The Critical Situation Created by the War,— On 1 Jan. 1914 the French commercial fleet comprised 2,498,285 raw tonnage. To 1 Jan. 1917 the tonnage of French merchant fleet sunk through acts of war (mines, submarines, etc.) amounted to 311,271 tons. As very few ships have been added to the French merchant fleet since the outbreak of hostilities, the ton nage at the commencement of 1917 was reduced to 2,265,000 tons. These figures sufficiently prove the serious character of the situation.
This situation is not dqe entirely to sub marine losses. It is greatly aggravated by the almost unsurmountable obstacles encountered during the first three years of war by the French constructors to make good the losses. These obstacles are of two kinds: (a) impos sibility of constructing ships in France; (b) impossibility of procuring them from abroad. The impossibility of construction in France is easily explained by the fact that raw material (sheet iron, angle-iron, profiles) indispensable for naval construction can no longer be fur nished by the French metallurgical manufacto ries as most of them are located in the invaded districts of northeastern France. To under stand this it is merely sufficient to state that in 1913 the departments of Meurthe and Moselle alone produced 19,798,000 tons of iron ore of the 21,714,000 tons extracted throughout France. Furthermore, the steels which it was possible to procure, either from neutral or allied countries, were all exclusively reserved for direct war purposes. The naval shipbuild ing yards were themselves, at the request of the government, transformed into munition factories for the making of shells. Moreover, these shipbuilding yards had the greatest diffi culty to finish the ships in an advanced stage of construction but which were still on their stocks. There was no question, therefore, of undertaking new naval construction, which scarcity of labor, moreover, would have made difficult of realization.
Finally, as the submarine warfare became , more intense, each maritime country awoke to the necessity of jealously reserving its own ships for its own needs. England, at first, quickly followed by the Scandinavian countries, the United States (1916) and lastly Japan in September 1917, successively forbade the transfer ol their national flag. Under these circumstances not only was it impossible to re place lost merchant vessels by new units but the exploitation of foreign ships under the French flag was also out of the question. It was only when matters reached an acute crisis that the proper authorities took steps to obtain supplies of steel from France's reserve stock necessary to construct some 20 small vessels (1,400 tons) for delivery in the spring of 1918.
The need of reconstituting the French mer chant fleet was still further accentuated by the fact that apart from loss of tonnage mentioned, the bulk of merchandise to be handled in the French ports during the war was following an ever upward tendency. This is easily ex plained by the fact that before the war France's exterior commerce by land was principally transacted with Germany and Belgium. Thus, owing to the war, these two land routes were closed to her. Again, if French exports by sea have declined since 1914, importations on the other hand have increased in such proportions that the total mass of maritime commerce has reached a much higher figure.
We quote a few figures taken from statis tics compiled at the ports. By taking the total figures affecting merchandise disembarked and embarked in the 40 principal ports of France we find the following: 1913 42.296.665 tons.
1914 33.005.498 1915 42.263,903 1916 56.673,098 " But if only goods disembarked in the same ports are considered the proportion in the in crease is much greater; as will be seen from the following figures: 1913 31.884,516 tons.
1914 27.223.519 1915 40,155,884 ' 1916 51,302,755 " These figures do not furnish any indication from the point of view of importance of the French•maritime traffic after the war. They do possess, however, a permanent interest because they show the receptive capacity of the French ports which have been able to handle in 1916, under particularly difficult circumstances, 20,000, 000 tons more imports than in 1913. An idea can thus be formed of the future possibilities of the maritime trade in the ports of France.
The lesson to be learned, therefore, from the critical situation caused by the war is the absolute need of a powerful French merchant fleet; such a fleet did not exist in peace times, and the need for the same was imperative in the two cases. Serious obstacles will have to be surmounted before this fleet can be properly developed. However, the teachings of the present war prove in an irrefutable manner the for manufacturers to preoccupy thew selves with means of maritime transportation which forms such a link between them and their foreign clientele. Moreover, once the war ter minated it will be possible not only for French shipbuilders,. but also for all those other in dustries which suffered so cruelly during the years 1914-18, to procure either abroad or in the French market that machinery indispensable for naval construction.
It is only fair to state that certain of the obstacles cited above regarding tfie develop ment of the French merchant fleet in normal times are gradually being overcome and some are on the point of being entirely eliminated. As a case in point we might mention the large -J source' of heavy freight which French maritime enterprises might derive from the operation of the iron mines of Normandy and Brittany. As recent as 1913 1,000,000 tons of iron ore was embarked at Caen or Saint Nazaire. The con siderable development of the metallurgical in dustry in the west of France during the years 1914-18 leads one to suppose that this figure will increase in large proportions in the future.
To sum up, the crisis which the French mer chant fleet is suffering from is a serious though not an irremediable one. It can be overcome because, on the one hand, the general interest of the nation is to remedy the present situation, and on the other, the combined efforts of the transportation enterprises as well as the manu facturers or producers interested in the exterior commerce of France are capable of finding a solution to the problem.
Prepared and contributed by the COMITt CENTRAL DES ARMATEURS DE FRANCE.