatory measures already taken for promoting the extension of British after-war trade is announeed In the formation of the Levant Company, Limited, with a capital of £1,(100,000, Its aim is to revive, under modern conditions, (he activities of Hie early British chartered company, (he old Levant Company, which was Hie pioneer of trade in Turkey during the .sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It will operate on its own account or through subsidiary trading companies, throughout the Near East, where (here is now so much scope for capturing for British trade the business formerly carried on by enemy (inns, apart from the new opportunities provided by the opening up of new territory in Syria, Mesopotamia, and elsewhere, as a result of the war. The chairman will be Sir Maurice Bunsen, formerly British Ambassador in Spain, who recently returned from an extended commercial mission in South America; and English business men of long experience in Near Eastern trade will be associated with the company, which starts with Hie acquisition of the loading 1 Constantinople and Salonika linn of J. W. AVhittall and Company, and lias also entered into a eloso working arrangement with the National Bank of Turkey. Arrangements are also contemplated for the formation of subsidiary Levant companies in Greece, Egypt, the Sudan, and Mesopotamia, and also in Servia, INumania, and Bulgaria.

had an important share in (hat result, ami it is with this work flint authority's most recent disclosure deals. Day after day, we are told —winter ami summer, from dawn to dark —the patrol of the coast by aircraft went on, only fogs or heavy gales interrupting if. Its effectiveness was beyond question. Hard facts —very hard facts for the Germans —prove it, Anti-submarine aeroplane patrol was of two kinds, one covering the War Channel, within which convoys had to keep —an area extending some ten miles from the coast, and the oilier working farther out'to sea; often to a distance of 30 miles, beyond which, again went Hying boats and airships. Every form of aircraft patrolled the. War Channel, and it was there the German submarines were usually sighted. Elaborate measures were hi use for contact with British warships, and the skill of (hose engaged in I lie work gradually became such that few ships suffered submarine attack during Hying hours. Between April Ist and October 31st of hist year 21(i submarines were sighted from air, and 18!) attacked.

Of hostile aircraft .184 were destroyed by the British air patrol, and 151 were damaged. Sixty-nino mines were spotted, .15,313 bombs were dropped, and 3,111 convoy flights were made —and these ligures refer merely to home wafers, without any regard to the vast air patrol above the Mediterranean, Aeroplanes, seaplanes, airships, and Hying boats were all in usg. and when in the early months of last year the submarine danger Avas at. its worst, the aeroplanes became very numerous, ami aerodromes came into being all round the coast.