OCR Text |
Show Miscellany British Food Carriers. The official reports of Lloyd's Register Regis-ter show interesting data regarding the ship-building industry In Great Britain. On March 31, 1916, there were under actual construction in British yards 1,423, 335 gross tons of shipping. It looks 1 like a large amount. ! But what helps Great Britain in her need for more ship room is not the tonnage ton-nage building, but the tonnage launched and completed. In the first three months of this year 80,5til gross tons of shipping were 'launched. The explanation of the bureau of foreign and domestic commerce com-merce at Washington is: The dates of launching and completion In British yards are uncertain so long as the yards are employed fully on naval construction and turning out munitions for the allies. The total of 80,561 gross tons launched in three months does not replace the normal nor-mal wastage from wreck, fire or old age; today that wastage is greatly increased by the perils of war. It is a strange and significant cotndi-dence cotndi-dence that addition to' the British merchant mer-chant marine in t he first three months of 1916, that is, SO, 000 tons, is precisely-the amount of British shipping that Germans submarines were destroying every week in this same period. The facts indicate how serious a thing it will be for England when the submarine subma-rine campaign is resumed, with the increased in-creased numbers of underwater craft completed since April. Germany v.-til probably not submit for an indefinite time to the illegal attempt to starve her civilians without returning to her own illegal methods of attempting to starve the civilians of England. New York Evening Mail. |