Mr. Churchill ay s Hunting Craft Tripled Over 1,000 Merchantmen Armed London, Dec. 6.
EVIEWING the course of naval warfare clu uring the first three months, together with an outline of the present position, Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Adm ralty, told the House of Commons that the main attacks on the Royal Navy and s Islands and Empire: depended. always over 2,000 ships at sea fon the move every day in-our alone. by the enemy were concentrated on which the British "We have," Mr, Churchill said, ind between 10 and 150 ships harbours in the United Kingdom This immense trafic has 1 be maintained in spite of consistent U-boat attack: which never hesitate to break the conventions of civilian warfare, to which Germany so recently subscribed. We have been f "quently attacked from the air. Mining on a large scale has been practised against us, and latterly magnetic mines have been dropped from aeroplanes or laid by submarines under conditions contrary to the accepted rules of sea warfare and of specific German engagements with regard to them.
Besides this, {Wo so-called pocket battleships and one other cruiser have een loosed on the Navy.
"The Admiralty's task has been to pring in our immense world-wide tref in spite of this opposition. Besides these, we have t0 cleanse the ens of all German commerce (laugh er) and arrest every German vessel ud every terap of cargo in which germany i interested, Brondly speaking, these considerable duties have hitherto been suc cessfully discharged, The destruction of U-bouts Ins been proceeding normally and in accordance with the esti mates 1 gave of between two and four each week, That is, at a rate superior fo what we believe to be the German power of replacing U-boats. and corn: Petently trained 'U-boat captains and who rate of destruction, of course, varies with the number, of U-bouts which are actively used." were half of what they were in September, and in November losses were only' two-thirds of what they Were in' October, There is a strong, Steady diminution of the loss of all ships obeying' Admiralty direc tions or Joining our convoys, "Quite the contrary has been the ease with neutrals. 'They have lost half as much again in the second month as in the first, and double as much in' the third month as in the second, "IL is a strange kind of warfare for the German Navy to engage in, When driven off the shipping of their declared enemy, they console them-Selves by running amok among. the shipping. of neutrals This should encourage neutrals to charter their ships to Great Britain for the duration of the War, when they Hunting Craft Triple Mr, Churchill mentioned that U-boit_ commanders had sought to emulate the exploits of Scapa Flow by penetrating into Great Britain's defended harbours and "several graves of U-boats He upon their aproaches,"
Inthe' last week, he continued, boats had been' active and "wee @inelined to think five have ceitaimy met their fate, These re~ ult ave independent of any achieve. ments by the French Navy."
war a comfort to feel, Mr Churchill went on, that the' very rear reinforcements to hunting crat in Home waters had already been tripled since the beginning of the War and "would come to ser~ lee during 1940, ust "repeat the warning," he said, "that a steady flow of iossex must be expected, that occasional Aisgasters will occur, and that any failure on our art to" act up. nitencied by rave ire. belle that Swen ave netting, the eter of this menace. (oot lives, Sinking at Shah Potiey ft, Churehilt then mentioned thas u-boats were now turning from ann to sig
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.