GERMANY'S FLEET.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1915, Page 5

GERMANY'S FLEET.

ITS PURPOSE DISCOVERED. AND THE FUTILE BRITISH NAVY. A writer in .the Dresdner Anzieger makes a heroic attempt to discover "what \ie have to thank our fleet for." As the result of one and a half columns of futile exploration lie comes to the conclusion that gratitude is due to the High Canal Armada for "preventing the landing of a Russian army of invasion on our Baltic coast" and also for frustrating "the scheme so often and exhaustively advocated in the British press for landing a British army on the coast of Belgium, recapturing Antwerp, marching across Belgium and menacing Cologne and the Rhine." The writer comes to the conclusion that Germans will not be able to "appreciate the full importance of our undecimated fighting fleet until after the end of the war." Von Tirpitz used to say that the German Navy was created for the purpose of "defending our colonies and oversea trade." In its paean of gratitude the Dresdner Arizieger makes no reference to the achievements of the fleet in these directions. Another German newspaper, the Berlin Kreuzzeitung, is greatly concerned at the continued inactivity of the British Fleet:— The English Fleet has hitherto contented itself with playing the none too heVoic role of a sort of wateh-and-clos-ing committee of the world's seas. In England, of course, they are quite satisfied with the results gained. Among the Allies, however, who have been allotted by far the most difficult part in the war performance, the relief which England's most formidable Navy could bring would be thankfully hailed. In France the misgivings as to the possible action of the British Fleet are growing so acute that hardly a, day passes when the French papers do not publish an article to soothe the agitation and comfort the feelings of the people in regard to the problematic behavior of the potent, but super-prudent ally. "Her rest is as effective as her action," says M. Mille, alluding to Britain's Fleet. We make bold to transpose this phrase so that it runs: "Her action is as effective as her rest." The Kreuzzeitung is quite welcome to have it cither way. The point is that the German fleet is still in the position of the henpecked husband who crawled under the bed to escape his wife's vengeance, and declaring his intention of being master in his own house, resolutely nfuaad to csmo eui and b* thmhtd.