THE NAVAL SITUATION

Nelson Evening Mail, 5 August 1916, Page 5

THE NAVAL SITUATION

REVIEWED BY .MR BALFOUR.

{Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.)

LONDON, Aug. 3. •"Mr Balfour, First Lord of the Ad■miratly, has issued a review of the naval situation on the second anniversary of t_e war. He says the moral and material consequences of the Jutland battle cannot be. easily over-ruled. 'lt was the moment when the tide began to flow strongly in our favour-, and every week since has seen a new Allied success in one field or other.

Before the Jutland! fight the' German fleet was imprisoned : after the Jutland battle it sank again in importance. This is not merely the British view. The German utterances give precisely the same impression* Both parties are agreed that the object of the battle was to obtain sea command. We have not lost it, and our blockade has been tightened since the Jutland action. The Germans admit this by the greater violence of their invective against Britain and' their unwearied repetition of" the cry that Britain is the arch-enemy and must at all costs be humbled to the dust. If the Germans felt- that- tfaev were reaching a maritime equality would they spend so much breath in advertising the performances of a submarine flying the mercantile:flag which, carried 280 tons of German produce, say nothing of the Kaiser's autograph letter, from Bremen to "Baltimore? The whole of the interest of the incident lay in the fact that bousing submarines they could elude the barrier the British ships had placed between Germany and' the outer world', which they knew the German fleet could neither break nor weaken. The German newspapers upon the anniversary exhorted the people to take comfort in studying the maps.' The amount comfort derivable depends upon the chosen. Even the map

of Europe shows an ever-shrinking battleline, while the map of Germany's colonial shows that most has gone and the remainder is slipping away from their grasp. The GernlSns are aware that their ■victorious fleet is useless, and therefore

submarine -warfare makes a double appeal to German militarism. It appealed * to their prudence and brutality because it -cannot be carried out on a large scale consistent with the laws of war and the requirements of humanity. The skill and energy with which merchantmen defend themselves had driven the German Admiralty to their latest and' most stupid act of calculated ferocity, the judicial murder of Captain Fry-ate. Mr Balfonr says that he does not propose to arcrue a case that is not worth arguing. "Why should we do the German military authorities the injustice of supposing that they were animated by any solicitude for international law and into illegality by some unhappy accident? They sank 22 British ships without warniug. They knew that Captain Fryatt, in reiusing -bravely, to submit, -was doing his duty as a man of courage and honour, and the Germans resolved at all costs to discourage imitation of his example.