IN THE PUBLIC EYE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 16845, 1 May 1915, Page 12

IN THE PUBLIC EYE.

PROMINENT PEOPLE OF THE PERIOD. Grand-Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the man chiefly responsible for the modern German Navy, celebrated a birthday not. very long ago and received the congratulations of the Fatherland. More recently he has boon celebrating his naval jubilee, and the Kaiser, acocrding to a cablegram, telegraphed to him one of those extravagant notes of felicitation in which his Majesty delights. Vou Tirpitz deserves well of his country. It was comparatively late in modern history wheu lie came into the arena, as a statesman with a. mission, and his navy ivaiiy dates only from wnon ho took Giiice as Minister of Marine. When it is remembered that von Tirpitz had to struggle for recognition of the importance of sea power against a powerful military class in possession of the Imperial Treasury, and of the of raising revenue, it says a good deal for his determination and ptsrsisteuce that he succeeded in establishing a great navy. Von Tirpitz, the son of an attorney, was born away from the sea, but at sixteen ho secured a naval cadotship in the very modest Prussian navy. It is stitted that even in humble offices he displayed an extraordinary talent for initiating enterprises; and for obtaining recognition of his views from superior officers. By 1891 he was Chief of Staff at Kiel, impressing his powerful personality on the fleet a.nd earning an extraordinarily high reputation as an administrator and naval director. It was during this period that he applied himself particularly to the study of the torpedo service, his plan being virtually to devise a means by which a weak 'navy might conduct a contest, not unevenly, with a strong, one. A similar problem has engaged his attention more recently. Ho liad a, handful of mosquito craft to commence'with and funds wore short, and he aimed rather at the building of many small, fast torpedo-boats than at the construction of expensive capital ships. Any officer that showed particular aptitude for this branch of the service was sure of rapid promotion.

After tlio establishment of a satisfactory torpedo school, von Tirpitz applied "his energies to the reorganisation of the whole administration r.t Kiel. He oponed a long controversy vith the Admiralty in Berlin, stating his views with distressing frankness, and risking both his reputation and his career. Ultimately ho so impressed the Kaiser by his boldness and certainty of touch that ho found himself installed in the much-criticised office in Berlin. His point of view, however, was still that of Kiel, and lie was now to prove himself no less skilful as a statesman than he had shown himself a's an officer. Ho managed Parliament as ably as ho had manoeuvred squadrons. Tho creation of a public opinion was essential to his pla.ns, and every incident that could be man'pidated to rouse jealousy of the British Navy was exaggerated and advertised, until there was room for the belief that all Germany was clamouring for war. This was during tho earlier stages of the Boer war, and a great deal of the Anglophobism prevalent in Germany at that time was co be traced directly to the big naval man with a forked beard, who was trying to persuade the Germans that they needed a great navy.

The famous naval law -wan tbo result. It was conceived in the fertile brain of von Tirpitz, and it owed its passage almost entirely to his enterprise. Perhaps the most striking proof of his success at tho Nai/y Office is that he raised tho annual expenditure on tho fleet, from six millions in 1893 to twenty-three millions in 1913. The Grand Admiral, it is stated, has never aimed at equalling the British fleet, but he believed that if the German Navy were brought up to two-thirds of the British strength it would givo tho. Empire the security it needed on the sea. It is curious, by the way, to read that vou Tirpitz is, or was, a fervent admirer of Britain and the British, and that hatred of Britain has never affected his plans or calculations. Ho schemed simply for the sake of his country, to ensure its progress and prosperity. He. said himself some little time ago that his work at the Admiralty was finisher], and that it remained for others to build on the foundations he had laid. This remark has, since the war, been interpreted to mean that the officers and men of the service would have to do the building, or, rather, the fighting with the machine that von Tirpitz had created j but it is far more probable that tho Grand Admiral was merely hinting at an early retirement. Albert Ballin, whose literary activities on-the eve of the war are still causing the London " Times " some distress, is not by any moans a man of war. Ho is to the German mercantile marine, perhaps, what von Tirpitz is to tho Navy, but there is no sort of physical resemblance between the huge, bluff, assertive sailor and tho small and unassuming Jew of Hamburg. Herr Ballin, of course, is DirectorGeneral of the Hamburg-American Line, the institution which goes under the. name of "Hapag" in Germany, its full title for official occasions being the Hamburg - Americanischc - Pake£ fahrt-Aktien-Gesellschaft. _ Ballin is one of the great men of his country, -a friend of tho Kaiser amd, apparently of very few other people, if the stories about him can be believed. He is described as a modest, oven shy man of business, who seeks few social relaxations and finds his only delight away from home in his office.

There is a very striking sketch of Herr Ballin in Mr Wile's "Men Around the Kaiser," on which one may draw for the impressive, story of Herr Ballin's "call to the Hamburg-American Lino. He was the son of an emigrant agent in Hamburg, and following tho practice of the day he was sent across to England for a commercial training. Returning to Hamburg he specialised in the emigration traffic, entering the employ of the Carr Line. Thus far there had been nothing particularly remarkable about his career, but in his now occupation he immediately displayed aai extraordinary organising talent, and, incidentally, an amazing memory for details. Ho gathered up cargoes of emigra.nta from Galicia and Poland, herded them across Germany, and put thorn on boats at Hamburg, and so successful were theso excursions of his that his employers apjiointed him to control all the emigration branch of tho service. Herr Ballin ../t this time was only twenty-five years of ago. The story Mr Wile tells ■'« that tho Can- people were rapidly absorbing the bulk of the profitable trade. They threatened to secure a monopolyi and as Ba.llin's agencies got to work and as the organisation extended its operations in central Europe, there seemed to bo very little of tho business left for other people to do.

The Hamburg-American peoplo. who had the capital behind them, then dercided that something would have '"be done, and in tho end tho something took the shape of the acquisition of tho Carr Line, lock, stock and barrel, including the very enterprising director of the emigration department. The story of the manner in which Ballin established himself in command of the irrcatnr enterprise is too long to bt»

told here. It was not altogether a sudden rise, because Ballin joined the Hamburg-American Line in 1886, and did not become Director-General unfc' l IDOO, but it is sufficiently sensational evidence of his capacity that, beginning with nothing, he should have risen by the timo ho was forty to the controlling position S 5 the world's greatest shipping organisation.