Then again came another war, the Great War, which began on August 4, 1914, the year in which the canal was opened. Too late America had begun to learn the value of a Mercantile Marine, and now she foresaw that there would be an inadequate supply of shipping to carry her trade across the ocean. Immediately she tried to make up for this by passing a law a fortnight after the outbreak of war removing the age limit in the Act of 1892. And now it becomes necessary to look into the matter somewhat closely, otherwise what followed is not intelligible. When the European War broke out, America, having regard to her population, wealth, overseas trade and length of littoral, was in a curious position. The following figures are for June 1914, and are eloquent. In that month, of all the world’s _sea-going_ steel and iron steam tonnage the British Empire owned 47·7, Germany 12, Scandinavia 8·7, France 4·5, the United States 4·3 and Japan 3·9 per cent. As the war went on America realised at last that 71 per cent. of the world’s steamships were in the hands of belligerents, and therefore the means of transport for American exports and imports—in other words, the exchange of wealth—had been taken away. Even farmers and cotton-growers who had never seen the sea in their lives began to take an interest in the subject when they suffered losses. It took the Great War to wake up the great American nation, as it had taken the American clippers to make our sailing shipowners become active. Shipbuilding in America suddenly began to revive, for from the end of 1915 ships were required by Britain, France and Norway. Mines and submarines had caused losses to the two first, while the third required more ships than ever for the profitable trade she was doing with Great Britain and France. Moreover, the American Mercantile Marine needed ships for herself; and the result was that in 1915 there was a net increase of nearly 500,000 tons added to its commercial service, including shipping which had been transferred to it. The position in the carrying trade outside America was this. A large number of ships were interned in various ports, some thousands of tons had been sunk by the German mines and submarines, and yet the Allies were now requiring more for maintaining food for nations and supplies for the armies in the field. In addition to this, many ships had been taken from the Merchant Service for purely naval purposes and other objects, such as supply-vessels to the Fleet. And the unrestricted submarine campaign which Germany began in April 1917 was to make matters considerably worse; for in April of that year 545,282 tons of British merchant shipping alone were lost by enemy action.