GOLDEN SILENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16519, 20 October 1915, Page 6

GOLDEN SILENCE

NAVY'S SECRET HAUL. SUBMARINES NOT REPORTED. . (Fkom Oce Own Cobbesfondent.) LONDON, September 1. Mr Balfoury in a odupre of communiques this ; week, has stated plainly'and in moderate S&nguage, the reasons why the Admiralty has maintained . • silence about certain rumours'wiTich have buzzed round the club's with all the diligence of the Russian myth earlier in the war. For months past one has met aTleast one person 'a day who,has heard from the best possible source that the British- navy • has caught a whol,e ehoal of 'submarines about which it will say nothing for reasons of Slate. '

•.-.•ln, some ■ quarters this rumour has been dismissed ,as .on a par with the Russian stories, but.it is quite evident.from Mr Balfour's statement this week that there-is a basis of fact .'behind it. Reporting the destruction of a German submarine by air. bomibs off Ostend, Mr BalfouT adds: ■ " It i 6 not the practice of the Admiralty to publish statements regaraing the losses of German submarines, important though they have been, in .' cases where the enemy have no other source of information as to the time and place at which these losses have occurred. In thecase referred to above, however, the brilliant feat of Squadron-com-mander' Bigsworth -was. performed in the immediate neighbourhood of the coast in occupation of, the enemy, and the position of the sunken' submarine has ' been located by a German destroyer." It hardly required to be said that whenever the British Amiralty has niade a state■ment on naval occurrences, the statement has been true. The unfortunate case which cast suspicion on its good faith was that of the Audacious, in which it refrained from saying anything. ZEPPELIN RAIDS. A few days later Mr Balfour brojee silence again, in '■' replying to a question by The Times: — j "Admiralty, S.W., August 28. "Dear Sir, —You ask why the accounts published in this country of enemy air raids are so meagre, while the narratives of the same events are ncn in lurid' detail. You point out that while these narratives are widely believed in neutral countries the reticence of I'Ke censored British press • suggests a suspicion that unpleasant truths are being deliberately hid from a nervous public. Compare the following accounts, which relate to the same airship raid:— Translation. i August 10, 1915. Headlines of Deutsche The Secretary of the Tageszeitung, August 11, Admiralty makes the 19.15, following announoeAIR ATTACK ON THE m f t: ~ DOCKS 'OF LONDON.' A squadron of hostile .... airships visited the east Cm .the night, of Mast last night and this August 0-10 our naval morain g between the airships carried out at- hours oJ 830 aml tacks upon fortaficd 230 am _ fireg ooast towns and har- were oaused b the < bours on the East Coast dropping oJ incendiary of England. In spite bombg bufc thcse were

of strenuous opposition quiokly extinguished, bombs dropped an(J ' on , immateria i on British warships in dam was dom! _ Thfl the Thames, on Hie f o n owing casualties have docks of London, on been reported: _ : maIl) •the torpedo oralt base g women) an a 4 children at Harwich, and on kiUea . 4 men> a women , important positions on and 2 ohi .) aren w<raw jed. the Humber. Good re- on€ Zeppe]in was mTi . Baits were observed. ous] rtamßged by gan The airships returned flre of the land de f onoeg) safely from. their and was reported this successful undertaking. moming being towed into Ostend. She has since been subjected to continual attacks by air-' craft from Dunkirk under heavy fire, and it is now reported that after having had her back broken and rear compartments damaged she was completely destroyed by explosion. "Now, 'it is plain that, if one of these etories is true, the other is false. -Why not, then, explain the discrepancy, ,and tell the world in detail wherein the German account distorts the facts? The reason is quite simple. . Zeppelins attack under cover of night, and (by preference) of a moonless night. In such conditions landmarks are elusive and navigation difficult. Errors are inevitable, and sometimes of surprising magnitude. The Germans constantly assert, and may sometimes believe, that they have dropped bombs on places which, in fact, I 'they never approached. Why make their future voyage easier by| telling them where they have blundered in the past? Since their errors are our gain, why dissipate them ? Let us learn what we can from the enemy; let us teach him only what we must. Nobody will, I think, be_ disposed to doubt that this reticence is judicious. But the question may still bo aeked whether it is used, not merely to embarrass the Germans, but unduly to reassure the British? How ought we to rate the Zeppelins among weapons of attack? What have they done? What can they do? To this last question I do not offer a reply. I cannot prophesy about the future of a method of warfare which is still in,it6 infancy. I can, however, .say finmcthincr of its results during the past. That

it has caused much suffering to many innocent people is unhappily certain. But even this result, with all its tragedy, has been magnified out of all proportion by ill-in-formed rumour. I am assured by the Home Office that during the last 12 months 71 civilian adulte and 18 children have boon killed, 189 civilian adults and 31 children have been injured. Judged by numbers, this cumulative result of many successive crimes does not equal the single effort of the submarine which, to the unconcealed pride of Germany, and the horror of all the world, sent 1198 unoffending civilians to the bottom in the Lusitania. Yet it is bad enough, and we may well ask what military advantage hae been gained at the co6t of so ( much innocent blood. The answer is easily given. No soldier or sailor has been killed; seven have been wounded; and only on one occasion has damage been inflicted which could, by any stretch of language, be described as of the smallest military importance. Zeppelin raids have been brutal; but, so far, they have not_ been effective. They have served no hostile purpose, moral or material."