TOPICS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 73, 23 September 1914, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

"Seven motherless children. . . . Four motherless children Help for A widow and six' children. Huntly A widow and seven children under fourteen years." These are some of the stricken Huntly families, whose breadwinners have perished. Kind friends in the North are keeping material want away from the doors of those sad homes, but the present helpers need the aid of others to support young dependents till they are able to earn their own living. People who have been wondering how j far the statutory compensation will go to maintain some of the bereaved families will not need elaborate argument to convince them that the maximum amount payable will not be nearly enough for some of the pathetic cases mentioned in Mr. J. P. Bailey's circular, published in The Post yesterday. A large sum is required, and it will be secured, despite the difficulties of the times, if the committees which are being appointed in various districts persist vigorously with their appeal. Many voices are in the highways and byways in these days, calling for money for all mariner of worthy purposes, and the Huntly request has not been heard with due distinctness in all the stir. The contributions are coming in very slowly, even after allowance is made for the grants to the Patriotic Fund and to* other lists. A disaster which cost the lives of forty-three men has not yet been properly impressed on the public mind, distracted by many things. This is a time for the real humanitai^anism which unites all classes. The men who went underground at Huntly were doing a vital social service; they were winning fuol for hearths and furnaces, and their dependents have a claim, according to the unwritten laws of humanity, on that society in whose service the miners were killed. The Post is opening a list to-day in the full confidence that Wellington will prove that tho city's generosity has not been exhausted by other drafts. The movement needs a stimulus ; ' it is indeed a case covered by the adage, "He gives twice who gives quickly." It is a splendid opportunity for Wellington to inspire other localities. [ In a naval speech reported to-day, the First Lord of the AdThe German miralty (Mr. Winston Naval ¦* Churchill) pointed out Methods. that Britain, without fighting, enjoys the command of the sea ; and he might have added that Germany suffers to the last degree all that deprivation of sea-trade ana all that confiscation and blockade which she has spent many millions to Erevent, by creating a huge navy, i the early stages of the war there were two opinions as to what the German navy would do. Admiral Mahan insisted that expeditions in the Baltic against Russian forts were not enough; that the Kaiser's navy must come out and fight, afc any co3t, for Germany's* sea-borne trade.. Some other experts justified the " minor counter-attack," which would aim at reducing Britain's margin in capital ships by waging against the latter a "wasp war." In other words, German torpedo boats, submarine craft, floating mines, and airships were to thin out the British Dreadnoughts; and when Britain's margin of superiority in capital ships had been thus reduced, the German fleet would break coyer for the big battle. To-day we publish an unofficial cablegram reporting that Germany's "minor counterattack," in addition to the previous loss j of the Amphion and the Pathfinder, has resulted in three armoured cruisers being torpedoed. If this is true, it emphasises the importance of the German methods, but there is no reason for any special alarm, since such things are only to be expected in connection with naval blockades and unier-water warfare. i '