President Wilson has called on the American shipbuilders to help
us by building hundreds of new ships. It is, in the long run, the most effective reply to the German submarine campaign. Our forefathers saved themselves in the struggle with Napoleon not so much by winning Trafalgar as by their strenuous shipbuilding. Professor IV. R. Scott, in the now Scottish Historical Review, esti- mates that between 1803 and 1814 we lost at least 875,000 tons of shipping—largely through capture—out of a total of about 2,200,000 tons. But in those twelve years we built 1,119,000 tons of new shipping and captured 205,000 tons, so that we ended the war with half-a-million tons of shipping to the good. Curiously enough, the total number of our merchant ships has hardly increased, though their average tonnage has multiplied tenfold. We had 20,893 vessels in 1803 and we had 20,938 vessels in 1913. Napoleon's frigates and privateers captured 5,314 British ships during the war, against our total haul of 440 French ships. Yet, having the command of the sea, we survived the ordeal, thanks to the energy of our shipbuilders. We shall do the same again.
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