HOLDING THE MINE.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 June 1918, Page 1

HOLDING THE MINE.

THE NAVY’S PART. During these last few days .1 have foregathered with many ofli ers and men of the Navy, and there is no happiness among them. The contrast between the fierce tragedy that is being enacted around the Somme and the “ inactivity ” of the Navy is bitter as gall to the men of the same blood and spirit who man onr warships; yet ii is no more possible for the Navy to strike a blow for the Army to-day than it was for the Army to intervene in the Jutland battle nearly two years ago. A sustained bombardment of the Belgian coast, even if it were possible off the months of hostile submarine liases, would not move a single man out of the German battle line. No purely naval operation could affect the military position. There is at the same time a danger that, the great pnit the Navy has played and is playing in ihe world’s greatest battle will be overlooked. Germany has been driven into this, mad and futile waste of men solely by the pressure of sea .power. The artichs of Mr Kuicst Pyke in the Daily Mail leave us no room to doubt that. The economic stranglehold of the blockade has reduced the condition or the German civil population to desperation, its moral almost to zero, and the great offensive is at bottom but a gigantic effort to break away—by 7 forcing a peace the inexorable shackles of sea-power. *- # * * 5?

Think over what Germany has done in the last three and a half years and (lie effort of which she is still capable, and then imagine, if you can, what she would have been had the seas been even partially open to her. Her material strength would have beer, much greater; infinitely greater would have been her moral strength and the stamina of .her people. Her armies would have been stronger by tens of thousands of reservists now compelled to remain over-sea. The terrific sacrifice she began on March 21 would never have been foi’ced upon lier. And sea-power is the source of onr own strength. But for the Navy the Kaiser would have been through with his programme three years ago. It was along the safe .road held by the Fleet that the *• Old Goniemptibles ” passed to the defence of Paris, and it is along that same road, as safe as ever despite, the menace of Ostend and Zeebrugge and the multiplication of U-boats, that, are passing every hour those reinforcements of men and munitions that will seal the end of the Kaiser’s hopes to-day. Indeed, the Navy is tiie beginning and the end of all things—the beginningl of Britain’s power and tlie end of Germany’s ambitions. It stands by to-day holding the ring, but tbe moment is bound to come when it will pass through the furnace of battle more swiftly, it is true, but no less exaMingly than the Army is passing now. It is the bnsiness of the Fleet to hold the sens against all comers—and the Kaiser’s Navy, much strengthened since the autumn of IB!4. has yet to lie tiling into the scale. Tie tit assuredly will be no one can doubt, and in that hour wo shall realise all that sea-power has meant to us, onr Allies, and our