WE are glad to be in a position to present to our readers our customary annual review of the casualties in shipping, the loss of life incurred, and the lives saved by the Institution in the year ending June 30th, 1913, in connexion with the issue of the Abstracts of Shipping Casualties published by the Board of Trade. The facts and figures are again illustrated by the Wreck Chart which has, as usual in recent years, been prepared for the Institution by the Ordnance Survey Department from information supplied by us.

Our survey falls into two categories, viz., shipping casualties and loss of life.

Shipping Casualties.

We must remind our readers that the figures under this heading relate only to those which occur on or close to the shores of the United Kingdom.

They do not include casualties on the high seas.

The total number of shipping casualties shows an increase of 172, being 2,680 as compared with 2,508 in the preceding year. Unfortunately there was also an increase of 41 in the number of lives lost in connexion with the casualties, the total being 351 as against 310 in the previous period.

The number of cases of total loss and serious casualty was 1,042, being 98 more than in the previous year, while the minor casualties, which amounted to 1,638, also showed an increase of 74.

Moreover, 98 casualties were attended hy loss of life as compared with 78 in the previous corresponding period.

As might be expected, the vast majority of the total casualties were sustained by British and Colonial vessels, Tonnage.

21,045,049 5,368,194 5,459,296 2,319,438 the number being 2,284, as compared with 396 casualties which befell foreign vessels.

The following figures, showing the Mercantile Marine tonnage owned by the four chief maritime Powers, make it clear that such a- result is only what might be expected :— ships British Empire . . . 11,328 United States . . . . 3,174 Germany 2,388 Prance 1,576 As regards the distribution of the casualties (excluding collisions) on the coasts of the United Kingdom, the Abstracts show the following results :— East Coast of England—395, a decrease of 55 South Coast of England—241, a decrease of 28 West Coast of England and Scotland, and East Coast of Ireland— 650, an increase of 130 North Coast of Scotland— 118, an increase of 7 EastCoastoi Scotland—122,anincreaseoi 3 The remainder of the Irish Coast, etc.— 99, a decrease of 6 Total increase . . . 51 Loss of Life.

The loss of life was, unfortunately) higher than the previous year, as might be expected from the fact that 98 casualties were attended by loss of life as compared with 78 in the corresponding period. As noted above, the loss of life amounted to 351, as against 310 of the corresponding previous period.

The losses were distributed on the coasts as follows :— East Coast of England—93, an increase of 36 South Coast of England—71, an increase of 25 West Coast of England and Scotland, and East Coast of Ireland— 106, an increase of North Coast of Scotland—12, a decrease of East Coast of Scotland—13, a decrease of The remainder of the Irish Coast and at Sea— 56, an increase of 37 9 64 Total increase 16 41 Here again Great Britain paid the penalty of her world-wide commerce and vast shipping interests in bearing the great majority of the loss of life.

The proportion, of foreign persons who lost their lives in shipping casualties on or close to our shores in the period under review was 98, as compared with 253 British lives lost. "We desire particularly to impress these facts upon the minds of our readers, and to remind them that the toll of British lives which are annually sacrificed at sea is part of the price which we pay for the maritime supremacy which, at any rate as regards the Mercantile Marine, is still undoubtedly ours. The figures we have given above relate to the Mercantile Marine tonnage, and show that that tonnage is, practically, four times as great as that of either of our two next competitors.

Similarly, the following figures with regard to the number of men in the British Mercantile Marine will give our readers some idea of the enormous issues at stake, both in life and treasure, in the British shipping which passes to ' and from these shores throughout the year.

On Trading Vessels.

Seamen other than Asiatics) under Asiatic Agreement/ Foreign . . . .

Asiatics tinder Agreement .

Asiatic} 174,598 30,027 47,211 Total . . . . |251,8 On Fishing Vessels.

34,037 933 34,970 208,635 30,960 47,211 286,806 The estimated number of men and boys employed in sea fishing during the year was 101,188, including the 34,970 already mentioned.

In addition to these persons it is estimated that there were in the same year 111,472 persons on vessels belonging to British possessions.

While the British Navy is engagec in protecting our interests against a possible foreign foe, the men of the Mercantile Marine are engaged, day by day, in bringing to the teeming millions of these Islands an enormous proportion of the food by which they live, and a still greater proportion of the raw material without which the looms in our factories would stand idle and silence would fall upon the steam hammers and the planing mills which make an incessant clangour in our shipyards.

It is satisfactory to be able to record that, while 351 lives were lost in the year under review, the Life-boats of the Institution saved 627 lives, and a further 145 were saved by shore-boats, etc., in all of which cases the rescuers were rewarded for their efforts by the Institution, which, it must be remembered, is as ready to recognize intrepidity and the spirit of self-sacrifice in the case of shore-boats as in the case of the efforts of its own gallant crews.

No survey of this kind can, however, give any adequate idea of the signal services which this Institution has rendered, and constantly renders, to humanity, unless the eye takes a wide, sweep over the years that have passed.

Such a review shows that in the fifty-two years between 1861 and the 30th June, 1913, no less than 188,870 casualties befell British, Colonial and foreign shipping'on or near the coasts of the United Kingdom, and that 7,346 of these casualties were accompanied by loss of life, bringing the total number of those who perished in this way to the appalling figure of 30,876. But the ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE - BOAT INSTITUTION succeeded, in the same period, in wresting from the hungry jaws of the sea a total of 39,403 lives, thus maintaining its fine average majority of 760 lives a year saved as compared with 600 lives a year which are lost at sea on our coast.

Finally, we may point with pride to the fact that the Institution has granted rewards for the saving of over 51,700 lives since its foundation in 1824. We venture to doubt whether there is any form of national activity which can boast a prouder record than this. In saying so, we would not be taken to underrate the noble and beneficent work carried out by the Hospitals inalleviating human misery, saving thousands of lives, and restoring patients to their families.

We may, however, make a legitimate claim upon patriotic and thoughtful British men and women when we point to the fact that the lives saved by the Life-boat are, in the vast majority of cases, the lives of men in the full vigour of activity—men who are doing men's work every day of their lives, and whose restoration to their families represents not merely the rescue of a life, but the restoration of the breadwinner and the mainstay of the family to a home which would otherwise be shipwrecked.

It is with considerations such as this that we commend the claims of the heroic service of the Life-boat to all readers of this JOUBNAL, and we earnestly ask those who are already alive to these claims to pass this copy of the.JOURNAL on to a friend, and so enlist for our noble work an ever-widening circle of sympathy and generous support..