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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