Sturdee. Only two small German cruisers and two armed merchantmen remain at large of all their formidable preparations for the attack on our trade routes, and these vessels are at present in hiding.
During the last three months—that is to say, since Parliament rose—on the average about 8,000 British vessels have been continuously on the sea, passing to and fro on their lawful vocations. There have been 4,465 arrivals at and 3,600 sailings from the ports of the United Kingdom. Only nineteen vessels have been sunk by the enemy, and only four of these vessels have been sunk by above-water craft. That is a very remarkable result to have been achieved after only a few months of war. I am sure, if we had been told before the war that such a result would be so soon achieved, and that our losses would be so small, we should not have believed it for a moment. I am quite sure, if the noble lord whom I see in his place [Lord Charles Beresford]—who has always felt, and quite legitimately, anxiety for the trade routes and the great difficulty of defending them—if he had been offered six months ago such a prospect he would have said it was too good to be true. [Lord Charles Beresford: "Hear, hear."]
Certainly the great sailors of the past, the men of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, would have been astounded. During those two great wars, which began in 1793 and ended, after a brief interval, in 1814, 10,871 British merchant ships were captured or sunk by the enemy. Even after the decisive battle of Trafalgar, when we had the undisputed command of the sea, so far as it could be tactically and strategically attained, the loss of British ships went on at a rate of over 500 ships a year. In 1806, 519 ships were sunk or captured—that is, the year after Trafalgar; in 1807, 559; in 1808, 469; in 1809, 671; and in 1810, 619. Our total losses, on the high seas in the first six months of the present War, including all ships other than trawlers engaged in mine-sweeping—including losses by mines and vessels scuttled by submarines—our losses in the whole of that period are only sixty-three.
Of course, we must always be on the look-out for another attempt by the enemy to harass the trade routes. Although the oceans offer rather a bleak prospect to the German cruisers, and the experience of their consorts is not encouraging, the Admiralty must be fully prepared for that possibility, and we shall be able to meet any new efforts with advantages and resources incomparably superior to those which were at our
