CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 18, 26 April 1916, Page 5

CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

Tile imagination will be stirred by the report of an attack on the English coast town of Lowestoft by a battle cruiser squadron the other morning, and one could heartily wish that the Admiralty could for once relax their rule of strict censorship. We do not, so far know the date of the attack, but are told that the enemy opened fire ah dawn, and that the raiders ye re driven off by British cruisers before they had time to commit much damage. The destruction of two lives is all that the Germans can count for the risk they took, and the damage is stated to be slight. Here, again, one may be sure the thanks of the Nation due to the silent watchers of the Navy, and feo their keen desire to get into grips with Jhe enemy. All that has been done by the “boys in blue' in. this great struggle can never be chronicled, but, brethren, there Lo , stirring tales before us! No one ndl. grudge the Germans the pleasure of a smack at the Homeland, if only it will •qgervq a? an inducement to them o rc,.turn Jap4-try,'ami.repeat the dose. ' H ..must' ,^)e,admitted, however, that his .'elfish to the coast is only, the precursor nidier? oil a growing V.ale,, such as „ fiag been, .the, case in the aerial invasions pf opr realms. It is a herald, for. sqre, of '.‘‘The 'Day” to which the .Gormans boast they are. .looking forward,, but their enthusiasm and confidence in the ultimate decision will imt approach in volume the good old British “hurrahs” that will l e borne on the breeze from every ship in the Navy . when .the day for action arrives.

Assuming that the enemy squadron on their dash from Heligoland, wiiich is roughly 350 away from 'iowestoft, the journey must have beau well under way on the approach oi 'dusk on t/he previous evening to allow them to reach the English coast'at ctawn next day. ; To the day mind, the ‘ fact that the enemy was able to elude pUr Fleet and commence their attack as desired opens up unpleasant possibilities, but to all such surmising the one and only reply is, “Leave thax to the Navy!” These are the Navy s troubles —not ours! What, -e have to do is to send men, more men, and still more men to keep up the enforcements necessary to a successful prosecution of the war on land. No o' e will think it unkind to say that the Navy can look after itself!

There was nothing particularly heroic on the .part of the German; m bombarding Lowestoft. It J' ot fortified, except, perhaps, that there may :be a few anti-aircraft guns m position along the shore in anticipation of air raids;. It is a seapor and well-known bathing resort in Suffolk with important fisheries, and carrying a population of about4o, o(;o. It is here that the children love to play in the sand and build little castles for themselves; here, mothers sit and watch with pride their offspring at play; invalids seek renewed health, breathing the ozone of the ocean; the fishermen ply their peaceful calling; many people go down, to the sea in ships. It is in scenes like these that the Hun glories in obtruding, for he loves not peace but the horrors of war. There is every probability, therefore, that the casualty list may be larger than is now known, as there is no information of any of the population having-been Wounded Perliaps the British cruisers got up in time to prevent more than one or two shots being fired by the enemy. It is interesting to recall that oil this coast on June 3, 1665, a great naval battle took place bewteeu an English fleet under. James, Duke oi York, and a Dutch fleet under van Wassenaer.

Many people have been made uneasy by the persistent campaign of ,depreciation which a section of the Knglish press has (persistently directed against some of the leading British politicians, and to-day it has come ai he Mr Lloyd George’s turn to stand the brunt of unbridled criticism. It is a help to steadiness of view to remem • her how universal in times of crism

has been the practice among passen gers of abusing the man at the wheel. As it is put in an article on “The Victory of Time” in the current issue of » “The Nation,” there was scarcely a i great soldier there was certainly not * a great statesman, who in his lile did , not have to pass through a mudbath 3 criticism and attack, from the “twin r forces of hysteria and .panic” which ac- , company all great wars. Marlborough was disgraced and hissed in the streets I by the people, and lampooned in sav- > I age. irony by the newspaper prints of ; j the time, after lie had raised England - I into a position of unparalleled power *| in Europe. Chatham’s ilrst attempts ! I at War Ministry were signal and com- * ' plete failures. Only when he became - , allied with Newcastle in the most cor- * nipt coalition of 200 yea-rs did the un- * varying tale of success follow. He was i finally overthrown, after presenting an , | Empire' to these islands, because the House of Commons refused to vote the ! immense sum of four millions for the * continued prosecution of the *ai I. about 18 hours expenditure of to-day.

The ship-'bearing the message to. recall Rodney in : disgrace l was actually oh its ; Way to the West Indies when that stout old seaman, on the famous 10th' of April, joined action, broke.;-the French line, and saved the Empire that Chatham had created. Pitt combined a reign of terror at home with corn ip tion and incompetence abroad. All his schemes against Napoleon failed. He was probably the worst War Mum.tu’ England has ever seen. He died nl i-iq* hour of the smashing of the third Coal-

ition, when Ausferlitz seemed to hvo made Napoleon invincible for a lifetime. Yet he ig honored to-day as the “pilot who weathered .the storm!’; and “0 for an hour of Pitt!” is the comment! any panic newspapgr will make when it wishes to attack the, rulers of the nation. Wellington , again, after the Convention of Ciptra, was sayagely assailed by.,a kind of national fury. He. was only saved by aristocratic connections 1 from dismissal or impeachment; it is said that nine-tenths of England; would have.demanded his departure and half of England demanded his life. Yet he lived to win battles whose names are like a song—Talavera, Salamanca, \ ittoria, and the crowning triumph of Waterloo, which made him afterwards, in Paris, practically Dictator of Europe. The fierce attacks on Lincoln belong to lat er history. To-day his assailants only creep into history, if at all, because they are mentioned as having attacked the man whom they desired to destroy.