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Show BERESFORD SURE OF VICTORY II SUBMARINE IH Tells House of Lords That Situation Is Serious, but There Is No Cause for Alarm. COUNTER MEASURES ACHIEVE SUCCESS Lord Lytton Says British Are Sea Police and Germans Ger-mans Highwaymen of Oceans. LONDON, Feb. 13, 9:30 p. m. The British Brit-ish public has Indulged the idea that the meeting; of parliament would throw light on the problem of how the navy is dealing deal-ing with Germany's intensified submarine subma-rine warfare. The press and many public pub-lic men have been constantly urging that the government drop the veil of secrecy, on the ground that the losses were well known to the Germans and that therefore there would be no harm in allowing the British public to know, while the knowledge knowl-edge would tend to encourage the people to bear patiently the necessary sacrifices. sacri-fices. ' Gossip, which experience in war has shown in numberless cases to be thoroughly thor-oughly unreliable, has played with the ; notion that many German submarines are . being destroyed or have been brought with their crews to British ports. Admiral Lord Beresford raised the 1 question in the house of lords today. He ; appealed to the government for more open treatment of the public, thereby voicing an urgent demand for" information. j Routes Kept Open. The Earl of Lytton, civil lord of the 1 admiralty, and the Earl of Curzon, lord j president of the council, replied to the effect that certain routes for neutral I commerce were being kept free and that i the situation was less aggravated than I might be supposed. They declined, how- ! ever, to divulge whether the improved condition was due to a better means for 1 ships escaping the attention of subma- rlnes or to the actual destruction or sub- 1 marines, though on the latter point Lord 1 Lytton described Admiral Sir John ' Jellicoe, first sea lord, as being "not d is- i satisfied." ; Both Lord Lytton and Lord Curzon spoke with great confidence and, while withholding actual details which might be useful to the enemy, intimated in a general gen-eral way that extensive measures had been adopted to deal with the situation. Lord Lytton generously admitted that the new admiralty board was only continuing on an extended scale the policy inaugurated in-augurated by its predecessor. Building1 Destroyers. Apparently the means the government; is relying on are a great multiplication of destroyers and the arming of merchantmen. mer-chantmen. Lord Lytton said that all the ship yards In the world would not suffice suf-fice to build the destroyers needed, but every available yard was being utilized for that purpose. Both speakers represented the admiraltv as being thoroughly awake and ready to employ even,' useful device submitted to it for coping with the danger. Lord Curzon gave interesting figures showing the loss of mercantile tonnage as only between be-tween 5 and 6 per cent, compared "with the month preceding the outbreak of the war, this probably implying that the loss by submarines and mines has been largely compensated by new construction. Lord Curzon, pointing out the ratio of armed vessels as three to one, said the process of arming ships was being qreaily accelerated and that the number now armed exceeded by 40 to 50 per cent the number armed at the beginning of last (Continued on Page Three.) BERESFORD CERTAIN OF BRITISH VICTORY (Continued from Pago One.) December. Strong efforts also were being made toward new construction of merchantmen, mer-chantmen, orders having been given both in America and Japan. Admiral Baron Beresford, drawing attention at-tention to the submarine menace and a-sking what measures had been taken to meet it, said: "We have lost since the beginning of the war 4.000,000 tons of shipping. That is a fact which the public should know, but it is not nearly as serious as it appears. ap-pears. We have made up the loss very considerably. Three million tons which have been lost have been more or less adequately filled. "There is not the slightest necessttv for panic. We have done remarkably well and shall do a great deal better 'in the future." The country. Baron Beresford continued, con-tinued, had been informed !n August, 1915, that the submarine menace was well In hand. As far as he could gather, it was better In hand today, owing to the new ideas brought to the admiralty by men fresh from the sea who had had experience in this novel form of warfare and its mysteries. In conclusion, Baron Beresford, while acknowledging the submarine menace was serious, said it would not be a falal menace men-ace and he was confident that in six weeks or so the nation would have the submarines really in hand. The Earl of Lytton. replying for the admiralty, ad-miralty, said the government would be glad if it were possible to take tlie public entirely into its confidence, but that that would involve imparting information to the enemy, and the admiralty was determined deter-mined the Germans should have that information in-formation by experience and not through questions in parliament. All the expedients suggested by Baron Beresford were being pressed forward with the utmost energy, together with many others, he continued, even in addition addi-tion to those mentioned by Earl Curzon on February 7. Every device that human ingenuity could frame was being employed. em-ployed. "We are the sea police of the entire world and Germany is playing tlie role of highwayman," declared Lord I.ytton. "TVe are confident that we can continue m the future as in the past, not merely to supply sup-ply our armies at the front with munitions muni-tions and supplies and carry out our obligations ob-ligations to our allies, but also to keep free certain routes for neutral commerce and obtain necessary supplies for our own people." Although the new phase of the submarine sub-marine warfare was only a fortnight old. Lord Lytton said that the counter measures mea-sures put into effect already had achieved very considerable effect and justified confidence con-fidence in expectations for tbe future. Lord Curzon adduced a set of figures which, he claimed, showed that tlie situation situa-tion was less aggravating than might be snnnneed Ie said: In Julv. 1914, our mercantile marine consisted of 2S90 vessels In excess of 1600 tons each, with a gross tonnage of 16,850,000. At the end of last January Janu-ary the decrease had been only between be-tween 5 and 6 per cent in gross tonnage. ton-nage. Admiral Jellicoe and those who have been with him are not satisfied satis-fied with -what has been done even in the last fortnight. They were not dissatisfied with the number of German Ger-man submarines that would never return re-turn to their own shores. |