FIGHTING SUBMARINES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1668, 30 January 1917, Page 4

FIGHTING SUBMARINES.

In a recent article on the German submarine campaign, Mr Arthur Pollen asks: Will the neutrals ever pluck up courage to arm their own ships ? Neutrality at sea, he points out, has long since been a phrase only, for Germany is impartially at war with all shipping, if it is good law that defensive arming does not turn tlie merchant ship of a belligerent into a belligerent warship, then it would seem to be good law that the arming of the merchant ships of a neutral for defensive purposes against unneutral attack should not be a belligerent act of the neutral Power that so arms her. Anyway, if a neutral captain or ship owner chose to protect himself in (his way, it should not involve his Government in any beach of neutrulity —.-so long as that Government does not admit the belligerent’s right to sink its country's ships for reasons hitherto held insufficient by international law. The question is no doubt delicate. But we may as well recognise at once that it is one that must come up for solution when the war is over. For till countries will be faced by this dilemma. Either the submarine must be by common consent abolished, or all surface ships must for ever go about their work knowing that it is in the (tower of any country owning submarines, to open the next war by a ruthless and unwarned attack upon its neighbour’s sea service.