The World's Press.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7707, 9 January 1905, Page 3

The World's Press.

MUSCOVITE INSOLENCE. d More and more irrefutable evidence is accumulating to show that our a gallant sailors had to deal in the a North Sea with a real attack by Japanese torpedo .boats, cleverly l planned and prepared, and that these torpedo boats were accompanied by smaller vessels masquerading as peacefiH fishing bouts,—Peterburgskaya Gazeta, j RUSSIAN HOPES. England flew into a, passion, and hoped to frighten Russia without making any inquiries into the North j Sea affair. Lat«r on, circumstances c caused the heat to cool t down, and now the British Minister for Foreign Affairs has prepared for , England a graceful exit from the "misunderstanding."—Svet, St. Pet- ' ersburg. , SUBMARINE SUCCESS. : A few lieutenants and sub-lieufen- < ants crossed from Spithead to Cowes i and back in a submarine, doing the i distance of about twelve Knots each 1 way in excellent time. To have navigated a vessel of this type safely across the Solent, with its currents and sandbanks, is regarded as extraordinary in modern naval practice. There is evinced on the part of ofti- ' cers and men of his Majesty's Navy a marked desire to serve on these vessels—Naval and Military Record. TRADE UNIONS AND TEMPERANCE. It surely would not be impossible ', for one or two of the great trade 1 societies to revise their terms of admission in the direction of rendering them more favourable to abstainers ti...n 19 others; and, if this were 8 done, there can be no doubt tha't the comparative immunity of the abstainer class from illness and accident would soon justify the rulers of such a society in proceeding a step further, and ultimately in requiring abstinence as a condition of member- - ship.—The Lancet. THE BALTIC FLEET'S DANGER. The strength of the Baltic Fleet, as compared with that of the squadron it will have to meet, has been c the subject of careful computation in ( every" serious newspaper in Europe. It has Iwen remarked, that the weight of metal—the total gun power—i.i ] slightly on the side of the Russian, but that the training of the personnel in the Russian fleet is gravely deficient. What has been less widely noted (and if noted at all, noted only in the English press) has been the vulnerability of the colliers accompanying the fleet. If it is possible in the course of an.action to destroy them or to find them scattered after a storm, and so capture them, the Baltic Fleet is lost. If it is permitted to reach Vladivostok intact (for Vladivostok is certainly its objective), thy war has simply to begin again.—Outlook.