The Daily News. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1904. MODERN WARFARE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 36, 12 February 1904, Page 2

The Daily News. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1904. MODERN WARFARE.

The scheming of Russian aii.il Japanese statesmen to prevent either J'ower oVrtaininig.a prejiondwunce. of influence, in Korea, is at an end, ami the working of attains passes from tho diplomatists to the military and naval leaders. The War Oilicc .supersedes, to some extent, the foreign Olfice', and Japan takes active steps to enforce her dem&nd«, which practically amount tp a mundane to the groat European Power "So far shait thou come, and no further." 'l'ho attention of the world has keen directed to the seat of hostilities, from two causes. First, arises the question of whether Russia's onward inarch 'is to be slapped by the interposition of tliis new Power in the affairs of the world. Japan practically stakes her all in this struggle against mighty Russia. If she is to continue to expand, and to maintain her prestige as a growing nation, she must come out victorious in this struggle. If vjutory lies with Russia, then, without the intervention of foreign Powers, Japanese history will come to an; abrupt e nii. Another important, fad to be lemenibered is that this is really the lirst triul of the modern system of naval warfare. In late years the only eugugvments between ships of the nations of to-day have been in the C'lii'no-.lapune.se war of night years ago, ami the Spanish-Ameri-can war. In neither of those was modern science pitted against an equal force. The Chinese went down before the Jajmnc.su like tho paper men they were, but the dogged lius■siaiii will certainly be a more etpial foeman, remarks the New Zealand Herald, and may not unlikely prove superior to the "little brown man." We are the last nation to underestimate Russian courage and Russian obstinacy, or to forget that he possesses that peculiar quality of automatic enengy which has always made of our own British ships matchless lighting machines. hoy has the Jap any lack of heroic traditions ; indeed, he has a record. <or individual sell-sacrifice to 'a national ideal which is unexcelled by tiny people arcd paralleled by few. So Wat >ve, way take it for granted

that in the present war wc shall see with kited breath and wondering eyes the flint fearful clasj) of modern naval armaments. What this may bo we cannot oven faintly imagine. The battle nf Navarino, in which battleships that had followed Nelson to victory Hani? Willi their iVroadsides the swan-Song of a vanishing age, has long since passed from the general recollections of the living. The strange birth of the ironclad from the patricidal hatred! of our American kindred is hardly less remote. If the Victorian peace was brok'en midway on land and vanished in thu smoke of ihe great war, it. was miiinM.'a'ined for us upon the sea against any serious infringement. As for the Spanish wai it was, at sea, a ghostly parade of the cnishing superiority of I militant Anglo-Sa.vondom over helpless and degenerate Liit/nity. In fact, we have to-day in the world the accumulation of two generations of unprecedented scientific development as applied to naval power, thepractical effects of which, in spite of profusi' theory awl occasional experiment, are literally imaginable aiHl altogether unknown. The laindfighting which would follow a decisive sea-battle lictween Kussia and .lapem 'bus little ill it of special human interest. We can thoroughly' appreciate beforehand the tactics which either side may follow, ami entirely anticipate the horrors which will accompany the victory of eithr or. For both the nations Involved are but thinly veneered barbarians, amil will lights as barbarians with' weapons of precision the moment the veneer is worn thro<i»ii. That the Japs are our very goofl allies, and that our sympathies are with them, does not blind us to their Turanian peculiarities. The atrocities perpetrated by the Hu.ssia.nii during the march to Pcikin were outdone by the Japanese at the sack of Port Arthur in 1890. All the excuses made for the latter episode, one of the most appalling In modern history, do not touch the real point tiiat It exhibits the Jap as he really is when the vernier has worn off him. Doth Powers are As-iiitic, and will fight in the Asiatic fashion which British authority lias curbed within the sphere of British influence, but which leaps to the front at the first note of mutiny and with tlie least relaxing of the hand of the master. Those patriotic Tritons who were so tearfully indignant at 'the "horrors" of tine concentration camps will certainly have no concentration camps to complain of in the Ihrssoi-Japanese war. Hut if ! the lasvaVlighti-ivg will be Asiutic in character, the seas-fighting may well Up international. Penned in their ligting machines, the antagonists will know ti.<il victory Uepends primarily upon blind and uniicsiti'Lipg obedience to orders, so the struggle of man-impelled weapons, not, as on land, the struggle of weapon-bearing men. Our fiction writers have latterly striven to realise, for the popular instruction and edification, the l.'anioirngs of great naval eonflicts. Hut the only point on which they appear to agree is that vieltory will remain Willi the last vessel that keeps afloat, u conclusion which may be held to prove th.iil, they have ignored Unman nature. We really do not know what will happen. It may he urged that even in the old hearts of oak days the loss of life in naval warfare was terrific, that) apart from the frightful slaughter of great nn\al battles, instances are on record of stfrips having returned to England after a cruise to report every member of the original company either dead or seriously wounded. Duit the same may be said of old-time land-fighting. All our weapons of precision, all our scientific explosives, do not kill as many as did the sharpened hedging hook and i home-made bow and arrows of the English yeomen. The .slaughter of Waterloo proportionately cxeeeded tkat of the entire South African war, ai»3 Waterloo cannot be mentioned against Agincoiirt, nor evoa Aeincoiiit beside Hie holocaust of . Chalons,. It was recently asserted, | continues our contemporary, that modern warfare would Ix'come so ■deadly that it would destroy itself, but it has latterly become evident tiiat it i« safer to be shot at by a modern artilleryman at live miles' distance than to be struck at by a 'bill-man at five feet. It is not im- [ possible that we may find the same in naval wui-l'aiv, that thu decimation of cijews and anniliilation of fleets which occurred when our Nelsons laid muzzle to nmzalc - and flung their reckless boardingparties upon unbroken and undaunted decks may cease in this scientific age. The manoeuvring of fleets mu.\ become not the old prologue to lift and death struggle, hut the who),, tale of it. We may s,v in a broken propellor sullirient cause for surrender, and a shell in the engine- - room the inducement for graceful - ret Heart-. (For it would scVuii llial - only when men mid ships are at 1 the hand grip can sneer physical > prowess turn defeat into victory, oi I make even victory so costly that - the loss of the itevenge is ilu brightest pagi' in all our lovi 1 of the sea, The course o naval warfare is the great pnvbleir c ' which will prolwbl.v find its soluUoi; I in the present conflict between thi navies of two modern Powers. Vtt hies to date show that by usinp II strategy ami planning an unexpected - night attack, the Japanese liare ai d ready placed several Hussian ships - out of action, and ns Hussia hut e now no means of obtaining nava - reinforcemenis owing to the fact thai <-' coaling stations en soute to tin " East are closed to the belligerents, n this means a decided advantage ti '. the island nation.