-2-
 
been listened to, and now the crisis once more was upon
 
them. There could be no solution other than outright
 
and complete defeat of Germany; the destruction of
 
National Socialism, and the determination in the new
 
Peace Treaty of dispositions which would control Germany's
 
course in the future in such a way as to give Europe, and
 
the World, peace and security for 100 years. Austria
 
must be reconstituted, Poland and Czechoslovakia re-
 
created, and Central Europe made free of German hegemony.
 
Russia, to him, offered no real menace and no real problem.
 
     At the conclusion of the address--in the course of
 
which he became quite sober--Mr. Churchill showed me the
 
charts he had upon his desk, which showed the amount of
 
British merchant tonnage destroyed during the war, and
 
the manner of destruction, whether by submarine, mine,
 
warship or airplane. According to the figures he showed
 
me, out of a claimed total of some 18,000,000 tons of
 
British shipping of all classes, some 770,000 tons had
 
been sunk. The greatest percentage of losses was due to
 
mines. Of the 770,000 tons of losses since the war,
 
550,000 tons were offset by new construction since the
 
outbreak of the war, and by captured German merchant 
 
ships. The net loss consequently was about 220,000 tons.
 
     Mr. Churchill told me that the convoy system was now
 
functioning perfectly, and that British daily exports and
 
imports were precisely at the normal daily level. England
 
was furthermore daily receiving the required 1,500,000
 
tons of supplies by sea.
 
     Mr. Churchill said that the German magnetic mines
 
had been completely defeated. His naval experts had found
 
                                             the