THROUGH GERMAN GLASSES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 182, 9 April 1915, Page 7

THROUGH GERMAN GLASSES.

ADMIRAL'S DEADLY WORK WITH THE PEN. The beginning of the seventh month of the war is marked by a "certain liveliness" in German naval circles. Unfortunately for Admiral Sir John Jellicoe it takes at present only a purely literary form. In this shape, himself secure behind the lock-gates of the Kiel Canal, High Admiral von Koester ! hurls defiance at Great Britain and the world at large through the columns of the Tagliche Rundsehau. THE ADMIRALS' DRUM. His gallant colleague, Rear-Admiral Meurer, performs the same brave services on behalf of the Fatherland in Hamburger Nachrichten. He is far more bloodthirsty here than he is on the high seas: — To-day England rules the sea and employs her sovereignty to enslave the free seaborne trade of all other naif thereby, as Spain did once, she provokes all neutrals to enmity, so much the better for us —the more so as all nations will now be learning the lesson that the overwhelming naval power of one State constitutes the greatest danger to the whole world. Germany's fighting for the dcliver- ! ance of the seas from the intolerable , \ pressure of British naval power. She is ! fighting against the reign of injustice I which has established its throne on 1 the oceans. j The fleets of the world will speak | the deciding word in the coming duel ! for right and for liberty of actoin. Thar j the German fleet will manfully do its I part therein, hard though the struggle | may be, recent occurrences warrant us !in believing, for, if we have suffered j bitter loss, we have also achieved • many a glorious result. The modern weapons, the torpedo. | the mine, the submarine, and the airI ship, will play important roles in this titanic combat. The decision, however, | will remain, as it was before, with the i ships of the line. The German people may rest assured i that the same spirit that animates the ; crews of our submarines and our airj ships, and which has hitherto led them ! from success to success lives also in our squardons. I That spirit will secure the final glor- | ious victory, and will bring about a i triumph greater than that of Trafalgar. It is the same proud spirit, no doubt, as that which impelled the warships we encountered the other day in the North Sea to scuttle back in frantic I haste to the shelter of their minefields. "CAUTION OUR WATCHWORD." It is the same spirit also which animates High Admiral von Koester in the Rundschau, where he supplements his trecent speech on the same subject. In London the order has gone out to : fight the "dragon militarism." The | time was when we might ask whethei | the "sharp militarism" was not :i i much more fearsome beast. We now | need no longer worry over that prott- ! lem. ; I call to mind a speech delivered in 1 Parliament about seven years ago by the Secretary of the British Admiralty. On th\t x-ccasion h<3 said Germany wovdd wake up morning and learn that her fleet had ceased to exist. The assumption that the offensive spirit in our fleet 1s superior to that of the Bi'tish may be justilii from the *f,ct that we have taken the offensis'o on the English coast, whereas the British have hitherto not ventured to approach our's. We place the most implicit confidence in our fleet. We, however, also know full well that a naval combat will mean life or death, and that a vanguished fleet cannot be resusciated ! within the next two decades at least. We must, therefore, act with the utmost caution, and not allow ourselves to be tempted to any action that might involve our eventual defeat. How, for example, should we stand if to-morrow there took place a naval battle in which each of our ships should rag with it one or more of the enemy's to the sea bottom? We should be deprived of our fleet, and England could proceed at her leisure with her attack on our coasts, from Emden to Memel would be most seriously menaced, and atI tempts at landing could succeed at points which would cause us the utmost inconvenience.

Our fleet must protect us in all circumstances, and therefore a combat must only be ventured when we can safely reckon on success. Till then the watchword is "Caution." There are some who might find a different name for it, albeit one that begins with the same letter. OUR SHIPPING PARALYSED. A pleasant antidote to this tintrumpet truculence is supplied by the Vossische Zeitung:— Were we gifted as richly.-a* our enemies with the capacity for boasting we could already at the moment pride ourselves on our grip over England. We shall, however, content ourselves with making the simple, unvarnished statement that, under the influence of the declaraton of the German blockade, the mighty White Star Line, beside 27 other English shipping companies, suspended their services. In this way Britain is threatened with complete isolation, and, what is equally gratifying, is the circumstance that, in view of the peril to shippng, assurance premiums on English shipments have risen to such extraordinary figures as to render a complete standstill unavoidable. 'No wonder that food prices in England are already such>. as to raise up the spectre of starvation before the eyes of the working classes! Unrest is growing among them, and the. masses are raising their heads threatingly against the ruling powers.