Arizona republican., 1918-02-15
The Sea Front

The Sea Front
 The British people with their ruggedness, honesty and courage have down to brass tacks and are glossng nothing over. The government is not trying 10 deceive itself it's people. When serious mistake has been made when incompetency has been shown the of it has been promptly removed One gov enment has been overthrown because of it's mis- takes and it's incompetency. On Wednesday Lloyd George informed his countrymen that if they had government in view more competent than his own he ready yield it. The British facing things as they are, not as they would have them to be-
 It is now admitted that the U-boat campaign has not been failure. It has the contrary, been eessfu though iii lesser measure than the Germans had claimed it would be- It is further admitted that unless the measure of success it has attained in the past year is reduced will ultimately be wholly cessfu.
 According to a statement in the House of Com mons Wednesday, the Germans last year sank three times the volume of tonnage built by Great Britain and the United States during the year. The British building program, it was stated, was only about onc-thrd executed. How far fell short of our program the statement graciousy refrained from saying.
 We are not sure that the proposition of destroyed tonnage to tonnage was not greater than three to one It was only shown that the total tonnage was a little more than 2oOO00O tons, that the sunken tonnage on that basis would be something more than 6O0OOOO tons
 The admiralty military reasons, has never dis closed the amount of tonnage destroyed-only the number of vessels above 16OO tons and the number be- low 16OO Estimates made by the Wall Street Journal as to the average weekly sinkngs between February and November |, placed them at g ships of both classcs-16 above 1900 and below 1900 Some months ago the Scientific American arrived at conclusion that the average tonnage of vessel of the class above 1900 is According to the figures above given the weekly loss in vessels of that class would be 72OOO tons or yearly loss of 3744OOO No estimate been made of the tonnage of the less than class but placing at at 12OO would have an additional loss of 4OO To this total of loss of a little than 100000 British tonnage should be added, the American French and Italian loss, which would probably bring the total Allied loss at least 6,OO0,O0O tons to which should be further added the enormous loss of neutral vessels in the aggregate second only to the British losses. There should be added also the British loss of auxiliary vessels such transports, hospital ships and others engaged in war service, other than actual Warshps for they replaced by merchant vessels. Such losses are included in statements of weekly smk irgs. We do not know whether the Tdscania included for, though she transport, yet she doubtless carried merchandise also.
 It is for Great Britain and the United States ta make up the bulk of this stupendous ana increasing legs It is the most important thing in the war. Tn comparison, 1t makes little difference what happens the western front, the Italian front in Palcs tine In comparison the events in Russia have been of no concern nor can ary other effort of America compare with ov~ proper activity ir the sripyar!s.
 On this subject the London Observer as long ago January 20 said:
 The will be or lost in the British and American shpyards--probably by this years work in the shpyards The key of vctory-as or reconstruc- tonis ships ships. ships. There is other key. It is a humiliatng reflection that if the Germans made nominal draW, which in realty would be- in their favor, they would ther success st- perior intelligence and at every point of the war but especially at There they have been original and decisive in the highest degree. The hostile submarine has been the most skifu and formidable instrument of it's kind devised. The hostile submarine of the most effective things in continual harassing destructive raid of the allies communications To the work of coping with that menace, everything else must be subor- dinated this year by Britain and America
 There two phases of the war against the sub marines. One is that sinking them faster than they be built and the other turning out of tonnage faster than they sink it. All other schemes may be disregarded. The theories of in- ventors of them sane and some of them crack-braned. Let them invent but let the con- struction of tonnage by old established methods be stopped for survey of a shortcut victory on the sea.