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Hokitika Guardian, 14 January 1920, Page 2

Tub decision to blow up the sunken German warships at Scapa Flow, remarks an exchange, is thoroughly sound. The British Admiralty never wanted the ships. They were built for a particular purpose, and were entirely unsuited for long cruises in the guardianship of the seas. They wore almost incredibly strong fighting machines, ! with, an extremely limited radius of ac-tion—-limited, that is, if the life of the crews was |to be tolerable. So cramped was tbe crew space that the men were largely quartered .ashore in port. Teh ships lie at the bottom of .Seapa Flow because the jealously of Sea pa- Flow, because the jealousy of Britain, as the submarines were surrendered. The French were afraid that Britain would keep the ships if she once

got them.So- the German crews were left aboard on the strength of a German promise in the armistice, neither to damage nor destroy the ships. The Kaiser had ordered at the beginning of the war that no German ship was ever to surrender. Admiral von Reuter decided that even at Scapa everything should proceed according to plan, eo the seacocks were opened and the German Fleet went down, and with it any shreds of honour left to it after its career of murder.

With the price of a suit of clothes soaring up towards £2O, the British public is evincing a very natural desire to get at the bottom of what is going on in the wool trade. Sir Thomas MacKenzie, according to a late cable, has seized the opportunity to point out that the recent increases have not gone into the pockets of the-overseas wool-grow-ers, nor is there any shortage of wool to account for them. In London papers to hand of late we have found one

of the big stores devoting much advertising space to explaining with detailed figures that so far as it is concerned there has been no profiteering between the prices of cloth at the mill and the finished suit of clothes. This' directs attention to Yorkshire, and according to the Leeds correspondent of the Daily News there is only one boom in England just now that eclipses the Lancashire cotton -boom, and that is the Yorkshire wool boom. The road of Yorkshire is a road strewn with gold. But the Yorkshire miller is becoming uneasy. He cannot see where the road leads to, and doesn’t like the outlook. The millers are even reported to he discussing what steps can be taken to reduce profits. It is a curious turn in the whirligig of time to find a Yorkshireman, of all people, wanting to reduce his own profits. A profit so big that even Yorkshire is afraid of it is a thing that rather Ibaffles the imagina- | tion.