THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1917. THE ENEMY WITHIN THE GATES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17113, 19 September 1917, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1917. THE ENEMY WITHIN THE GATES.

The destruction of the steamer Port Kembla off tho New Zealand coast early yesterday morning, a deplorable incident in itself, is rendered doubly deplorable by tho circumstances to which it was attributable. There seems to be every reason to believe that the vessel was blown to pieces through the explosion of an infernal machine which was placed in her forehold while she was being loaded at Melbourne. She took on board at that port a cargo of foodstuffs for Great Britain, together with a consignment of comforts for the troops and of goods for the Bed Cross. As the services of the unionist wharf labourers were withheld on account of the strike which is still being continued on the waterfront in Australia although the nien who originated the strike in New South Wales have now returned - to work, the Port itembla was loaded by free labour. If, as we are compelled to believe, a bomb, timed to explode when the vessel was at. sea, was secreted in her cargo, the responsibility for this infamous act must be laid either at the door of the strikers in Melbourne or at that of enemies of Great Britain, who would have instruments to their hand in the existence of that lawless' organisation, the I.W.W. The reasonable assumption seems to be that the I.W.W. was guilty of a diabolical outrage which was successful to the extent that it effected the destruction of tiie steamer and the loss of a valuable cargo, to say nothing of a large English and Australian mail for this dominion, and which also threatened with death the ship's company of about. 60 men, with whom, at least, the authors of the outrage can have had no quarrel. We say this is the reasonable assumption because of the similarity between the fate which overtook the Port Kembla and that which befell the steamer Cumberland recently off the Australian coast. The Cumberland was loaded before the strike and, like the Port Kombla., carried a cargo of foodstuffs for the Mother Country. Whatever doubt may have existed as to the cause ,of the explosion on the Cumberland seems to us to have been set at rest by the explosion on the Port Kembla. In each case a side of the vessel was blown out, and in the case .of the Port Kembla the evidence points so clearly to an internal explosion as the cause of the disaster as to leave very little room for doubt in the matter. The mystery which surrounded the disappearance of the Matunga last month, when she was on her way from Sydney to Ilabaul, in New Guinea, and of other vessels that have disappeared without leaving any trace behind them may also be said to be solved by the fate of the Port Kembla. It must now, we think, be apparent that enemies of the Empire, whether they be British subjects or no-t and whether they be in the pay of Germany or not, have effected an organisation in Australia for the systematic destruction of British shipping and of the lives of British seamen through the use of explosives surreptitiously placed in the holds of vessels and designed to perform their deadly work at a time when the vessels will be on the high seas. The destruction of the Port Kombla is a national disaster, but it will serve a useful purpose if it has the effect of causing the authorities at all ports in the dominion to exercise unceasing vigilance at the waterfront and to increase the precautions they have taken to protect British- life and British property against the devilish machinations of individuals whose lawlessness is of that peculiarly odious type that leads them to further the ends of the enemies of the Empire.