WHAT SEA POWER HAS DONE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 21 May 1915, Page 2

WHAT SEA POWER HAS DONE

* PIiiMATUaE PEACE, DBPRE. I, ' ; „ GATED,.-"

At a recent meeting of the Grand Council of the Navy .League, held at .the Hotel Metropole, Lord Sydenham of Coombe gave an address on the naval situation. •"■'*■ Lord Sydenham ,said that everything that .the so-called "Blue Water School" had claimed for naval force had been more than Justified. It had been proved that naval force could be asserted far more rapidly, and with far more wide-reaching effect, than was possible in the good old sailing days. The very first, and, as it proved, the most vital achievement of the Navy was to set fiee the whole regular army to be sent out to the seat of war and to safeguard its passage to France. A primary strategic requirement was t© control the enemy's battle fleet, and the Grand Fleet, under Sir John Jelticoe, riding out the winter gales, hjSAil controlled the enemy's fleet and carried out slashing and successf v lraids in the enemy's waters. \ We owed it to the Grand Fleet ill&fc our, finances had borne the strain •or' 1 war and our credit had been *i§Msitained. All the varied ans -fctr-i-fcit^ft-jng operations in distant tw^tem, sft> eluding the attack on the our unbroken Imperial communications) the destruction of the.Whole sea-/6orne trade of Germany, atfd the capture~ accomplished or impending-—of the foreign possessions "of Germany—«li 1 this we owed ultimately to, the unseen Fleet in the N#i>th Sea, and 'the French control of *the, Adriatic;, wHc^i rested upon our own naval .Ipbw^r; Never in the whole of history had there been a manifestation of sea poower $n a scale so grfcat. Sea power '<ftd Hot begin and end withshros of war. One jof the most startling f*eatus<es of this | war was the employment of the general maritime resources of the e&untry, and the seafaring population drawn upon for dangerous duties had'shown great 1 heroism. Merchant captains showed no dread ..of German pirates, and were learning how to deal with them In one. sense • our sailors had done their I work well, because it was due to what ; the King had described as the "sure shield of the Navy" that our people, secure in their hotn&s and occupations, had not realised that our whole strength was required* in this struggle, and thait the liberties of Europe and our own depended upon victory by sea and land. ([Cheers.^ Mr Gerald Fiermes moved a resolution impressing upon the branches of the league "that increasing vigilance and 1 constant efforts are necessary to counteract the subtle propaganda of ;the j various bodies whose design it isl to bring about a premature peace and whose methods to achieve that, end are favor-able to the enemy."