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Taranaki Daily News, 16 January 1917, Page 4

THE .SUBMARINE I'MULEM. When the war opened every nation was agreed that submarines could not be employed in commerce destruction. President Wilson declared that "the use of the submarine for the destruction of an enemy's commerce is of necessity utterly incompatible with the prine ; ples of humanity, the lbng-established and 1111eontrovertibie rights of neutrals and the so-called immunity of non-combatants." > Those words were written many months ago. Germany has not heeded them; she has gone 011 her way It is folly to imagine Hint any nation will stop her by diplomatic action (says Mr. Arehil",'H ihir!. the -vi'!,-Known naval writer). We must do the work ourselves by force, if it is to no done liy anyone, and, apart from the fine services rendered by our patrols, in all weathers, by night as by .la\ new methods of destroying l submarines must be tried with patience and ■ persistence, and the merchant navy must ne lendercd able to defend itself in accordance with immemorial custom. In tee days' of frigate warfare it was compulsory on all merchantmen to carry' guns. Why? Even though riie loss entailed in the destruction of ship and cargo be covered by insurance, the ni'ion, and not the owenrs of ship and cargo, suffers, because it -pays the oisuranee. When you see that a ship has been lost —whether under the British or other Ihg, Allied or neutral—bear in mind that indirectly the community r.t large is being despoiled. There is no "little Cherub sitting up aloft" to pay She bill; it is paid in the form of increased charges for food, clothes and other things. For this reason no effort must be spared, to destroy German submarines of both descriptions, ordinary submarines and mine-laying submarines. According to a writer in the Candid Quarterly, "The enemy is laying mines by the hundred daily round our coasts and disappears unknown and unseen. . , . The mine grows round our coasts like the mushroom; .10 sooner has one crop been gathered than another appears; and although we have sivept up thousands, other thousand? take, their place by the unseen work of the sub marine. We are gathering some of the submarines—but it is apparent that the work of destruction has not reached a pui'.-t deterring the enemy from sending them 10 sea. That liust be our aim, thus getting at the root of the troubles of commerce-destroying and mine Maying. That is a matter which may 1 well engage the best brains of the naval ' *ervice, working with the active encou--1 ragement of the Admiralty. That 011 the one hand. On the other, every British merchant vessel should be named Of attacked vessels provided with guns ■ only one out of every five, on the avor--1 age, has been sunk; the others made their escape. But wh:it 9 if "hore is a I scarcity of guns? Rven though the j armies at the front go short for a time, gnna must be provided for our merchant ! Slips, w'thout which neither our armies I nor munition factories can .>xist. The need of the merchant fleet • is urgent, livery day's delay in arming cur merchantmen with guns —if nat with bombs to drop on the .-nurderras boarding parties from the submarines—mean* 11 "shrinkage of tonnage. We are. fightins inhuman barbarians, and must fig'ht with all the resources at our command. Our merchant navy constiti&es the lifeline of our armies, as well as of 'he population of this country, and it must be preserved at all costs from further ' depredations."