Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-02-22 | Page 6 | Submarine Puzzle

SUBMARINE PUZZLE. It is difficult to discern the truth amid the conflicting statements of the British and G crma ns concerning submarine sub-marine warfare. The statement of the British embassy at Washington breathes optimism and flatly proclaims the U-boat campaign a failure, but the figures fig-ures are not given out in such a way as to disclose the precise situation. To say that 4777 ships have arrived and 4514 have sailed during a period of two weeks, and that cmly one ship in each 100 has been torpedoed, is misleading. mislead-ing. The statement seems calculated to convey the impression that far more ships are engaged in trade with the British isles than is actually the case. When a ship arrives it is counted as one and when it departs it appears to be reckoned as another ship, if the state-, ment were wholly candid, it would reveal re-veal tho exact number of ships engaged in trade with the British isles and the number of ships which have been sunk. If we know that 10,000 ships are engaged en-gaged in trade with ports of the United Kingdom and iJ-ViO of such ships are sunk in a year, we gain a fair idea of just what the submarine war is accomplishing. accom-plishing. A boat that is sunk never arrives ar-rives or departs again. On the other hand, it is quite as difficult diffi-cult to understand the confidence of the AVilhelmstrasse. Every day brings an interview from Berlin showing that the military and naval authorities feel assured, despite the comparative failure1 fail-ure1 of the U-boat operations, that ultimately ulti-mately the campaign will attain its purpose. pur-pose. Even accepting German in preference pref-erence to British statistics as to the number of boats sunk, the campaign has fallen short of success by half. The German admiralty estimated that it would be necessary to destroy a million tons of shipping a month if Germany were to gain its object and win the war. The English figuren indicate that the submarines have fallen short more than 50 per cent. The German figures do not indicate that 500,000 tons of shipping are being sunk a month. In itself the amount appears colossal, but when compared with the total of ships available and the tonnago it is possible possi-ble to create in a year of 'construction, the amount loses its impressiveness.