OUR SINISTER GREY SHIPS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLV, Issue XLVIII, 18 August 1914, Page 3

OUR SINISTER GREY SHIPS

JMI'R FISSIONS OF KIEL VISIT

The \ i.-siL di a British naval squadron to Kiel is nijw ii thing of the past. While it lasted' functions and entertainment.s. both otlicial and private, crowded one another so- thickly that it was ([like impossible to keep tally of them all, and our most reliable information about all that was going on was gathered I'roiii the one-day-old English papers (writes a British naval officer in- the "Daily Express"). The only thing that has been lacking is any statement of the impressions made upon ourselves the few thousand people manning the Brit i.-h ships. Here, t'nen, are a few of my impressions, and. 1 think they are fairly general amonj the fleet. We do not always look upon things, from the same point of view as the professional writer. Whether for exam pie. our \i.-it tends towards iriendly relations with a foreign Power, or what their real feelings towards us as a nation may be. are matters that we do not bother cur heads about. And its for hospitality, grateful for it as we are. of course, it doesn't arouse any exceptional enthusiasm, because we meet with the same thing in. whatever country we visit; but we do not imagine that a treat is the preliminary to a treat}, nor confuse dancing with diplomacy. One German newspaper gave it as its opinion that our ships looked more '•menacing"' than their own, the reason being that the grey of our paint is nearly bl ick, while the German grey near.y white.-tin 1 iniVienee b;mg, laturally. that the Briti>h nation is also '■menacing," and the 'German nothing but mild liieiidliess. From the colour-shade of a pot of pait to the summing-up of a nai ion's character! This id just'the ha-sty .-,ort of generalisation i.'jU. is met with, not alone in German journals

THE ANGLE OF VISION

"We notice this same shade of grey and perceive that it is admirably suited to the clear bright grey light peculiar to Baltic sea and sky. Our own darker colour matches with the more sombre ( ouditioiis of the Channel and the North Sea. So each nation chooses what be;.t suits its own characteristics, and to arrive at a fair judgment one must put oneself in the other nation's place to get the correct angle of vision. This applies not only to paint ! For instance, the German sailor lives in a sort of atmosphere of strict discipline of the parade order ; he is always standing to attention, always at the salute. Even the officers must wear uniform when walking in town, and the lowest rank of'.petty officer is "formally saluted by a mere seaman. Such a system, if applied to ourselves would rapidly transform us into mere automatons without a remnant of initiative. But it would be rash to conclude that the German sail' r is a machine and nothing more. Only, the system suits him, just as the hVlit grey paint suits his ships. Making this allowance for difference of temperament, we findi that in reality he is much like- ourselves. That is really what strikes us ntO' t in practically everything here ; how much sarneners there is between things German and things English, and yet how some slight shade of difference creeps at the same time into everything.

When we first entered the harbour of Kiel the bands of the German men-of-war played our .National Anthem, and we played theirs. Any of our ships' bands that rendered "The King" as the Germans performed it -would undoubtedly have been made to practice it for a week till they got it right: probably our rendering of., "The Kaiser" was just as bad. The fact is the two anthems' are nearlv identical, but not quite; and what both bands succeeded in -r'oing was, not to play the' other nation's anthem eorrectlv. but to plav their own with some extraordinary variations.

We see so much of other nations that the "dratted furriner" sentiment has long ago been knocked out o f us: t'n-t loffv contempt for "Dagoes and Putchies" fouled in boys' sen stories is nore of ours ; "we recognise that there "is "generally something to be learnt from eve>-v other nation. On the other hand, whpe we naturally like a certain amount < f flatterv, we take with a very iarae ami'' of salt the exuber.:.t e:-.: re;.s - \.r.s f.'i

admiration for the English which we meet with in some places. Here in Gumany we find the national spirit maintained at just its right am? proper standard.. As a German remarked to me the other day, "Some of us go to England 1 a.nd become more English than the English themselves; and there are others to whom Pan-Germanism is a mania: but neither of these represent the real German." One often hears the wardroom pessimist declaring that the German Navy is infinitely superior to our own, more up-to-date," more thorough, and so forth. I have no doubt that most German wardrooms also cont.iin an Oldi Mouldy of their own, ever ready to dilate upon the decadence of the German navy "and nation. The fact is that all such i'compari>'ons are made without any data to start from, and are not worth listening to for a moment.

One evidence of German •'up-to-datcd-. ness is certainly seen in the Di-el-en-pinod launches and. picket-boats of all their later ships. v'hi.-h. have entirely discarded steamboats. The obvious comment which spring's to the lips at the first sicht of these is that they look like tin clockwork boats. This is'not intended in jv derogatory sense,'; ,;Wit really there is a reproach,, .to ovu;sels;igs. for if we turn the comment the other way round and say that the clockwork bo,->ts of our shops all look like German picket boats, it becomes a dear confession that ; cur toys are German manufacture. If the English tovmaker had the onterDi'ise that he ought to> have, we should bo more acevstomedj to shilling; models of English pieket-ho^ts.' xXnother small, but significant, sien of enterprise is that all the stationers' shops of Kiel are displaying: sets of niotnre postcards of the visiting British hips. And they keep'a supply of all the more "important English newspapers and magazines.. "Most of its take' ari Encrlish paner." many,. Germans say- , ""it is useful to learn another point cf .' view !"