THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1916. THE GERMAN NAVY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16129, 18 January 1916, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1916. THE GERMAN NAVY.

There is usually a grain of truth in the most exaggerated statements, and this customary grain appears to have been concealed in the absurd German pretension that the fleet of the Kaiser had been "searching" for the British Navy, and had been unable to find it. A report comes from New York to the effect that thrice in December the German battleship fleet left the Kiel Canal, coasted within the mineprotected area at the mouth of the Elbe and within the Bight of Heligoland, and returned triumphantly to its anchorage without having encountered an enemy. This explanation of German naval daring is probably correct, as it sufficiently accounts for the widespread German belief that the fleet had put to sea, and for-the fact that no sign of it had been seen by our watchful British cruisers. It is suggested that *he cause of this manoeuvre was the desire of the Berlin authorities to allay the popular dissatisfaction at the inaction of the German Navy while the British Navy imposes an effective blockade upon the importation of food from overseas. Hungry multitudes saw the great battleships leave port, and saw them return in safety. Credence was thus readily obtained for the preposterous official assertion that the British Fleet could not be found, though even a German multitude might be expected to inquire how the blockade continued under such circumstances.

We may reasonably doubt, however, whether the sole motive of the German Admiralty was to delude the German people in this fashion. The German has always been famous f}r his thrifty and profitable use of by-products, and the lightening of the gloom which the blockade has certainly created among our enemies was presumably a mere by-product of the naval necessity for keeping the fleet in sea-going condition, unless all intention to strike a blow in the North Sea was to be abandoned. Warships cannot remain effective in floating docks, however carefully they may be kept clean. Some sea-going practice is essential if they and their crews are to be kept in fighting trim, and the experience gained by submarines is useless to battleships. We must therefore conclude that these coastwise expeditions of the vaunted German Navy are incidental to a policy of keeping a fleet-ift-being, and are experimentally intended to prove that German battleships can put to sea whenever they wish to do so. This may mean little or much, according to the secret plans of the Berlin War Office, to which the German Admiralty is a mere appendage. Germany has lost few of her capital ships. She is still the second naval power in the world. She iB still able to send to sea a battleship fleet inferior only to that of Britain, and this ability accounts for the strenuous and unremitting energy with which the British Grand Fleet watches and British dockyards build. Our Imperial Government, oppressed by its antiquated methods of control, is habitually " too late " in matters military and diplomatic, " too late " at the Dardanelles. " too late " in Servia, "too late" in the march on Bagdad, although in accordance with tradition it improves amaz-

ingly when things seem at their worst. But in purely naval matters no British Government is ever " too late.*' Upon the Navy our safety absolutely depends, as has been always unqualifiedly recognised, in peace as in war.

The British naval strength in the North Sea is so emphatically I superior to the naval strength of ' Germany, housed in the Kiel Canal | and practising within mined areas, that it may be thought beyond chal? ; lenge. On the other hand, we know ; nothing of the desperate schemes ! which may be evolving in the German mind, or of the part which a : naval sortie might be made to play | in some last effort to impress neuI trals, to appal the Allies, or to en- | courage despondent Germany. As i long as the Kaiser's counsellors have : the remotest \hopc of securing a j peace which leaves their navy un--1 confiscated, it is obvious that they have every reason to nurse it against disaster, regardless of any popular demand that it should justify by action the immense sums spent and the high hopes reposed on it; for it would be an asset of incalculable value in their aggressive determination to renew ,the war for world-dominion at the earliest '■■ favourable opportunity. But what may happen if the Berlin War I Office becomes convinced that compromise is impossible, and that no mock peace is obtainable, is another question. Germany may still hope to inflict such damage- upon the Allies, and particularly upon Britain, as may turn at the last moment the tide of war. She may attack with her fleet, or may attempt some sinister tactics in which naval attack plays a part, realising that her fleet cannot be saved, and may as well be employed. It is not to be assumed that because the German battleship fleet has been lin hiding since the war began it will remain in hiding until the war is over, for it is certainly not being saved in order that i£ may be adtted to the fleets of the victorious Allies, that Germany's £300,000,000 of naval expenditure may have no other result than to provide booty | for conquering enemies. When the German battleship fleet puts to sea | and meets our British seamen we ! shall know that Germany has lost | all hope of saving it, and is making I her last desperate venture in the , iron game of war.