The Daily News. TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1915. THE NAVAL VICTORY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 195, 26 January 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1915. THE NAVAL VICTORY.

The cable news concerning the fight between British and German warships in the North Sea will be received with the utmost gratification throughout the Empire. Whatever may have been the objective of the German flotilla, whether a raid on the English coast or an attempt to decoy the British warships into the area infested by mines and submarines, with a view to wholesale destruction, it was doomed to failure. The British patrolling squadron of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers sighted the strong German flotilla in time to give chase and sink the armored cruiser Blucher, while inflicting considerable damage on two other warships, and had not the enemy resorted to fligb* at full Bpeed few, if any, of the raiding squadron would have re-

turned to port. A comparison of the warships participating in the fight shows that the British had a, decided advantage. Apparently the enemy put up a good running fight, and the only regret is that their retreat should have been so speedy. The victory will have a great moral effect on the Allies, and

should, if not discounted in the usual way by German officials, serve to show the Teutons that they can have no possible chance of success in an open fight on the sea against the British Navy. We can take our losses- philosophically, but that does not prevent us from feeling jubilant at every fresh proof of the superiority of our first line of defence—the Navy. Vice-Admiral Beatty is deserving of great praise for his prompt

and successful attack, as well as for his caution in not risking the squadron's entrance into the danger zone, where the German ships would lave such a great advantage. Once again the Dominion's gift battleship, the New Zealand, has done good service in defence of the Empire, and it is pleasing to note that her presence at and co-operation in the fight has been made the subject of congratulatory comment by the London Times. The Dominion may justly feel proud of the part it is playing in this war, both on land and sea. and the Motherland may take equal pride in the valuable aid rendered by the younger brandies of the Imperial fa m ily.

IXVEXTION AND CIVILISATION. If mechanical invention was an unfailing index to civilisation men and women of to-day should have progressed far beyond their predecessors (writes the Christehurch Star). Indeed the great strides made in the mechani.'al arts, the invention of rapid means of transport, and the discovery of p/o----cesse,. by which the rougher work of life may be accomplished by machu.es has convinced many that we have reached a standard far beyond the dreams of the nations of antiquity. How fallacious and short-sighted was. this view has been shown by the European war; a war that is being waged more fiercely and with more loss of life both in soldiers and non-combatants than any other struggle recorded in history. It is a war that is being fought with the latest inventions known to science, with weapons that have been evolved from the finest constructed brains of the race. If the arts of peace have benefited immeasurably by the application of scientific principles the art of war' has profited twofold. In fact, the evolution of many inventions, as for example, the progress made in aircraft, has been duo mainly to the stimulus of competitive armaments. Considered logically, invention is neither moral nor immoral. It is unmoral. Human invention supplements the mechanical forces of Nature, and like those great forces, it can be used for an evil purpose as weir as for a goa« purpose. Electricity harnessed and distributed along wires may serve to light our houses or drive the wheels of our factories, but the same force may deliberately be used to explode the terrible mines and Winds hundreds of human beings to their death. These forces are in our hands, our faithful servants, and it rests not with them, but with ourselves how they shall be utilised. It is therefore quite possible to conceive of a state of society far advanced in the knowledge of the mechanical ants, and yet deplorably lacking in tne higher sentiments that stand for civilisation and lasting progress. In Germany, wo have an example of materii.l istic advancement unparalleled anywhere, and the rottenness of this superficial culture lias been shown a thousand times in Prussian militarism and its atrocities in Belgium and northern France. The early years of the nineteenth century witnessed in Britain a similar triumph of the machine over the man, and the terrible factory system, the child of a bloodless system of political economy ground the souls out of the unfortunate workers and finally brought about that reaction towards humanitarianism so nobly pioneered by Carlyle, Ruskin and Robert Owen. iSapoleon, a lonely exile on St. Helena, uttered these worjds: "Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself have founded Empires, but upon what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded his Empire upon love, and at this moment millions of men would die for him." The remark is prophetic and true for all time. Mere mechanical progress counts' for nothing. It is the spirit in which we progress that counts. At the present time brute force with science as its handmaiden, is endeavoring to proclaim its domniion over the v.orld. The result we feel will be the same, and the Prussian tyranny will go t down before the forces of civilisation. "It is at war," as one writer says, "with mechanism, soul with intellect, spirit with matter. The common interests of tne nations is being asserted against the principle of self-assertion; the vital forces of Europe are in arms against an immoral abstraction. They will ultimately triumph."