To transport the overseas troops from India and Canada and Australia, different measures were necessary. The ships requisitioned for this service had to be specially fitted for the longer voyage. The State was lavish and extravagant under the sudden pressure of events. The many-handed control at the ports made for an upheaval and dislocation of shipyard labour that did not hasten the urgent dispatch of the vessels. The hysteria of the times gave excuse for a squandering of valuable ship-tonnage that was without parallel. Large liners, already fitted for carriage of passengers, were employed as prison and internment ships. Curious situations arose in the disposal of others. At the north end, a large vessel might suddenly be requisitioned and taken from her trade--with all the consequent confusion and relay; by day and night the work of fitting her would go on. South, a vessel of similar size and build might be found, having her troop-fittings removed, in preparation for an ordinary trading voyage. Still, if the end justifies the means, the ultimate results were not without credit. The garrison troops from Malta and Egypt and Gibraltar and South Africa were moved with a celerity that is unexampled; a huge contingent from India was placed on the field in record time. A convoy of thirty-one merchantmen brought Canadian arms to our assistance: Australians, in thirty-six ships, crossed the Indian Ocean to take up station in Egypt. The unsubsidized and singular enterprise of the merchants was proving its worth: as vital to the success of our cause as the great war fleet, the merchants' ships aided to stem the onrush in France and Flanders. Considerations of economy followed upon the excited measures with which the first transport of available troops was effected. In the period of training and preparation for the long offensive, the Transport Department had opportunity to organize their work on less stressful lines. It was well that there was breathing-space at this juncture. Enemy interference, that had so far been almost wholly a surface threat to our communications, grew rapidly to a serious menace from under water. The engagement and organization of naval protection underwent an immediate revisal. Heavily armed cruisers and battleships could afford little protection against the activity of the German submarines, now at large in waters that we had thought were overdistant for their peculiar manoeuvres. Destroyers and swift light craft were needed to sail with the transports.