The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1915. A NAVAL CRITIC.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 50, 2 March 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1915. A NAVAL CRITIC.

Commander Carlyon Bellairs, R.N.,j writes most interestingly in the Contemporary He view on sea-strategy in the present war. He is not sparing in his criticism of the administration, and writes: “I am inclined to believe that if the Admiralty had not been so jealous and tenacious of its power and had recognised that the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, Board of Trade, and the War Office must have an intimate knowledge and be satisficed with the provision made in the distribution of our fleets, wo would not have had to suffer as we have done in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.” Commander Bellairs blames the Admiralty most outspokenly for leaving Admiral Cradock with an inferior force at the mercy of von Spec’s concentration. He asks why was not Sir Frederick Sturdee’s squadron despatched at the outset, instead of being sent when Cradock’s weak squadron had been sunk. He also criticises the Admiralty for not having swept the North Sea and destroyed the German mine-layers that were scattering mines before the de-j caration of war. He goes on to show that the British navy is more than equal to its task, and that it has completely dislocated German industry. But the faulty distribution and the abandonment of shadowing caused British losses which should not have taken place. “Shadowing,” he writes, “is effected by a distribution of ships so as to bring all the enemy’s warships, or armed merchant vessels under the observation of a stronger force during the days of crisis.” Why was such policy ever abandoned?