The Trade Division of the Admiralty, primarily concerned with the regulation of the movements of British ships from the stand point of safety, developed during the first two years of war im portant functions in relation to neutral shipping by means of a system of control of British bunker coal; and at the end of 1915 the Port and Transit Executive Committee was set up to expedite the flow of traffic through the ports.
The staff of the Ministry was drawn from a variety of sources. The Transport Department of the Admiralty was transferred to it en bloc, also certain small sections of the Board of Trade; and as the work grew, the necessary personnel was obtained by the temporary transfer of trained civil servants and by volunteers from shipping firms.
At the outset the Admiralty was inclined to regret the loss of control necessitated by the creation of a separate Ministry of Shipping, but the difficulty was solved by a compromise, the Di rector of Transport (the Chief Executive Officer of the Depart ment) becoming directly responsible to the Board of Admiralty for all shipping employed on naval service, the Admiralty retain ing the right to order the movements of the shipping on which they depended for their supplies.
The Shipping Control Committee became in effect the Coun cil, or supreme deliberative body, in the Ministry and was con stantly consulted by the Controller, who addressed himself from the first to the question of increasing the available supply of shipping. At home the scarcity of material and labour and the competing demands of the Navy had brought the output of the yards to far below their normal capacity. It was decided to con centrate on the production of standardized cargo vessels of the simplest design; and the co-operation of the shipbuilders was se cured. Simultaneously steps were taken to place contracts with shipbuilding yards abroad—in Japan, the United States of America and Canada, and the resources of every firm at home or abroad which had berths available were utilized to the utmost.
After a few months the responsibility for all shipbuilding was transferred to the Controller of the Navy, but the Minister of Shipping continued to keep in close touch and the marked im provement in the output of new merchant tonnage which helped to relieve the situation later in the war was largely due to the programme which he had drawn up.
The executive work of the Ministry was under the Director of Transport and Shipping, an officer who had previously been Director of Transport under the Admiralty; his immediate assist ants were also styled directors, dealing respectively with technical matters, with the selection and allocation of ships to the various services, with the management of the various classes of transport, naval, military and commercial, and coastwise shipping under private control, and the work of the port.
To the secretariat was assigned the handling of questions concerned with general policy and the conduct of correspondence with other departments and with the public in connection therewith. It also dealt with all establishment questions and was responsible for all business not definitely assigned to one or other of the executive branches, such as negotiations for se curing the control of neutral tonnage, and the work of the National Maritime Board, —a body consisting of representatives of owners and employees, set up to settle questions connected with the pay of officers and men of the Mercantile Marine.
The Tonnage Priority Committee decided between compet ing claims for freight and scaled down the programmes of the various import services, bringing them within the scope of the tonnage available.
The Ministry relied on the estimates of the Statistical Branch and, when it became necessary to bring under a single control the tonnage resources of all the Allies, the Allied Maritime Transport Council (q.v.) was set up. A small Legal Branch was set up to advise upon questions arising in day-to-day administration of the Department and to represent the Ministry in Admiralty adjudica tions in regard to compensation for ships lost upon Government service.
The financial work of the Ministry attained very large dimen sions for with practically the whole of British shipping under requisition, enormous sums were payable in monthly hire, and heavy claims for loss and damage to ships had to be met.
(J. A.)