es of our submarines and our statements as to submarine
losses; they dare not make public the amount of tonnage sunk, but
mystify the public with shipping statistics which have given rise to
general annoyance in the English Press itself. The English Government
lets its people go on calmly trusting to the myth that instead of six
U-boats sunk there are a hundred at the bottom of the sea. It conceals
from the world also the true course of the entries and departures of
tonnage in British ports since the commencement of unrestricted
submarine warfare. And more than all, the English Government has since
February suppressed most strictly all figures tending to throw light
on the position of the grain market. In the case of the coal exports,
the country of destination is not published. The monthly trade report,
which is usually issued with admirable promptness by the tenth of the
next month or thereabouts, was for February delayed and incomplete;
and for March it has not yet appeared at all. It is to be regretted
that this sudden withdrawal of information makes it more difficult for
us to estimate the effect of our submarine operations, but there is a
gratifying side to the question after all. It is not to be supposed
that England should suddenly become reticent in order to avoid
revealing its strength.

"For the rest, what can be seen is still sufficient to give us an
idea.

"I will commence with the tonnage. You are aware that in the first two
months of the unrestricted submarine warfare more than 1,600,000 tons
were sunk, of which probably considerably over one million tons sailed
under the British flag.

"The estimates as to the quantity of English tonnage at present
available are somewhat divergent; in any case, whether we take the
higher or the lower figures, a loss of more than a million tons in two
months is a thing that England cannot endure for long. And to replace
it, even approximately, by new building, is out of the question. In
the year 1914 England's newly-built ships gave a tonnage increment of
1,600,000; in 1915 it was 650,000 tons, in 1916 only 580,000, despite
all efforts. And the normal loss of the British merchant fleet in
peace time amounts to between 700,000 and 800,000 tons. It is hopeless
to think of maintaining equilibrium by urging on the building of new
vessels.

"The attempts which are made to enlist the neutral tonnage in British
service by a system of rewards and punishments may here and the