WAR NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 May 1916, Page 8

WAR NOTES.

A GREAT NAVAL ACTION. THE POSSIBILITY DISCUSSED. In a late number of Land and Water, Mr. Arthur Pollen discusses the possibility of a great naval action in the North Sea., The challenge, lie says, might take the form of a sortie of the whole' High Seas Fleet, accompanied by all available auxiliaries. This Fleet might cither attempt to break North about, thereby making a general action inevitable, or it might steam through the Channel, cut communications with France, and compel us to defend those communications by bringing up our battle squadrons. Another plan would be to sacrifice half the fleet in a delaying action in the north of the North Sea,while the other half escaped to the Atlantic, where, after joining up with interned liners from Atlantic ports, it would attempt a complete blockade of Britain. Neither of these alternatives seems to Mi. Pollen to_ be in the least degree, probable. He rejects the first because he does not believe that Germany can have so strengthened her fleet as to give her a reasonable chance of success, and as for the second, he does not think sufficient German ships could got away into the Atlantic and hold those waters long enough, to bring about the desired result. A third course, which he thinks is the most likely, would bo an attempt to draw the British Fleet into action on or near the Dogger Bank, in an- area heavily mined and thick with submarines, "It is precisely this form of battle which the British Commander-in-Chief will most certainly decline, So long as tlie German Fleet is, as a fleet, powerless to question our use of the high seas, to seek its destruction at any risk is unnecessary. And bearing in mind, again that Germany's objective, in all this sea activity, is at least-as clearly the destruction of her enemy's moral stability as the destruction of her military power, the public must be prepared to hear a German boast that the North Sea has been entered, the British Fleet challenged, and the challenge declined." Curiously enough, it was Mr. Pollen who severely criticised the decision of Sir Archibald Moore, who temporarily succeeded Sir David Beatty, in breaking off the engagement on January 24, when on'.j one German cruiser had been sunk, though that officer presumably acted on the principle that Mr. Pollen here puts forward. An American critic, who has distinguished /himself by .accusing the British Admiralty of appalling incapacity during the war, declared that Sir David Beatty should have been eourtmartlalled. Mr. Pollen Is exaggerating when he implies that any risk is unnecessary, for we took risks In the Battle of Heligoland; but, speaking generally, his principle is the one that has actuated the Admiralty throughout the war.

THE COMPULSION QUESTION. The recent situation has arisen over the proposal that compulsion should be applied to married men ds well as single men. The Military Service Act, which became law on January 27, enacted that every British male subject between the ages of 18 and 41 years, who was ordinarily resident in Great Britain on August 15, 1915, and who was unmarried or a widower without children dependent on him, should be deemed to have been duly enlisted as from the appointed date for service with the colors or in the reserve for the period of the war, and to have been forthwith transferred to the reserve. The second clause of the Act provided that the. Army Act and the Reserve Forces Acts should apply to any man so enlisted. Provision was further made for the obtaining of information for such recruits as to preference for naval service in case their services are needed for that purpose. The second portion of the Act deals with certificates of exemption. These may be obtained on application to a body termed the Military Service Tribunal, which is established under tha Act, in the case of munition workers, men with dependents, conscientious objectors, men required for Departmental work of national importance, and those in holy orders. ,The certificates of exemption may be absolute,- conditional, or temporary, and in the case of conscientious objectors may take the form of an exemption from combatant duties only. The Act provides for the appointment of a military service tribunal for eadi local registration district to consider applications for exemptions. Prom this body there is an appeal to a local appeal tribunal, and a. flraJ aopeal to the , C«»tral TribunM.