SEA POWER, WORLD POWER.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 13904, 4 November 1919, Page 2

SEA POWER, WORLD POWER.

(By John L. Balderston.) World power depends on sea power. All history seems to prove the truth oi' : that statement, though from time to time during the centuries groat la-nd empires like Persia and Napoleonic France and now Germany have tried to provte it false. They have always failed. ." Not only has the downfall of Germany, Austria, and Russia completelyscrapped all the delicate international ballistics, balancing of this force against the dtlier in possible combinations that naval experts had formerly worked out. An even more difficult puzzle confronts them in the submarine and the mine, weapons that in five years have revolutionised conceptions of what naval warfare is. Take, for. instance. Japan. It is easy to compare the Japanese fleet with the American, the British or the French. In 1910 the experts would have made such a comparison and then sat back in theic chairs satisfied. To-day the submarine and mine problems cause the experts to throw up their hands when thy are asked to estimate Japan's navl strength. „ Germany's successful occupation of the "wet' triangle" whence her submarine llcets issued for four years, despite all the might of the British navy across a narrow sea, has profoundly affected naval thought in Japan. If Germany could preserve her coasts inviolate against attack from the greatest naval Powei? in the world a .-. few miles away, why should not Japan do the same when an enemy must cross at least 3000 miles of sea? The same weapons that Germany used to keep .Teh licoe and Beatty at. bay are at the disposal of Japan—the submarine and the mine.

By laying mine fields and building a large submarine, fleet, naval authorities in Europe and even nearer home believe Japan has it in her power to prevent a hostile navy, no mattery how strong, from operating in the Yellow Sea and cutting off. communications between Japan and China,, or Siberia. This is not so to-day, it is admitted. In a few years it may be, if Japan chooses to work hard enough on naval" preparations to> make it so. Before the war the possibility' of an inferior naval Power forbidding access to its seas was hardly considered. How vitally important the new naval weapons may become in the future may be inferred from a hypothetical instance. Japan, it has always been said in the west, could never against the will of Europe and America, embark on a career of conquests in China.'or Siberia. No more could England without a fleet attempt to attack France or Italy, if hostile countries chose to interfere by sea. In both cases it would seem simple to cut the communications of the offending island empire with the mainland and starve her into submission The wealth and natural resources of Japan would never permit, her tojmild in- serious rivalry with the United. States alone, not to mention a coalition of white races. Accordingly, so far as Japan was concerned the "yellow peril" was a myth. The mine and the submarine have changed all .that. A* peaceful Japan now "depends upon the moderate parties getting control of the Government, rather than upon helplessness to start' adventures on the Asian continent without the approval of the west. For with the Yellow Sea completely blocked by .submarines and mines, backed bv the reasonably strong surface fleet that is always required to protect mine fields against hostile sweeping operations, Japan might conceivably defy any combination of hostile sea. power" and carry oir as she chose in chaotic Siberia, and helpless Chiua. If Japan can cut off her seas from attack bv using .minefields and submarines it would seem that any .other country, even if it possessed no surface navv at all ought to be able to do the same. But this is not true, as the German war proved: The delicate balancing of forces that a sea struggle involves is shown in the wav Germany's high seas fleet, though fighting but one accidental and unsuccessful general engagement,, succeeded to the very end : M,; holding,.the Baltic and the German Nbrth Sea coast and making safe the incomings and outgoings" of hundreds of submarines. That is how it was done. - First, German mine fields were laid, shutting oft the Baltic and the "wet triangle," of which Heligoland was the apex, from British incursions. Then, through channels left in the mine efilds, the submarines sallied forth. Why did not the British send in sweeps and pick up the mines, haying the strongest fleet? Because if British minesweepers appeared in the "wet triangle" German destroyers would have sunk them. . If in turn British light cruisers had gone along to protect the minesweepers, German heavy cruisers would have sallied forth against them. British cruisers backing up such an expedition would have encountered the whole high seas fleet; and so, a single. British trawler, to work unmolested at picking up a German mine field, required the support of the whole British fleet. But if the British fleet had backed up an expedition to pick up all the mines and pave the way for an attack on the coast, the German high seas fleet would have come forth and done battle in its own waters, filled with traps and submarines. The British did not feel justified in running such risks, and the mine fields were never molested.

How closely this analogy applies to Japan is evident. Once- block the Yellow sea with mine fields, the Japanese fleet behind them, and an attacking Power must bring a force, greater than all Japan's armada to back up an attempt to get through the mines. But under such circumstances, in her own waters and on a spot of her own choosing, Japan would weleon?e a. general engagement despite her inferior force, just as Germany would have been glad to fight out "der tag" off the Coast of Heligoland.

