ON THE WATCH TOWER

Evening Star, Issue 16279, 23 November 1916, Page 2

ON THE WATCH TOWER

[By Asm,.] She! submarine is Germany’s greatest hope, and There is mo denying that it has proved itself to ho, a most formidable weapon. It is a cowardly and brutal . thing, but it is effective, especially against ft country that depends on sea-borne food. Recent . announcements in the House of; Commons anent the setting up of Food | , Dictators and the like will make the hearts, of the ultra-submariniets - in Germany rejoice. They will claim that their policy j te already justifying itself, and that it has j only .to be intensified in order to end the i war quickly. It is to be remembered, how- • ever, that we have had our rejoicings over • the starvation of Germany, and that paragraphs -on the harvests of Germany, and ■ the piga of Germany, and the milk of i Germany, and the supply of fats, and the | tickets for soup, and the meatless days, | and the non-peeling of potatoes, etc., have j been our diet, morning and evening, for | at least a year. ' Yet our rejoicing has not injured Germany. The point of view with us waa essentially false. Germany’s schemes of food distribution did not mean that she was in danger of starving, hut only that ehe was determined not to get into any such danger. If ous new scheme means the same thing, then let the enemy rejoice, and* welcome. Let them be-para-graph ue as we did them, and delude themselves as wo did ourselves, and .then accounts will be squared and honors will be easy. * * * * * * * There is a lot of foolish talk about what terras we are to exact from the enemy at •the end of the war. One of the items which Britain is being urged to announce at once is .the exaction from Germany of a ton of shipping for every ton sunk during the war by submarines. If wo are able to take ton for ton, there is no reason why we should not take two tons for every , one ; but it all turns on that “ if.” Someone has put the position in a nutshell: “Take care of the war, and after-the-war will take care of itself.” That is good hard sense. When the war is won there is not the slightest fear that the victors will forget anything of importance. On t'qo other band, the proclamation of humiliating terms now is the best way to stiffen the enemy up. The proposed ton-for-ton declaration would serve Germany well in the great effort ehe is said to be making to mobilise the whole nation for the war next year. Besides, does anyone suppose that such a declaration would cause Germany- to slack off in her efforts to blockade Britain? Why, the declaration would be the best evidence that she could desire that we were feeling the effects of her policy. She is sinking ships with the object of winning the war. The more she sinks the more difficult it will be for us to continue, and to inflict a serious defeat on her. If she could sink nil our ships, it is certain that we could not exact one rotten hulk from her. What, then, is the good of windy words? “Win the war, and let afterithe-vvar take care of itself.” Of course, Germany's methods are brutal and contrary to the law of nations as we would have it. But if she wins she will make the law of nations herself. We are fighting to prevent her from doing so. ******* There is naturally a good deal of discussion, some of it angry, about the commandeering of the wool. Some people appear to think that Air Massey and Sir Joseph have been a little too ready in offering the produce of this country to the Imperial authorities. There is a legend among the men that whenever there was a particularly nasty and dangerous piece of work tex do at Gallipoli, General Godley was very free in making magnanimous offers of New Zealanders to do it. Probably some woolgrovvers have thought that there has been a display of similar magnanimity on the part of our two Premiers. But the most important side of. the whole teansaction is in danger of being overbaked—that is, the certainty of getting the commandeered wool to the market. Mr Hughes, the Commonwealth Premier, spent months in Britain trying to arrange for the shipment- of Australian wheat, and finished up by purchasing, for £2,000,000, ships that would bo able to carry the wheat to London in two or three years. It is evident that if he could have induced the 'lmperial Government to commandeer all the surplus wheat in Australia he would have solved the transport problem, for tho buyer would have had to take the wheat away. Now, the problem of transport in the case of our wool has been solved by the method of disposing of it. Transport is likely to become more and more difficult, and if tho wool had had to depend on the ordinary services some of it might have been here still at next year’s shearing. . ******* i I observe that the Minister concerned was unwilling to commandeer all shipping, because it would not be used so expeditiously by the State as by tho private owner. That is the great reason against every kind of State enterprise in departnients usually left to the individual. Selfinterest is tho driving power of the world, and if a man is going to pocket the difference between two voyages a year and three, you may depend upon it tho three voyages will oe made; but if the same man is turned into a State official and the ships ere all commandeered, then the two voyages will be the rule. It is not dignified for high officials to be in a hurry. lam privately informed that there are a great many monster ships lying idle month after month in the English ports. My informant thought that the biggest ships in oar mercantile fleet wore too risky to be sent out. Ten ships of 3,000 tons are now much preferred to one of 30,000, for nine out of the ten would be pretty sure to r.inve, but the whole of the leviathan I might be missing. I think, however, that supposing the facts to be as stated, the reason is that the Admiralty is determined to be prepared for any emergency that can arise, and thinks it better to keep n number of ships idle than not to know where to lay hands on them should they bo required. ******* The controversy about the merits of Mi* Ohurchill still rsgos, for iio as a wellbated man. I daresay he is not easy to jet on with. But the fact remains that we are very much indebted to him. He is admitted to have been the meana of having tho Fleet ready, which itrelf is enough for any one man. Then, it is nlso admitted that he farced on the air-fleet policy, which has given us tho command of the air. This, again, is a splendid bit of service. It does not follow that Mr Churchill invented anything. He simply had the eyes to see and the force to push on the good things that needed a push. I hear, by the way, that Mr Billings, who was elected to the Commons on tho air-service ticket, and whose charges were reported to have failed before the Commission that inquired into them, is regarded by aviators as having done essential service. It was impossible to prove things against tho Government, and clever lawyers turnedshim inside out. All the same, the people most interested sav that there was much that needed rectifying, and that things have been vastly better since Billings stirred them up. " But to return to Mr Churchill: No less a person than Mr Lloyd George gives him the chief credit for the “tanka.” “Ho took up with enthusiasm the idea of making them a long time ego, and he met with many difficulties. Ho converted me, and at the Ministry of Munitions he went ahead and made them.” This statement by the late Minister of Munitions has been hotly denied. It is claimed that Colonel S win ton, well known as “Eye-witness” at t(is beginning of tho war, was the real author of the “ tanks.” That may be perfectly true. It is not claimed that Churchill invented these great steel turtles, but only that he took them up and pushed them into accomplished facts. Colonel Sirin ton. had not • the power to do that. The business of the statesman in war is to recognise a good thing when it is presented to him. Air George says that Churchill did that in the case of tlho “ tanks,” and his evidence must

