gross tonnage for the whole year being:

January 46,929 July 81,188
February 78,436 August 100,900
March 115,654 September 60,685
April 67,536 October 145,844
May 68,083 November 158,826
June 108,397 December 112,486

In January, 1918, the total dropped to 58,568 tons, and in February was
only 100,038 tons. In March it was announced that Lord Pirie would take
the position of Controller General of Merchant Shipbuilding. The
subsequent results in the direction of output of merchant ships do not
properly come within the scope of this book, which is intended to deal
only with work during the year 1917, but it may be of interest to give
here the output month by month. It was as follows:

January 58,568 July 141,948
February 100,038 August 124,675
March 161,674 September 144,772
April 111,533 October 136,000
May 197,274 November 105,093
June 134,159 December 118,276

Total for the year 1,534,110

It will be seen that the results for 1918 were an improvement on those
for 1917, the exact figure for that year being 1,163,474 tons; these
results, however, fell very short of the optimistic estimates given in
July, 1917.

MERCANTILE REPAIR WORK

The Controller's Department undoubtedly succeeded in the work of
improving the arrangements for the repair of merchant ships. This is
shown by an analysis of the total number of vessels that _completed_
repairs during various months.

In August, 1917, the number was 382, with a tonnage of 1,183,000. In
November the figure became 542 ships, with a tonnage of 1,509,000. There
remained under repair at the end of August 326 ships, and at the end of
November 350 ships, these figures indicating that the greater number of
completions was not due to the smaller number of vessels being damaged
or the damages being less in extent.

Considerable credit is due to the Department for this successful
acceleration of repair work which naturally had a great influence on the
shipping situation.

ARMAMENT PRODUCTION

It was not, I think, realized either by the Government or by the
civilians brought into the Admiralty during the year 1917 that there was
a very great difference between the Admiralty and the War Office
organizations in the matter of prod