22 APRIL 1916, Page 3

Later on Mr. Henderson read a letter in which the

President of the Board of Trade pointed out that the principal reason for the scarcity of tonnage was the part that the British Mercantile Marine had been called on to play in the prosecution of the war by co- operating with the Fleet and by supplying transports and storeships for the Army. He went on to say that he was informed that one of the reasons for the delay in the delivery of merchant vessels had been the reluctance on the part of workers in shipyards to engage upon merchant work, which had been regarded as of com- paratively small importance in the prosecution of the war. With the express object of removing that apprehension a large number of merchant ships under construction had recently been declared war work.