be final. That being go, I -would like to know who else has so much to his credit a* the ready fleet, the air fleet, and the jtacka? '

One of the strangest products of the war is the concession which the cable tells us is to be rando in Saxony to girls who were engaged to soldiers who have been ki’led in the war. They are to bo allowed to .assume the title “ frau,” which is equivalent to our “Alts.” If they can prove ! that the engagement was serious, and tiiati marriage was intended, they may even i obtain permission to assume the name of | the deceased ! It is a very singular pro- j vision, and one of the most melancholy J conceivable. The pracUoal Englishman! will probably cry “ Oui bono?” or, rather, i “-What’s the good?" But woman doth nob I lire by bread alone. Sentiments and feel- ; ings and dignities count for much. St> ; many men hare been killed that it is ovi- < dent there will not bo enough to go round | after the war. So, unless Germans revert j to polygamy for a generation, in the i..kv , rests of the army—and 1 would not pub it j j.ast them—there will bo great numbers ! doomed to "perpetual maidenhood.’' The | ■Saxony provision is intended lo ” take away | the maiden blame” of those who have lost i a. Hone-fido lover in the war, and to make \ it a little less painful to wither on the I stalk. Hence, I think it is a borign edict-, i If there is any sympathy or honor eon- i nectod with being a war widow—and ; surely there ought to to both—then the | girl who has lost, her intended husband •) ought to share in it. * * * « » «

The peace-at-any-price party in Christchurch, who used to egg on simple lads, to defy the law in regard to military training (most of whom have since go no to the war), have been very quiet of late. But now they have broken out afresh, and have published a tract urging “the working class of New Zealand to enter on a definite campaign for peace against militarism.” Ido not know whether this document brings the authors of it within tho law or not, but I should say that it is sailing very near to tho wind at the very least. Be that ns it may, it ought to be obvious to every person of sense that we are engaged in such a campaign now—engaged, in fact, in the only kind of campaign that is at all likely to put an end to the curse of militarism. All the militarism in the world has been forced on the nations by, Prussia. In 1870 she gave such a startling proof of power out of all proportion to her importance in tho world that the other continental nations were obliged to arm in selfdefence. Nothing is plainer than that the position has not become less dangerous than it was, and that tho only way to save the world from endless wars of aggression and conquest is to insist on the reduction of Prussia to a peaceable nation. That can be done in one way only, and we are engaged in that way now. *******

It appeared in evidence, in tho Alagistrate’s Court in Auckland that a certain taxi-driver was in the habit of giving silly girls joy rides in his cab and levying payment'on their virtue. lie was' a great recruiter of street girls. The Stipendiary Magistrate “advocated tarring and feathering and a good hiding ” for such fellows. Ho is a very sensible and righteous Magistrate, for I am in favor of a measure of club law myself. It ia not usual to advocate it from the bench, of course ; that is a kind of way of crying stinking fish. It is the business of the Bench and of other of the legal machine to keep up the pretence of their own efficiency for all purposes, and to come down savagely on anyone who ventures to settle a matter without reference to the law. This Magistrate, however, is a man in ten thousand—a Daniel come, to'judgment. He knows that the primitive man and he whose arrested development leaves him in about the same moral stage ns tho cave man of long ago have no faculty for appreciation of the higher laws and motives. A'ou appeal in vain to the sense of honor, for it does not exist. But this type of fellow understands the argument of the club vorv well. “ Give him what he can understand,” says the Magistrate. The refinement of tar and feathers may rather overstrain his intellect, till lie tries to get them off—-and there again he would learn. Affix a stigma to crime, they say, and it will disappear. It is not the constable or the. gaol that will abolish a crime. These express only the opinion of a public to which the criminal does not belong. The club and the tar and feathers would express the opinion of his own class and his own public, and there comes the mb. Would his own class apply the tar and the feathers ? If not, tho application would be of little use.