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Otago Daily Times, Issue 17157, 9 November 1917, Page 4

The return issued by the Admiralty showing the results of the German submarine activity for the week ended on Sunday last is the most satisfactory since the commencement by the enemy of the policy of indiscriminate " sinking at sight" in February last. In only one previous week was the destruction of vessels of the larger size so small as it was ill the week covered by the latest return, when eight vessels displacing more than 1600 tons were sunk, but in that previous week as many as 20 vessels of less than 1600 tons .were sunk whereas the latest return shows that only four of these smaller vessels were secured as victims by the pirates. The total sinkings reported in the latest return are less than in any other of the 37 weeks for which the campaign of ruthless submarine activity has been carried on. Submarine warfare, the First Lord of the Admiralty declared last week, is becoming a test of determination, grit, and ingenuity between the two contending forces. Admiral Scheer, one of the naval authorities of Germany, stated the case in somewhat similar terms in a recent interview when he said it was a question of German endurance against British obstinacy. Admiral Scheer was not so indiscreet as some of his countrymen were who boldly asserted that the submarines would bring Great Britain to her knees in the course of a few weeks, for he said that " naturally 3 ' it was impossible to state a term within which the work of the submarine service would be accomplished, " but," he went on to say, " a child can reckon that with a continuance of the present rate of sinkings the day must come when England must see that she must give in.!' Admiral Scheer does not seem to have adequately realised the measure .of British "obstinacy" nor yet to have taken into account the possibility that, as a result of the destruction of submarines themselves—on which point Sir Eric Geddes supplied very reassuring information last week—and of the protective measures adopted by Great Britain, the German weapon of attack on British trade might be greatly blunted.

The occurrence in Dunedin of two serious fires within a week, involving heavy loss both to the proprietors of the premises and to the insurance companies affected, should suggest to the City Council the desirability of reconsidering its decision to become its own insurer against the risk of loss of corporation property by fire. The majority of the members of the City Council have been carried away by the idea that the corporation might save money if it were to discontinue the practice of paying premiums to Insurance companies to cover the risk of fire. A good many private people have probably been influenced by the same idea when they have neglected to insure their houses or other buildings and their contents. " The risk of fire is small," they argue; " why pay away money to an insurance company?" When a fire occurs and they suffer loss because they have foolishly neglected to take the precaution to insure their premises and their goods they incur the penalty for gambling with their own property. The City Council occupies a different position from them. It is the trustee of the property of the whole body of citizens. It is their property with which it is gambling when it decides that the corporation shall itself accept the risk of fire on its property and that it shall pay into a special account an annual sum representing the premium on a policy of firo insurance. It may be fortunate enough to cscape heavy fire losses, but the bulk of the corporation property is not a better fire risk than most of the business premises in town, and if the City Council should be visited with a serious fire loss the distinct of the policy it has decided to follow would be brought very unpleasantly homo to the ratepayers. The concentration of heavy risks in a single hand is wholly opposed to all the principles of fire insurance. No fire insurance company would think for a moment of retaining the whole of a risk on an important block of buildings. It distributes its risks by reinsurance. The City Council is flying in the face of all that the experience of insurance companies has proved to be desirable and necessary. It is a dangerous policy which it is adopting.

The Military Service Board, sitting at Gore last Tuesday, had an unusual case before it. An appellant represented that it would be an undue hardship to compel him to join the Expeditionary Force, since he has, by order of a magistrate, been deprived of his civil rights for a period of ten years from July, 1916, for failing to render tho personal service required of him under the Defence Act. In a large sense, deprivation of civil rights would involve an inability to hold property, but under the Defence Act it is apparently limited to inability to receive appointment to any office or employment, whether permanent or temporary, in the public service and to the loss of electoral privileges. It is expressly provided that deprivation of civil 'rights ■will not absolve an individual from his obligation to render personal service under the Defence Act, but if it be the case that, as was claimed by the appellant before the Military Service Board, it would deprive him of any legal righl to a pension in the event of his being incapacitated and that, as was also suggested, it might even deprive him of any right to a soldier's pay, the penalty which the appellant incurred—no doubt justly incurred under the Defence Act—haa consequences under the Military Service Act such as can never have been cont.mipL.t-d. " Deprivation of civil r ; a hts" may be, as the military representative afc the sitting of the board opined, only a loose expression, although loose expression should not be employed in Acts of Parliament, but it seems more reasonabl® to suppose that

tho likelihood that cases of this kind might arise did not occur to the draughtsman of tho Military Service Act and that a legal mind has discovered a new plan whereby it may be at least possible for a person to evade the obligation of service in the Expeditionary Forces.