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Show ch thus subsea menage Gil pLIIED First Lord of British Admiralty Admi-ralty Makes Statement While Introducing Naval Na-val Estimates. GIVES FIGURES ON LOSS OF SHIPPING Admits They Are Bad Enough, but Says They Are Not Equal to the Claim of Germans. 1 LONDOX, Feb. 21, 4:10 p. m. In introducing in-troducing the naval estimates in the house of commons today, Sir Edward Carson, first lord of the admiralty, said the vote for 400,000 men which the government gov-ernment was asking demonstrated the strength of the navy. He expressed the opinion that the country was extremely ex-tremely fortunate in having Admiral Jellicoe at the head of the admiralty. Admiral Beatty, continued Sir Edward, Ed-ward, was now commanding the greatest great-est fleet which ever sailed the sea and had the complete confidence of the officers of-ficers and men. A fifth sea lord should be appointed to deal with the air sor-vice, sor-vice, he announced, while the transport department of the' navy, except in so far as it was concerned with the transport of troops, had been transferred to the shipping controller. Sir Edward said he believed the problem prob-lem of the submarine menace could be solved, but only if the nation acted in conjunction with the navy. Commenting Comment-ing on the figures showing the loss of shipping from submarine attacks in the first eighteen days of February, Sir Edward said: "Our losses are bad enough, but they are not equal to the blatant, extravagant extrava-gant bravado of the German account of them." New Department Established. Sir Edward informed the house that an anti-submarine department had been established in the admiralty composed of the most experienced and capable men the iavv. t The numher of armed merchant ships had been increased 47.5 per cent in the last twq months. In the first eighteen days of February, Febru-ary, the first lord of the admiralty announced, an-nounced, eighty-nine allied and neutral steamers of more than 1000 tons had been lost, their total tonnage aggregating aggregat-ing 268,000. This was compared with losses of sixty-nine vessels of 20,000 tons ia the first eighteen days of December De-cember and of sixty-five vessels of 183,000 tons the first eighteen days of January. Work of the Navy: , Upon the whole, he continued, tne country hail suffered, less privations than any of the belligerents. The total number num-ber of he personnel carried across the1 seas bvj the naval forces up to the end of last October was ,000.000, he added. Up to the end of October also the nava forces had moved more than 9,-000,000 9,-000,000 ' tons of explosives and other materials; 1,000,000 sick and wounded; moro than 1,000,000 horses and mules; more than 4,000,000 gallons of petrol. They had examined on high seas or in harbors 15,150 ships. In January, last, alone in British ports they had examined 1574- ships and the total for February would not be less than that for January. The navy figures, Sir Edward stated, showed that 78 per cent of armed vessels ves-sels escaped after a submarine attack while only 24 per cent of unarmed ves sels escaped. While not giving the number of submarines sub-marines destroyed. Sir Edward said he had a record of forty encounters with them during the last eighteen days. Losses Enumerated Including smaller vessels, said Sir Edward, the total number of ships lost, both allied and neutral, during the first eighteen days of December, the first eighteen days of January and the first eighteen days of February were, with their tonnage, as follows: December. IIS ships, 223.000 tonnage; January, 91 ships, 198,000 tonnage; February, 134 ships. 304,000 tonnage. The total number of vessels plying to and from United Kingdom ports during the first eighteen days of February was 12.949, the number of arrivals being be-ing 6076 and a departures 6873. The estimated, number of ships in the so-called so-called danger zone at any one time was 3000. In tho face of all these sinkings, and the accompanying sacrifices and trials, the first lord of the admiralty said he had not heard of a single sailor who had refused to sail. That was what was going to win the war, he declared. Neutrals Neu-trals might be nervous ami frightened, but they would follow the British example exam-ple and he believed would shortly resume their sailings. Sir Edward said he proposed in the future daily if possible to publish together to-gether the ninnber of losses by mines and torpedoes and the nmnber'of merchant mer-chant ships entering and leaving the (Continued on Page Two.) CHI SPEAKS 01 11 ESTIMATES (Continued from Page One.) ports of the United Kingdqm. He also would publish a lift of vessels which had been attacked by and eseaped