AWAITING A RAID.

North Otago Times, Volume C, Issue 13181, 9 October 1914, Page 7

AWAITING A RAID.

GUARDING ENGLAND'S SHORES,

W " "NO CHILD'S PLAY, < *

• We have 1 accustomed: ourselves to thoughts of victory. tWillrAve be equal to reverses? Our .daily iiiatructprs; In the Press are manfully,striving.* to teach us. that great wars are liot won without great . sacrifices, wrote the special representative.of the. Sydney "Sim" ■oil August It.- TtVan axiomatic truth to almost every inhabitant of this islaud'kingdom that it cauuot lie - successfully raided' or invaded. Since the dispersal'of the Great Armada ami the Napoleonic fiasco,, no self : resp'eettiig. Englishman will believe that any Continental country could violate the shores of-old England. But the.experts ImVe every rcasoil to think jothcrwisc. They know that at tho '.present moment Germany has in her ports a' sufficient number of great ocean liners to "transport, tciis of thousands'of/troops to the cast coast of -England.' Theyalso''know that the German high sea fleet is now inobi- ; -lined, and ,tliat it .will.npt .shrink from luijkjug one'tremendous-dash across the North Sea to further any .'daredevil scheme of;this kind.' For the.lnst three days men who ought-to. know have, aii- ! tic'ipatcd \ a German descent, somewhere j near Newcastle. .1 heard last evening, iwith the most circumstantial detail, I the exact hour at which ■ a lauding [would, be. effected. All through the : night wo waited for the fateful news to come buzzing over the telegraph wires, and we had to confess to feeling I mightily relieved when they were dumb. jßiit there is no-permanent feeling nf I relaxation. Tito Mad Kaiser is capable ! of any insane projects,' and our eastern S coast may be harried this afternoon, | or to-morrow, or maybe the day after. jit is no child's, play to.keep the shores i of even a small country like England ! free from the enemy's navy and army. SPIES EVERYWHERE. The spy peri] is a vory urgeut danger in Kugland. It is astounding how thorough the German system of espion- | a,«e is. There is no. nerve or brain | centre of Great Britain free from their : vigilant prying. They have no comjpunetiou about taking out naturalisa|tiou papers with the object of securing ; tin- privileges that will help them to : ply their infamous calling. lii the j fatherland mere suspicion of being a 'spy leads to rneu, aye, and women,'beI iug led out and summarily shot. Here, iu England, the .eavesdroppers are i merely imprisoned and quartered at the j public expense, I could tell you of i dozens of cases of detected espionage, I but one specially glaring instance, will j suffice. Next door to a big cable office was a shop owned by a German, The official news of the War Office arrived at this office. It might arrive over any | one of a dozen circuits. It was speeded |to the War Office by messengers in [taxis. The War Office wanted faster delivery, A special circuit for its use was installed in the cable,office, This was done with the utmost Beereey. Three nights later the German shopkeeper was discovered with au extraordinarily sensitive receiver glued to his ear listening to the Morse code ticking sut the War Office cypher messages over the Office cable circuit! Up to the moment of detection the German had been regarded as a decent, lawabiding tradesman. All the time he must have been a skilled Secret Service Agent of Germany.

THE PLOT THAT FAILED. The German banks have behaved very badly, Most patently the War Lords strove to hit Britain below the belt in' every possible way. Finance is the keystone of modern warfare, and the. big Oeiniau banks, just as the sand was nnmi'ng out of Ihe glass, with Britaiu all unconscious', proceeded to secretly ship their gold to IJorlin and to iinloail bills upon the English banks to facilitate this operation. When the bauk'holidays were decreed they closed their doors like the rest of the banks. But whilst the heads of the other banks assembled in conference to plan means,to avoid complete paralysis of finance and commerce, these German gentry could not lie found. Their institutions owed £20,1100,000't0 the English banks. lam told that an Anglo-Australian bank holds £2,000,000 of their bills, But they were not in any hurry to make good. The head oftieials disappeared somewhere in seaside resorts; the sub-heads were too modest to appear in their absence, Most of the clerks had already gone back to' Germany to serve with the colours. The banks were empty. Their coffers were empty. Their premises were empty.- The big British banks, courageous though they are, shivered with apprehension, Several of the smaller men grew panicky, and advocated a moratorium for at least six mouths. They were only impulsed by the snvc- , who-can spirit, But a master man in I Lord Revelstoke stopped the rot that was setting in. As you perhaps know, he is the head of the great Baring family, A city magnate told me, "lie has all the brains and none of the faults

of the' Barings." The whole Empire has to-day to thank him for the .equilibrium of British finance. He inoculated the frightened with pluck serum. He showed what sound finance dictated, lie applied patriotie. "imagination to despairing materialism, ' and the banks opened nt tho end of three days as if nothing had happened. German banking chambers are still deserted, but* the plot, to smash British credit failed. The Kaiser and his council had overlooked Lord Bevelstoke. AIR NAVIES. The airships and the aeroplane held terrible menace for mi before war commenced. People spoke with bated breath of bombs dropped from a blue heaven as tire from Sodom and Gomorrah. A week's fighting has recast original conceptions, Zeppelins have soared over France and Belgium with evil intent, and neither is much the worse. As an offensive weapon the airship lias ?o I far not carried out expectations. Tils [ in more danger than the army below if l an aeroplane is in tho vicinity. The intrepid Garros, the greatest aviator in the world, demonstrated this at once by flying.to the French frontier, catching, a Zeppelin mooning about above French fortresses, and steering 'straight at -It, The Zeppelin had no ehnuce of escape. The monoplane Is twice ns fast. Its crew's only hope was to wing the daring Frenchman. The marksman missed, Garros rammed the envelope of the airship, tore into it like a bullet Into butter, and down fluttered airship and aeroplane to tangled destruction. To the whole world Garros has established that, whilst there are patriot aviators willing j to give their, lives for their country, tlit? j present airship has very circumscribed uso,*'K'ith all the armies there are aeroplanes.'and their chief activity is in scouting. Oue or two have essayed to throw infernal machines down upon marching and fighting columns, but to achieve their purpose they, have had to fly low, aud, doing so, they have been brought down by rifle fire. Germany tried to overawo the Belgians with her aerial fleet, but the "stupid Belgians" sent up their own machines, and after some splendid lnauamvriug hi the fiky they are confident that, they can hold their own with the German aorial navy. The/German aeroplane service has nocessarily split up to provide '.'eyes'-'- for bach army, and .possibly this may precludea,l)attle "royal with the French aeroplanes, -which have gathered like eagles on their easlerji aytpts', ■ From appearances ;t|ip:'command of the : nlr pilly not bo; seriously contested, But no nation Is. taking-any liberties'wltli the' hew '.arm, '.Every > capitaF city has •equipped itseLf with housetop defences.