Nov. 28, Later intelligence of the loss of H.M.S. Bulwark affords some relief to the sadness caused by the destruction of her gallant crew. At least the Germans cannot, claim another submarine success—that is with any truth, not, of course, that that consideration will prevent them from trying to do s0. And while we mourn for the crew there is one aspect of this as of other disasters suffered by the British navy on which we would lay emphasis. Relatively speaking, such losses are infinitely less serious to Great Britain than Germany's losses are to her. The destruction of the Hmden, for example, which was doing valuable work for her country, was a loss which cannot be repaired. Let us see how such gaps in the British Navy List are being filled. In the course of his speech on the shipbuilding 709 vote of the Navy Estimates in July, 1918, Mr. Churchill pointed out that "'in the near future we shall receive incomparably the greatest delivery of warships ever recorded in the history of the British Navy." He went on to show that the rate of delivery was equal to s destroyer once week, a light cruiser every thirty days, and @ Dreadnought "'of the latest possible type and of the highest possible cost every forty-five days." To a very large extent this prediction was fulfilled. The Fleet has received, is receiving, and will continue to receive in the immediate future the "'record" delivery of reinforcements referred to in the calculation. Even if all the ships that have been lost had been vessels of the latest types, or of large fighting value (and they have nearly all been ships to be reckoned as old) they would not equal the ships which have been added in the same period. In other words the German "war of attrition" was no surprised to the Admiralty, which had taken the necessary steps to counteract it in advance. As Mr. Churchill said in the House of Commons, after the sinking of the Amphion, 'The Admiralty are not at all alarmed or disconcerted by such incidents. 'We have expected a certain number, and we continue to exa certain number, of such incidents, and our' arrangements provide for reducing such occurrences to the minimum possible." Finally it may be emphasized that incidents of this nature, deeply as we grieve
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.