SHIPS AND WAR

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 86, 8 October 1914, Page 8

SHIPS AND WAR

METHODS OF THE ADMIRALTY A SHIPPING MAN'S EXPERIENCE. It is six full weeks since Mr. G. H. Scales, of the Wellington shipping firm of that name, left London. Much has happened since then, but, speaking of what he saw and heard among other shipping men in the City and in Glasgow, Mr. Scales had an interesting story to tell to The Post. So far as the mobilisation and the despatch of troops to the Continent was concerned, London generally knew as much or as little as people in New Zealand, 13,U00 miles away. Mr. Scales was assured by a man in tl\e " know " some days before the British Expedition landed at Boulogne that there were already 100,000 British in Belgium. This was no mere man-in-the-street information, but was given by a business man who would otherwise have been accurately informed as to shipping movements. As a matter of fact, people in England know no more about what is going on than do people in New Zealand. As an instance, Mr. Scales spent some time at Folkestone, the fashionable seaside place; and yet he saw nothing, heard nothing, of the departure from there and from Dover of thousands of British soldiers for France. Another example of the accuracy of naval knowledge and the secrecy which is observed : A deep-sea trawler was in the North Atlantic. She could have called at Las PaTmas for coals. The owners were rung np from the Admiralty. "Where's your ship, the ?" " She should bo about 200 miles from Las Palmas." The communication was cut off by the rattle of the Admiralty receiver in its hook. Next day the owners were advised by the captain of tho vessel in question, through wireless from ship to ship, that he was not proceeding to Las Pabnas at all, having been warned by the Admiralty. From the Admiralty the owners heard nothing — no beg pardons, no explanations, no "reasons why. THE BANKS AND GOLD. In London ships were idle. This was just after war was declared. The ships would have sailed, but manufacturers and exporters would not send cargo forward. There were financial, among other, reasons for this. In London itself, with the very best of facilities, it was most difficult to get ( gold. Mr. Scales instanced a little experience of his own— not for its intrinsic importance, but to show how peculiar the circumstances were. He banked with an Australasian institution of repute and had drawn out the day previously, through a third party and after much trouble, £20 in gold. This was a special favour as ho was leaving England. Next day he personally presented his cheque for £12 and asked for gold. He had never seen the bank officer before, and yet the previous day's payment to a Mr. G. H. Scales was remembered, and finally the matter was settled by the payment of £2 in gold. The point of the story lies in the fact that in London, in the banking centre of London, a trivial transaction like that of the day before should have been so readily called to mind the next day. There were but two topics of conversation among shipping men in Britain at the time Mr. Scales left. War and ship* — and they did not know much about them either. In forty-eight hours tho Admiralty had taken between twenty and thirty vessels of one line alone. Nobody knew anything until it was done. Of course, some men must have thought a good deal, but it was remarkable if they did how little they 6aid about anything. Britain became at once a. nation of silent tongues— on the conduct of the war. " HOME 1" As soon as war was declared/ everything came to a standstill. Mr. Scales was in Scotland at the time recovering from illness, and was on the day being motored through the country. When his host heard the news, he just said "Home" to the chauffeur, and back the car went, the trip unfinished. "Home" was the word for thousands of tourists on the Continent and in Scotland, at the English seaside places, and in the tourist countries; "home" was Mr. Scales 's own desire; "home," too, the word of Americans, but they could not get away — hundreds and hundreds of them fleeing from the Continent to England, many wealthy people without money and without luggage; and money, as Mr. Scales found himself, was most difficult to get. The banks nad the credits. They did not say, "We Have not received your credit." They said, "We have not received your money." Hotels were full of Americans, all stranded. But London was never calmer for all that. Its thousands, its millions, just went about their work — grave, thoughtful, almost taciturn ; but there was no jingoism, no "mafficking," nobody talked. Only the frequent issue of editions of the evening papers and their contents bills showed that there was a war. For the six weeks between all that and now Mr. Scales knows nothing except the delay to shipping in and between Indian and Ceylon waters for fear of attacks from the enemy's cruisers.