TWO YEARS OF WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16300, 5 August 1916, Page 8

TWO YEARS OF WAR.

ANNIVERSARY REVIEWS.

THE NAVAL SITUATION.

COMMAND OF THE SEA.

Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.

(Received 11.45 p.m.) LONDON. August 3.

Reviewing the naval situation on the second anniversary of Britain's declaration of war. Mr. A. J. Balfour, First Lord of the Admiralty, said : " The moral and material consequences of the Jutland battle can- , not be easily over-estimated. That was the moment when the tide began to flow strongly in our favour. Every week since has seen a new allied success on one field or other. Before the Jutland fight the German Fleet was imprisoned ; after the Jutland fight it sank again into impotence. "This is not merely the British view. German utterances have given precisely the same impression. Both parties agree that the object of the naval battle was to obtain command of the sea. We have not lost it. Our blockade has been tightened since the Jutland battle, and the Germans admit this by the greater violence of their invective against Britain and the unwearied repetition of the cry that Britain is their arch-enemy, and must at fell costs be humbled to the dustExploit of the Deutschland. " If the Germans felt they were reaching maritime equality with us," continued Mr. Balfour, "would they spend so much breath in advertising the performances of the submarine Deutschland, flying the mercantile flag, which carried 280 tons of German produce—to say nothing of the j Kaiser's autograph letter —from Bre- j men to Baltimore. The whole interest of this exploit lay in the fact that by using a submarine they j could elude the barrier the British | have placed between Germany and j the outer world, which the enemy i knows the German fleet can neither j break nor weaken. Ever Shrinking Battle Line. " The German newspapers, upon the anniversary, exhorted the people j to take comfort by studying the maps. The amount, of comfort obtainable depends upon the maps chosen. Even the map of Europe shows an ever-shrinking battle-line. The map of German colonial empire shows most of it to be gone and the remainder slipping from her grasp. The Germans are aware that their ' victorious' fleet is useless, and, therefore, submarine war-1 fare makes a double appeal to Ger- ; man militarism and 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 Murder of Captain Fryatt. " The skill and energy with which merchantmen defend themselves has driven the German Admiralty to its latest and most stupid act of calculated ferocity—the judicial murder of Captain Fryatt. Ido not propose to argue the case. It is not worth arguing. Why should we do the German military authorities the injustice of supposing that they are animated by any solicitude for international law, or that, by some unhappy accident, they sank 22 British ships without warning? The Germans knew that Captain Fryatt, in bravely refusing to submit, was 'doing his duty as a man of courage and honour, resolved at all costs to discourage German intimidation."