SUBMARINE PIRACY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16561, 9 June 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUBMARINE PIRACY.

COST OF U-BOATS.

BETWEEN £200,000 AND £300,000.

Admiral-' von Capelle, the German Naval Secretary, who has been addressing the Reichstag on the progress of submarine piracy, might .in other circumstances enlist a large measure of sympathy, writes Archibald Hurd in the Dailv Telegraph. The, officers of the German Navy have become the puppts of Marshal von Hindenburg, the dictator of policy by sea as well as by land. Whon tho ruthless U-boat war was resumed, the pledge to the United States becoming another "scrap of paper;" the agents of the marshal issued the notorious " confidential" circular to the press. It was stated that this campaign of murder and outrage against boligerents and neutrals constituted "the best and only means of a speedy, victorious ending of the war." It was not the naval but the military authorities who' made that significant confession of tho failure of the German army. Tho responsibility of bringing about an early German peace was thus placed on Admiral von Capelle and those working under his orders, sending forth submarine crews either to dishonour or death.

Those "Little Boats."

Admiral von Capelle, struggling against] adversity, and aware of the contempt in which the new methods of sea warfare have brought the service to which he helongs, has endeavoured to cheer his fel-low-countrymen, and mislead and terrorise neutrals. What would the world have thought had ho mentioned the niimbor of submarines which have been last in a matter .of only two months, stated tho capital they represented, and given the casualties? There is still a tendency to speak of the German submarines as "boats," and sometimes they are referred to as "little boats." In fact, the bigger of them are as big as the mon-of-war which the Germans themselves have been in the habit of describing as "cruisers." Their displacement ranges from over 800 to 1200 tons ; tho outlay on construction runs from £200,000 to £300,000; the crew of each vessel numbers thirty men upwards. Submarines, in proportion to their size, are the most expensive ships ever built, and consequently these losses are imposing a heavy drain on German finances, material resources, skilled labour, and man power. If salvation is to como for Germany in timo to rescuo her from her doom, it must come soon, and, as is confessed, tho submarine piracy is "the only means." So the Naval Secretary , has been put up by the soldier to make a further effort to represent the piracy campaign on the 40,000,000 tons of shipping of the allies and neutrals as a success which has realised '" all expectations." In contrast with the total' tonnage quoted above, he gives an inflated figure for the February depredations; and he conceals' the number of submarines which have gono to that bourne from which no pirate vessels return.