The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER MONDAY, JULY 19, 1915. THE MERCANTILE MARINE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 67, 19 July 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER MONDAY, JULY 19, 1915. THE MERCANTILE MARINE.

It is at least comforting to learn that every merchant ship the Allies have lost at the hands of the enemy has already been more than replaced by now ships launched, or by the employment of detained enemy ships. Statistics recently issued show that when the war started the mercantile tonnage of the world was, roughly, 31.000 ships, of 47,500,000 tons. Of this number more than one-third were owned in the Rritish Empire, their tonnage being about 21,000,000, or nearly one-half of the world’s total tonnage. Rut the needs of the Navy and Army had to be met. Store ships and colliers in hundreds were requisitioned to wait on the Grand Fleet and on the squadrons and single ships operating in every sea; numbers of fast liners were commissioned as auxiliary cruisers, and hundreds of smaller ships were taken for patrol duties. Of course there has been, and is now, an immense demand for tonnage, but this is due more to military requirements than to the depredations of enemy ships or submarines. The quarterly returns issued by “Lloyd’s Register” showed that on M arch 31st. 135 merchant vessels (of over one hundred tons gross register!, and aggregating -189,188 tons gross register, were under construction in the Glasgow and Greenock yards, while the total for the United Kingdom was 47.1 vessels of 1,578,4(57 tons, so that it appears every effort is being made to put our great sea-carrying business on, as nearly as possible, a normal footing.