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 there, to the ultimate disadvantage of the neutrals themselves, have met with some success, but even so, the neutrals must consider the need for preserving a merchant fleet themselves for peace time, so that there is a narrow limit to what can be attained in this manner.  Even in January of this year about 30 per cent. of the shipping entries into British ports were under foreign flags.  I have heard estimates brought up to 80 per cent. in order to terrify the neutrals; if but 50 per cent. of this be correct it means a decrease in British shipping traffic of roughly one-sixth.  Counting tonnage sunk and tonnage frightened off, the arrivals at British ports have been reduced, at a low estimate, by one-fourth,