As for her Navy — the German battle squadrons lie inactive, while in one single month the vessels of the British Navy steamed over one million miles; German trading ships have been swept from the seas and the U-boat menace is but a menace still. Meantime, British shipyards are busy night and day; a million tons of craft for the Navy alone were launched during the first year of the war, and the programme of new naval construction for 1917 runs into hundreds of thousands of tons. In peace time the building of new merchant ships was just under 2,000,000 tons yearly, and despite the shortage of labour and difficulty of obtaining materials, 1,100,000 tons will be built by the end of 1917, and 4,000,000 tons in 1918.
The British Mercantile Marine (to whom be all honour!) has transported during the war, the following: —
- 13,000,000 men,
- 25,000,000 tons of war material,
- 1,000,000 sick and wounded,