"In addition to this, the Shipping Controller has taken steps for the quickening of ship-building. The tonnage built in this country during peace times is, I think, on an average something a little under 2,000,000. In 1915 the ship-building came to 688,000 tons. In 1916 it was 538,000 tons. In this year a little over a million tons, nearly 1,100,000 tons, will be built in this country and 330,000 tons will be acquired abroad, so that this year the tonnage which we shall acquire will be 1,900,000. This is purely mercantile marine. Bear in mind the condition under which the tonnage is built. It is the fourth year of the war. There is a difficulty in labor and great difficulty in material. You require steel for guns and shells for the Navy, because the ship-building program of the Navy has gone up considerably in the course of the present year. In spite of that fact the ship-building of the country in this year will not be very far from what it was in the days of peace. "Even now we have not got enough tonnage for all essential purposes. We have got to provide tonnage for France, Italy and Russia, as well as for ourselves, and we need more ships instead of fewer ships. And I am not going to pretend that there will not be at best a rate of diminution of our shipping which will embarrass us in the struggle, and therefore it is essential, not merely that this country should build, but that the only other countries which have a great ship-building capacity should also build. If the United States of America puts forth the whole of her capacity, and I have no doubt, from what I hear, that she is preparing to do it in her own thorough and enterprising way, I have no doubt at all that we shall have sufficient tonnage not merely for this year but for the whole of 1918 and, if necessary, for 1919 as well, because America can expand very considerably her ship-building capacity if the real need ever arises for her to do so." BRITISH BUREAUCRATIC METHODS On the whole it must be allowed that after the results were published there was a great disappointment, particularly as the government had put forth roseate plans for ship-building on a large scale. At the beginning of the war there were 16 million tons gross of steamers of more than 600 tons each. A large part of this total was used in the service of the Navy; and the balance, available for the carriage of food, materials and exports, was lost during the submarine campaign. The government seemed to show no ability to replace it. Sometimes it is contended that the responsibility was to be charged up to the labor organizations. According to the _Economist_ the situation was due to bureaucratic methods of control. In a debate in Parliament the whole subject was ventilated: