NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 5883, 1 April 1915, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

LOSSES OF THE NAVY, f.v a recent speech in t)ie Houae of Commons Mr. Winston Churchill deprecated .nervousness regarding the naval situation. "We have established for the time being a command of the sea such as we had ne\er expected, such as we had • never known, and our ancestors had never known, at any other period of our history," he .'aid. " Energy ought not to be consumed in investigations and discussions of incidents beyond recall. It should be concentrated on new tasks and difficulties* In nil these matters I ask that absolute discretionary power be given to the Admiralty, whether in regard to courts-martial or courts of inquiry, or to the removal without trial of officers who have forfeited the confidence of the board, or to the publication of information of particular incidents. 1 would especially deprecate anything being done that could make officers afloat or at the Admiralty play for safety and avoid responsibility for positive action. Losses have to be incurred in war, our ships are in constant movement, and risks are run every day. If any mood or tendency of public opinion arises or is fostered by the newspapers or is given countenance to in this House which makes too much of losses, even if it may be said that in some respects they are avoidable losses, even then, I :«ay, you will have started on a path which, pressed to its logical conclusion, would leave our navy cowering in ittt harbours instead of ruling the seas. When I think of the great scale of our operations, of the numbers of ships whose movements have to be arranged Tor, and of the novel conditions to which I have referred, it is marvellous to me how few our losses have been." ARMED MOTORS IX WARFARE. The stores of fighting between fleets of armoured motor-cars in the great battles in the north of Poland would be productive of some thrilling reading if war correspondents were allowed to get near enough to see the fight. Germany and Russia were both well provided with this form of attack before the war started, Germany particularly so, while England was, unfortunately, almost totally without armoured automobiles. But it was a deficiency that could, luckily, be quickly made up, and almost as soon as our troops v.ere on the Continent there were British armoured cars in the fighting line, most of them being London motor-omnibuses adapted to the work. And very valuable they proved, too. The improvised armoured car is merely an ordinary vehicle with some simple form of body covered over with armoured plating, and with the more vital parts of its mechanism similarly protected. Thus, armour is provided for the radiator and steering gear, the dashboard is covered by steel plating, extending upwards to protect the driver. Of armoured cars specially built for the purpose one of the best known is that coming from the Creusot works of Messrs. | Schneider, in which provision is made for a large machine-gun carried in a substantial turret projecting from tho car-roof, and mounted upon rollers running on an inwardly projecting ring oil the lower, fixed portion of tho turret, thus enabling tho gun to be swung round. TYPHOID RISKS. The following note on the practice of inoculation against typhoid is a summary of a paper read by Professor Ernest Glynn at tho Liverpool Medical Institution. A resolution was passed by the doctors present strongly urging that inoculation should bo made compulsory in the army: — Both men and animals can be trained by Nature to acquire considerable resistance to some microbic diseases to which they I are susceptible by a single non-fatal attack; consequently, second attacks of typhoid or plague are rare in man, and anthrax rare in cattle. The recovery and subsequent resistance is partly due to the appearance in the blood of new " antibodies," or antagonistic substances, which damage or destroy the disease-producing microbes. Tho properties of these substances are wonderful; some drive the microbes into clumps, paralysing their movements; some dissolve them; some alter them, so that the living white cells of the blood absorb and digest them; others, the well-known "antitoxins," I directly counteract the poisons or toxins. I As Nature can train men and animals to successfully resist second attacks of certain microbes, so man years ago learnt how to train animals to resist even first attacks of similar microbes, by inoculating them with what are called "vaccines." These vaccines are usually millions of dead microbes with their poisons suspended in water. Each microbic disease requires its own special protective vaccine. A vaccine of anthrax microbes only protects against anthrax. Proper doses of any vaccine produce a very mild and greatly-modified attack of the disease without risk, for the microbes are dead, and so cannot kill tho patient by multiplying enormously and producing too much poison. The inoculations also cause the special antagonistic substance to appear in the blood. The latest figures from the British expeditionary forco aro as follows There have been 421 verified cases of typhoid, against 57,684 in the Boer war. Of these, 305 occurred amongst those who had not been inoculated within two years, and 34 died. Eighty-three occurred amongst those who had received one inoculation, and were, therefore, only partially protected, and one died; but only 33 occurred amongst those who had received tho usual two inoculations, and none died. i AUSTRIAN BRIBE TO THE POLES. Russian reports indicate that Austria has attempted a political coup in regard to Poland. The ancient kingdom was to be revived and a King crowned at the venerated city of the Poles, Cracow. The selected prince was the Archduke Stephan, of the house of Hapsburg, who is believed to be distantly connected with the ancient Polish house of Radziwill. "As a political move on the part of Austria, this coup is double-edged," wroto the Petrograd correspondent of the London Morning Post. "In the first place, it is obviously aimed against the piratical attempt credited to the Hohenzollerns of capturing yet another future throne. But doubtless, secondarily, it is intended to influence the Poles themselves in favour of the failing cause of Austria. As to what the Germanic Poles may think of a movo taken at the moment "when Russian armies arc on the point of Sweeping into tho plains of Hungary and with the Austrian cause already long ago foredoomed, wo have no information. The Russian Poles, however, estimate at its proper value this belated coup. The Grand Duke Nicholas last August promised the Poles unification and autonomy under the sceptre of all the Russias. Between a fustian King of the Prince-of-Albania pattern and tho alternative which Russia offers, the Poles even now can havo little difficulty in making their choice. What tho Russian Poles will welcome is tho fulfilment of the Grand Duke Nicholas's promises made in the famous proclamation of August last, and it is already whispered that the form in which they will be realised is the creation of a united Poland, constituting an infinitely better offer than Austria holds out in crowning a Hapsburg prince a nominal King of a nonexistent Poland." .