The next important fact is that " ruthlessness " has
made no startling difference to our losses. Sir Edward Carson took for comparison the first eighteen days of December, January, and February. The table of losses is as follows :—December : 118 vessels ; 223,122 tons. January : 91 vessels ; 198,233 tons. February : 134 vessels ; 304,590 tons. Those figures convoy more to the reader when they are taken in context with the total volume of our shipping. From February 1st to February 18th 6,076 ships of over a hundred tons arrived in our ports, and 5,873 sailed. At any given moment the number of our ships in the danger zone is 3,000. This statement shows that there is not a fragment of truth in the boast of the Germans, with which they hops to paralyse neutrals, that they have " swept the seas clean at one blow." In future Sir Edward Carson intends to publish almost daily lists of vessels arriving as well as of vessels sunk, and also lists of vessels which have resisted submarines.