Turning from the Far East to Europe, it is seen that there, too, the war has completely upset the old balances. Since the development of the ironclad, the most Britain has attempted to do has been to enforce the "twopower" standard, which was the doctrine that the British Navy must be able at any time to take on at once the two strongest Continental navieS. With the rise of the German challenge in flie first decade of the century, and the growing friendship with France and Russia, this policy was abandoned, and the Admiralty contented itself with /maintaining a comfortable superiority over Germany alone, at the same time calling its Mediterranean Fleet to the North Sea. To-day the German fleet has committed hari-kari; the 276 naval vessels left the new republic do not include a single modern battleship, and Germany at present no longer exists as a. sea. power. It is not now a, question for England of the two-power stand in Europe; the British Fleet could sink all the navies of all European countries in a single engagament. Britannia's position, so far as Europe is concerned, reverts with the peace to that obtaining after Nelson's victory over French and Spaniards at Trafalgar. Britain accordingly is faced by the question whether to rest on her oars, satisfied with her pre-eminence in Europe, or build against navies outside of Europe. There are only two large ones; ours and the Japanese. During the war the British silently constructed a fleet as big as the whole German navy. Nothing was said or heard about it; those few outsiders who saw it under construction', mostly newspaper correspondents like myself, wrote under strict censorship, and we were compelled to confine ourselves to generalities. British naval stories were the most exasperating of the war to write; the correspondent knew so much, and could say so little. Now the lid is off. During the war' England added nearly a million tons to ■" her fighting forces, and . had another 500.000 tons on the stocks when the armistice was signed. Four of the new oil-burning, 35-knot battle cruisers with 15-inch guns, 21" lightcruisers, 100 destroyers and 80 submarines were not finished; some of them may never be, for Britain has. just given evidence either of. her trust in her -neighbors or her confidence in her present superiority by cancelling work on all those ships not already launched. ■ ■ . ■- In all Britain now has 702 wars Kips, . against 244 American and 239

French. -Japan has 136. • British naval tonnage is greater than American. French. Italian and Japanese combined. It is not only such figures as these that show British fighting superiority. She has ten oil-burning battle yc-i-iiisers armed wVth lio-ijich guns and heavily armored, the Queen Elizabeths and 'the Royal Sovereigns, that are entirely unmatched in any navy.

We have not yet a single battle cruiser in commission, nor has any other European power. The Japanese have seven; hut- they are of the class of the now obsolete 'British Lion and Tiger, which are not included in the ten terrors .that make up the first and second battle squadrons under the white ensign. In the "flying squadron," unique in the world's navies, England has tour very fast and very large seaplane carrying" ships whose reconnaisance work would give the British a great advantage against a navy not- possessing similar advantages. The fleetcould now send out 40 planes while at sea. The Furious, flagship of the squadron called during the latter part of the war the "mystery ship," was built to carrv two 18-inch guns and make 32 knots. After Jutland, the guns were removed, a- hangar was built'for ten seaplanes on the forecastle deck, and a platform of 1.60 feet long constructed for "taking-off." At the rear of the ship is a "flying on" deck 300 feet lons. The Furious is 786 feet m length, nearly twice 'as long as the original dreadnought, but displaces onlv 21 1-2 feet of water, and her newer sister ships are understood to be of similar si7.e and speed. . Britain's new submarines, eclipsing in every wav the finest U-boats, are unrivaled. They are 338 feet long, with a beam of 26 1-2 feet, and are faster than the fastest ship afloat 20 years ago. Making 24 knots on the surface-, they can be driven by electric motors at nine knots when submerged: they carry each a four-inch and threeinch gun, and eight torpedo tubes. There were rumors last year of a collapsible battleship built on the Clyde; and these are now verified by the appearance of the Mi, a submarine carrying a 12-inch gun, presumably designed to bombard at long range Heligoland and the Belgian coast. Naval opinion all over the world is on tiptoes, waiting for the first news indicating the policies of the American and British fleets as regards each otln*\ Together, the two fleets comprise most of the effective naval strength in the world, excepting for Japan's much smaller but "highly efficient navy. Are Britain and America to build against each other, or will , the two countries decide that a conflict is unthinkable and their building programme need take noaccount of each other? Earlv in the Peace Conference certain statements by Secretory Daniels were construed in England to mean that if America did not get what she wanted in Paris, she proposed to build against Britain. Some Englishmen were upset and alarmed; others pointed, out that since war between the twocountries was -psychologically impossible, it didn't matter how many ships America, built. The general opinion m naval circles in London I found to be that of course with her resources the United States could outbuild England if she chose- but that command of the sea is a luxury with America, ,a necessity lor England, and that the American taxpaver would never permit an attempt to build the world's strongest navy merely as a spectacular and useless stunt. " Now England, by stopping construe-tio-.i, ha.* made the first move in w game. She saws to us in effect: iou are now able to whip any two European countries excluding ourselves; you have a comfortable margin over Japan excepting in battle-cruisers. We have a bio- enough navv, and we have called a , - : ".. You have done a lot of talking a.tjr.i.i fi«armament over there; what arc you going to do about it? If we do not reply by cutting down our own building programme, the next move bv John Bull will be of absorbiu<r interest. Either he will start up his" own shipyards again, or display a. friendship and trust unknown in wort:, history bv permitting us to overhaul him iii the belief that we will not abuse any advantage we may gain.