BRITISH COMMAND OF SEAS

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20921, 28 September 1939, Page 6

BRITISH COMMAND OF SEAS

Though the war has been in progress almost a month it is still difficult to realise, especially because of the censorship, the tremendous changes that have taken place in that time in the economic structure of the world which had laboriously been built up in the period of over 20 years since the Great War. Germany’s hard-won overseas trade connections in almost every country were swept away in a day. Her merchant fleet which traded to every corner of the earth scuttled home or to neutral ports or was confined to closely circumscribed waters in the Baltic Sea.

Realisation of this great convulsion in the world’s trade brings a true appreciation of the value to the Empire of Britain’s superior strength on the high seas. As in the Great War, when Germany had a navy immeasurably superior to her present fleet, Germany’s surface warships dare not venture far from the protection of their home fortifications, and Germany’s naval operations are confined to sinister attacks on British ships by submarines. Outlawed and hunted by the Allied navies, those submarines are doomed to at best a precarious career and cannot be a source of much pride to the German people. Some idea of the ordeal of the submarine crews was contained in Mr Winston Churchill’s statement in the House of Commons. Britain at least has cause for gratitude that Germany’s confidence did not reach its zenith before Britain had made great progress with the construction of the new navy. There may be criticism of the extent of British operations on land in implementation of the pledge to Poland, but it is impossible to overestimate the importance and the magnitude of the effort at sea to confound the enemy from both military and economic joints of view. It is clear that Britain never had more occasion to be thankful to her navy and to the wisdom of the Government in maintaining command of the seas.