-2- reduce to manageable proportions the present destructive losses at sea. In addition it is indispensable that the merchant tonnage available for supplying Great Britain and for the waging of the war by Great Britain with all vigor, should be substantially increased beyond the one and a quarter million tons per annum which is the utmost we can now build. The convoy system, the detours, the zig zags, the great distances from which we now have to bring our imports, and the congestion of our western, harbors, have reduced by about one third the value of our existing tonnage. To ensure final victory, not loss than three million tons of additional merchant shipbuilding capacity will be required. Only the United States can supply this need. Looking to the future it would seem that production on a scale com-parable with that of the Hog Island scheme of the last war ought to be faced for 1942. In the meanwhile, we ask that in 194l the United States should make available to us overly ton of merchant shipping, surplus to its own requirements, which it possesses or controls and should find some means of putting into our "hands" a large proportion of the merchant shipping now under |