from submarines. In announcing that be bad received reports of forty encounters with submarines sub-marines in the first eighteen days of February, Sir Edward said:l "The fact that we got to grips with them more than forty times in eighteen days was an enormous achievement.'' . As an instance in' "which the result positively was known, he cited the capture cap-ture by a destroyer of a submarine and her crew. The other cases from which he quoted disclosed some of the methods adopted for fighting' the submarines. In ne of- these he referred to reports from an airship which had dropped bombs where a submarine had submerged. sub-merged. A similar report came from a seaplane which had used the same method against a submarine. Referring to shipbuilding, Sir Edward Ed-ward said that not a single slip would be left unoccupied during the coming month, and that steps would be taken to meet the demands in this respect both of the, admiralty and of the mercantile mer-cantile marine. He appealed to the workers to labor with unremitting en-ergv,(ind en-ergv,(ind to tha nation to consent to the restriction of imports in order to make easier th task of tho admiralty. Arming of Merchantmen. The arming of merchant ships, said Sir Edward, involved an enorruous amount of work but was progressing more rapidly each week. Of the armed merchantmen attacked, he said, 78 per cent eseaped the submarines, while of the unarmed 24 per cent escaped. Sir Edward said there was not a particle par-ticle of truth in the allegation that the government had forbidden the publication publica-tion of the losses of shipping and that so far as he was concerned, he would not be a party to a concealment of the?e losses. Winston Spencer Churchill, former first lord of the admiralty, who followed fol-lowed Sir Edward Carson as speaker, said". ' "The psesent submarine danger arose from new efforts and new devices adopted by the Germans since August, 1914. Our sole anxiety arises from the activitv not of fhips of the German fleet which existedlbef ore the beginning of the war, but from thoso which have been constructed since. Serious as is the danger, it should not be exaggerated. exagger-ated. Although Admiral Jellicoe has been called to deal with the submarine menace in place of Baron 1'isher, as I urged last year a course which was not possible before the Jutland battle, when we took the measure of the German Ger-man fleet L still am of the opinion that means should be found to employ Baron Eisner 's fertile genius. " Regarding the desirability of giving details of enemv losses in submarines, Sir Edward said the policy of silence was the policy least liked by the Teutonic Teu-tonic allies. "A submarine starts out on its campaign cam-paign of murder, anil all that is known by the German admiralty is that she did not return," said Sir Edward. "Even-thing else is a mystery." Another objection to the publication of such losses, said Sir Edward, was the . difficulty of establishing with certainty cer-tainty the destruction of submarines. From" day to day and from week to week reports of encounters wore received, re-ceived, and the reports ran from certainty cer-tainty through probability down to possibility pos-sibility and to improbability. Churchill's Opinion. Colonel Churchill said he agreed that merchant ship buikliji-should virtually monopolize Great - Britain's construction. construc-tion. The chief object' of the grand fleet was an offensive, but the submarine subma-rine warfare had largely thrown the British fleet on a defensive attitude. Tho former first lord of the admiralty said he believed ihe submarine menace would be overcome and urged the admi-raltv admi-raltv to discover some methods for mainV taming a naval offensive against Great Britain 's enemy. ' Although there was good grounft for believing a submarine campaign -would not exercise a decisive influence this vear on the fortunes of war, Colonel Churchill said Great Britain could not afford to assume that it was an evil which would continue to increase indefinitely, in-definitely, nor while it continued was Great Britain entitled to- claim that time was on her side. He considered it remarkable that Great Britain at last had reached a high degree of stringency in her blockade, without losing los-ing the good will'of neutrals. The- entry of the United Stales into the war, lie addedr would derange decisively de-cisively the fearful equipoise between conflicting nations, which now exists. The present relations betwien the United States and Germany, he declared, showed consideration for neutral rights and humanity would not go wholly unrewarded, un-rewarded, and this was justification of the foreign policy of Viscount Grey, former secretary for foreign affairs. |