Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star THURSDAY, AUGUST 15th 1918. THE MERCHANT SERVICE.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 August 1918, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star THURSDAY, AUGUST 15th 1918. THE MERCHANT SERVICE.

In yesterday’s issue, reference was made to a tribute well deserved to the British Navy at the hands of Air Archibald Hurd, the well known English val authority and writer. < To-day it will not he out of place .to refer to the Merchant Service of Great Britain, ' which arm of the Empire’s potential services |x treated also by Mr Hurd in one of his recent publications. The sustained devotion of the Merchant Service to the cause of the Empire, is one of the essential actions which have contributed to Great Britain standing whore she does to-day, secure from the perils and horrors of starvation and going forward on the sure road to victory because of the sustenance, the comfort, and the trading facilities have never faltered, desperate and dangerous though the passage on the high seas may have been In ‘‘Ordeal bv Sen,” Air Tlurd denounces Germany's submarine earn paign, and celebrates the courage of 1 the British merchant sailor who has j gone about, his work undeterred by ! the worst examples of German frightfulness. Before the war there was .a fine, freemasonry o.f the sea. Any ship in distress could be sure that all others would do their utmost to succour her; the S.O.S. call would make any craft that picked it up leave its business and hurry lo help. But Hie war has changed all that nowadays the S.O.S. signal may be the device of a disguised raider and Germany grants no immunity io errands of mercy. “It has remained for the Germans, says Mr Hurd “to foreswear fealty to the high ideals which in modern times have bound sailors together in a companionship larger than anvotlior human society, and honourable bound by a series of rules based on the dictates of humanity and the laws of humanity.” Those rules have been systematically violated by Germany. International law rcrogn Ett.liat merchant ships are liable to he captured, and in certain circumstances to he sunk. But, in no circumstances can they be sunk if such a course endangers -non-combatant lives. Germany has argued that the very nature of the submarine makes it impossible to observe the formalities of stoppage visit, and search or to safeguard the lives of passengers and crew. This is perfectly firuo, but. it. does not justify Germany’s actions; it is merely a cogent argument against submarinism. Air Hurd aptly points out that simply because a submarine campaign cannot be carried on and at the same time regard be paid to the decrees of humanity and international law, the Allies left it mil of their calculations at first. It never occurred to them that Germany would be so lost to all decent feeling that, she would adopt this mode of warfare. and yet she prates about fighting for the freedom of the seas. The freedom of the seas, observes the author, existed until Germany revived the piracy in a peculiarly repulsive form. Coining to concrete examples, Air Hurd describes some of the more notable crimes of which Germany has been guilty on the high seas, and reminds us that though the loss of a Lusitania or an Angona may shock the imagination with a more poignant sentiment of horror, there is no essential difference between such a catastrophe and the sinking of an inconspicuous tramp or fishing boat. This interesting book ends with a note of satisfaction, a chapter which fells how these sorely tried merchantmen on occasions manage to “get back on” their enemies, and to send the German submarine with all hands into the safe keeping of Davy Jones.