The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1918. A GERMAN HOPE QUENCHED.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLII, Issue 11614, 13 August 1918, Page 4

The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1918. A GERMAN HOPE QUENCHED.

REGENT reviews of the shipping situation indicate that the last hope of German victory through the operations of submarines has now faded away. Reports state that the destruction of shipping during July was less than during any month since 19IG, and construction, which for months has simply trembled in the balance against submarining, has now definitely become 'greater by two or three hundred thousand tons per month. The people of the Empire army, therefore, now breathe more freely and look forward with certainty to an early victory. Ever since, however, the Germans commenced their most ruthless submarining, and on the greatest scale of which they were capable, there has been reason for the most profound apprehension. Submarines raided with comparatively little danger to themselves. At [the very peak of their efforts the weekly sinkings ran into alarming figures, even if only numbers sunk had been takoo into consideration. But the records were deceptive because they were based on an arbitary of so many sunk under three thousand tons and so over. Even under this disguise they appeared sufficiently formidable. But if the reports had revealed the actual tonnage sunk and fefurnished us witli the names of the ships, we feel shouldt.have bad to put a stern hold upon ourselves to prevent being driven into a panic. The situation was, of course, •unique and unprecedented. A new and formidable arm had come into existence, in the eternal evolution of aggression and defence, to which was no effective answer. That had to he evolved, not by dilatory experiment in times of peace, but in the very agony of a tragedy which threatened the existence of the Empire and the liberty of the world. The new offensive was too elusive for old methods to be successful. It offered a problem more difficult and complex thou that between the force of itupsat of the projectile and the resistance of armour. It uecessit-ited 2 beginning in the kindergarten cl ;ss of methods against what constituted die most advanced type of scientific warfare. That it ims succeeded in ruling -lie submarine cut os a cardinal and vital arbiter of the war is to soy that it has made all the diiierenc; between defeat and victory. For there is no questioning the fact that if submarining hud gone on up to j-ho end of 1917 on tire maximum scale Britain would have been in a starving conidtion, and the effort" '

of the Americans to come to our assistance would have been futile* At the very moment, therefore, when the figures of tonnage building showed an increase over that of sinkiugawe were entitled to ring the bells and hoist cur flags us commemorating the greatest victory of the war.