NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16152, 5 March 1918, Page 7

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

GERMAN SHIPS AS AMERICAN TRANSPORTS. The property in America of the Hamburg-Amerika and North German Lloyds Steamship Companies, which is about to be seized and sold by auction by the American Government, must consist of buildings, offices, stores, etc.. for the vessels of tho two companies which had been interned in New York and other American harbours 011 the outbreak of war were confiscated by tho Government when America joined tho Allies. As it happened, no enemy property in America could have been more useful for America's purposes. Seme time last, year, probably not very long alter the United States declared war against Germany, the German military authorities, in a series of secret instructions to German newspapers, ordered that the view must be taken that it was impossible 10 bring live American divisions over sea by tiio end of 1917. liowever difficult that task might have been, under normal circumstances, it was greatly facilitated by the abiiity of the American War Departn.cn t to use, for purposes of transport, sixteen of the. steamers belonging to the companies mentioned. The following is a list, in order of their size, of the German vessels which arc now engaged in taking American troops across tho Atlantic to fight the Germans. The original German and present American names are given (the latter in parentheses) and the capacity indicated: — Vaterland (Leviathan), 54,252 tons, 8800 officers and men. • George Washington, 25,570 tons, 4850 officers and men. Amerika (America), 22,622 tons, 4003 officers and men. Cecilie (Mt. Vernon), 19,503 tons, 3830 officers and men. Kaiser Wilhelin 11. (Agamemnon), 19,361 tons, 3830 officers and men. President Lincoln (original name), 18,103 tons, 5200 officers and men. President Grant (original name), 18,072 tons, 5200 officers and men. Cincinnati (Covington), 16,339 tons, 4000 officers and men Grosse Kurfurst (iEolus), 13,10* tons, 3170 officers and men. Barbarossa (Mercury), 10,984 tons, 2620 officers and men. Prinzess Irene (Pocahontas), 10,oyo tons, 2540 officers and men. Friedrich der Grosso (Huron), 10,771 tons, 2450 officers and men. Hamburg (Powhatan), 10,031 tons, 2100 officers and men. Rhein (Susquehanna), 10,008 tons, 2000 officers and men. Ncckar (Antigone), 9530 tons, 2000 officers and men. Koonie Wilhelm If. (Madawasca), 9410 tons, 2200 officers and men. Of these vessels, tho Vaterland, Amerika, President Lincoln, President Grant, Cincinnati, Hamburg, and lvoeni" Wilhelm 11. used to belong to tho Haniburg-Amerika line, the other nino to the North German Lloyd s Co. Their total carrying capacity 111 men is 59.295, so that in ono trip they can transport close upon three full divisions. THE DEFENCES OF ZEEBRUGGE. German anxiety rogarding tho defence of Zeebrugge, for which they aio reported, by a Dutch paper, to be continuously thinking out new methods, would bo considerably creator if it were not that Nature has already done much to help them. Zeebrugge is one of Germany's two most advanced outposts against Groat Britain the other being Ostend. in itself 'it is a place of no consequence, consisting, as one visitor has said, 01 ! only a Few rather dilapidated houses and two or threo inns. There is little or nothing to hit, ' he added, "and you might waste thousands .of pounds of ammunition without injuring Germany, for she naturally keeps her destroyers and submarines at at the other ond of the canal, of which Zeebrugge serves morely as tho sea gateway." It has a spacious outer harbour, protected against the northwest wind by a crescent-shaped molo a mile and a half long. A double track railway links the place with Bruges, and all along the coast, behind" the sand dunos, which are only broken at Zeebrugge, used to run a steam tramway, of which, as is also tho case with tho railway, tho many bombardments from sea atbd air to which they have been subjected, probably little remains. Tho canal is what gives Zeebrugge its value, as tho means'of exit and entrance for raidinn- destroyers and submarines, and this fact explains the frequent references in official reports to tons of bombs having been dropped on the lockigates of the canal, and the buildings "done the waterway. Tho chief defences of Zeebrugge, leaving on ono side the extremely heavy guns which tho Germans have' placed tbe.-c, is the array of banks and shoals which are found all along the Belgian const. Of these natural defences an American naval officer wrote a few months ago:—"Although Zeebrugge is not protected by as manv bars and shoals as Ostend, it has the.' advantage of lying behind a part of tho underwater-coast that lias no great depth of water over it close to the land. The chart shows depths ranging from eight to three and a quarter fathoms at most, _ and these shoals run a considerable distance out from and parallel to the coast. Northward again from Zeebrugge to the delta of tho Scheldt there is another maze of banks and shoals, the dospest water between the coast and Thornton Rid.go, roughly fifteen miles N.N.7>\ of Zeebrugge, being seventeen fathoms, and that a good twelve miles from the coast." The value of Zeebrugge 3s a base for an offensive must be considerably reduced by the incessant attention paid to it, chiefly by British airmen, who must have dropped many bombs 0:1 it in the last few months. If half tho bombs intended for th? lock-gates have dropped near them, they should be s-rap iron and splinters by this- time. | But the care evinced by .the Germans in protecting the place shows that it has still a certain valu^ —it ha? been, and presumably is still. a perfect wnses' nest for submarine activity, i And so long as it possesses that value, so loiv.r. we may be sure, will the British navy and air services continue to pay it the attention it demands. VOX LETTOW STILL HOLDING OUT. Two or three lines of a cable s:t.v in yesterday's paper served to remind 'is that General von Lotto-'. - , tiio German commander in l\;:.s; Africa, is still managing to evade the British and Portuguese forces < r,.•••:vn;d in the t:ivU of running niui down. After the campaign 111 German Eu;;t Allien had been practically to a clo.m; br the surrender of a comnarr.tivelv k-rge German tor:e, von Letvuv. with what was understood to be only a h.u.diu ; or white troops and a moire numerous bod;, ot Asknm (native levies) crossed the Rovmna into irtuguese East Africa, and «-arly in """.nua'rv ba:'i reached a point about a hundred :ri'o:~ south ot the irontier. r \;uly in December. having joined Torres with another column and thus having some 2l!00 men. mostly "ativen, he inflicted a defeat 011 a much smaller body of Portuguese, capturing their position and taking prisoner n:;.e officers and 17 European non-coms, besides scnu- of the native rank and ti!e. With the exception of :» British subaltern, all the pr.s.;;::ers were subsequently re'.-.asod. having been treated -.v:th courteous attention. For a Gerrn.-.n officer, von Lettow seems to be rathea deccnt fellow, and in elusiveness, he

rivals De Wet's performances in the Boer war. The latest cable indicates that he has continued to push southward. Port Amelia, whence one British foree struck inland, is on the coast about 100 miles south of the Rovuma, and rather more than half-way between that river and Mozambique. This column is evidently moving west, whi'o tin.- column from Lake Nyassa is advancing eastward. Colonel van Deventcr, a brother and staff officer of tho Boer general who wound up the campaign in German Fast Africa in such workmanlike fashion, reached Durban two 1110111h-; ago, and was very optimistic about the situation. It was only matter of days, he asserted, before von Lettow would be run to earth, lie ami liis force of 1200, which included some 200 Europeans, were living from band to mouth. "It is one continual prowl for provisions, and before we loft the latest report was to the effect that Ik> bad only a four days' supply of foou available." That, as we have said, was two months atro, and von Lettow, evidently resourceful as well as elusive, is still at large, and fighting, though wit-l; diminishing strength.