GERMANY AS A SEA POWER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3141, 30 October 1922, Page 7

GERMANY AS A SEA POWER.

(London Daily Telegraph.) The assumption that Germany would not count as a sea-Power for a generation or more is already being disproved by events; before long she will apparently rank once more among the leading maritime nations of the worJd, even if she does not in the course of a few years take from the United States the newly-won honor of being second in mercantile strength to this country. In this respect, as in others, Germany constitutes a most intriguing and embarrassing economic riddle. She emits protests that she is poor to desperation and cannot really afford to make any considerable payments by way of reparation for the havoc she worked, and the mark continues ite headlong fall in sympathy with those assentations of poverty. The country is represented as on the verge.of bankruptcy. That is one picture which is intended for foreign eyes; but there is another. Internally the economic situation reveals many features which suggest that Germany is really prosperous; or, at least, is assured of future prosperity; her industries aro turning out goods in immense quantities; her railway and canal communications are being improved; the whole country is a hive of activity; she has fewer unemployed! men and women than are to be found under any other flag; and, lastly, she. is steadily recovering her position on the sea. Of course, her war fleet, whic hwas the ex-Emperor William's peculiar pride, is gone. That disappeared in the waters of Scapa Flow, and provision was made under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles that it should not be rebuilt on anything like its former scale. The Germans, in view of the subsequent Washington Agreement, may not be altogether sorry that they should be relieved of any possibility of expending large sums on naval armaments. They are devoting themselves with remarkable energy to the re-creation of their merchant fleet. They had to surrender to the. Allies as a condition of peace practically all their tonnage —the most luxurious of their lines as well as the most lucrative of their cargo-carriers; they were left with only a mscellaneous assortment of small vessels, representing less than half a million tons altogether. But anticipation that they would rest content with the sea oblivion which had been thrust upon them has already been falsified.

In the first place arrangements were made with the United States by the two most important shipping companies for keeping alive German interests on the routes on which their ships plied in pre-war days. The Americans appeared singularly blind to the ultimate (significance which might attach to this cooperation, but in no .short time their eyes will mo doubt be opened to the fact that, in colloquial language, the Germane have prevailed upon them "to hold the baby" until such time aft they can do so themselves. That shipping interests on the other side of the Atlantic do not yet realise.the position is revealed by the fact that, as recorded in Fair Play, the Shipping Board has just given its blessing to the ten j'ears' co-operative agreement between the United States Lines and the North German Lloyd, while it evidently regards approvingly the working arrangement between the Harriman Line and the Hamburg-America Company. In the shipping business America and Germany have formed what is in the nature of ai partnership, with results for the Americans which it will be interesting to watch in process of development. That there is no profit in operating ships just now for the Americans or others of the Allies, and that in time the 1 conditions will improve, are considerations which have certainly not bee.n ignored by the Germans. According to the latest statistics of the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom, the index figure for time charter rates has fallen since the beginning of last year from 59.8 to 25.4.

Tn the meantime German shipyards are working hard to replace the lost tonnage. In the last twleve months they added 1,131,000 tons to the German mercantile marine—in other words, more than doubled its size as compared with June 30 of last year. During the .same period the volume of British shipping shrank by little short of a quarter of a million tons, and few vessels were completed in the United States. Of all maritime countries at this moment the one which is making most progress in ship-building is the country whose history as a sea power was thought by some observers to have been closed. The activity is due in some measure to the action of the Government in allocating a large sum as a subsidy on merchant ships built for service under the German Hag; but in the main it is traceable to the confidence which the shipping interests have in the future of Germany on the sea. Owing to the low rates of exchange they are able to build ships far more economically than anyone else, and they can man and operate them at about one tithe the sum which British ship-owners have to pay. Everyone concerned in the industry is working with concentrated effort to regain what was lost owing to the unhappy misadventure of 1914 and the terms of peace dictated some five years later. The Germans are not only building ships themselves, but they are buying old British vessels. They have acquired a number of obsolete battleships and cruisers from this country on the understanding that they will be broken up. A similar stipulation has been accepted in the case of a good many merchant vessels which have been bought mi this side of the North Sea, but not in the case of all. It is suggested that some of the liners which have been acquired may lie reconditioned and put in service, and that all the cargo boats may not go to the scrap heap until they have carried at very low, but to the Germans profitable. rates, a good many tons of goods. Stipulation to break up a ship are, in any event, difficult to enforce in a foreign country. But the main fact which emerges from an examination of all the available evidence is that Germany is once more becoming of importance in maritime affairs. She is bending herself, with great industry and no little cunning, to the re-establishment of her mercantile marine. It is curious to reflect that the Americans should be contributing by a series of agreements to the success for which the Germans are struggling, and that the tonnage for which we have no -further use should be in process of conversion into new passenger and cargo-carriers for service under the German flag. How the apparent signs of prosperity on the part of a country which has no unemployed and is so obviously investing large sums in her sea future are to be reconciled with a picture of despair and bankruptcy are matters beyond our present -scope. It was never easy to understand the mentality, or the methods, of the Germans, and they provide to-day an economic riddle which the whole world is endeavoring, with little success, to solve