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The Daily Mail on Thursday says " Meantime the present

policy of passivity, while our merchant fleet is being destroyed at the rate of some million tons a year faster than new ships can bo built, spells certain defeat if it is continued." We do not know on what authority the Daily Mail bases its figures, but they seem to us to be inherently probable. This is a situation which demands the whole determination and all the skill and resource of the Navy. It may be said that the United States and other countries are building ships to help us, and that these, together with our own increased output of standardized vessels, will make us secure. But we fear that the world's total output of shipping is much smaller than most people assume.

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