THE PRE-EMPTION OF WAR SHIPS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 107, 8 January 1915, Page 7

THE PRE-EMPTION OF WAR SHIPS.

When the British Government at the beginning of the war exercised a preemption on the two Turkish oattleships, a group of Chilian flotilla leaders, and three Brazilian monitors, the German press made the most of the incident in order to poison the \ minds of neutral nations. In particular, they made great use of the purchase of the Turkish battleships in order to influence the opinions of the people of the Porte. It was urged that in seizing these ships the British Government had committed an unwarranted act, placing Turkey at a serious disadvantage. ! Then followed the escape of the Goeben and Breslau, and the report that Germany had sold them to Turkey with the object of winning the good opinion of the Turks, injuring the British cause, and at the time saving" their ships from internment during the period of the war. We now have the other side of the picture. When war opened four torpedo boats were being built by the Vulcan Works at Stettin for the Dutch Government. They were vessels displacing 350 tons, and provided with four torpedo tubes. Germany made a great flourish in announcing that the Greek battleship Salamis, which is still far from complete, would be handed over the Grecian Jovrnment when she. was ready for sea; but the four Dutch torpedo boats building at Stettin, which can be got ready for sea in s comparatively short time, were ■ immediately seized, and thus Germany will "be able to make good at one stroke the loss which the Undaunted with a number of British destroyers, receatly inflicted upon her.