NAVAL SUPREMACY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14243, 10 March 1917, Page 3

NAVAL SUPREMACY

ENEMY WHO SET AT NOUGHT ALL

HUMANITIES,

THE GREAT TASK AHEAD

FRANK STATEMENT BY FIRST LORD OF ADMIRALTY.

(Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) (Received March 10, 9.40 a.m.) LONDON, March 9. Sir E. Carson, speaking at Aldwych Club, said : I openly conf ess"' we have not yet satisfactorily solved problems wherewith the Navy is grappling \to maintain supremacy of the sea. Nothng is gained by exaggerating or minimising the anxieties we feel at the grave |X)»ition of the nation to-day. We have io deal with an enemy whb haa set at nought all humanities. The man-power of our race Avill assert itself, but it viiows tlm task, and is exhorted to pay no attention •to amateur statements. "We could not afford to gamble with the ileet. If we failed it would mean the end of the Empire. If the Germans gambled with their fleet it .would nol nean even the end of the Avar. He has determined to see our sailors have full *cope without interference. I am neither a coward nor a pessimist," he said. "We Avill stick to it to the end."

He instanced the navy's gigantic effort. They had 150 small patrol boats at tho outbreak of the Avar, and there were three thousand now.

They must not under-estimate the ditttculty and danger of dealing with submarine mine-layers. Mines' had been .aid as far as the Cape of Good Hope, Gulf of Aden and Colombo. "Men in minesweepers, momentarily risking their lives, are feeding Britain.' 1 do not believe that the sailors ef aaiy other country would face those' dangers. Honest Englishmen would be ashamed to strike in shipyards and arsenals if they understood the Navy's privations. Half a million tons ahd been sunk in February, whereof half Avas British. I believe that still more drastic restrictions in imports is necessary."