BRITAIN'S FOOD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11153, 11 August 1914, Page 3

BRITAIN'S FOOD.

PERIL OF COMMERCE DESTROYERS

THE NAVY'S PARI.

A few years ago Sir Howell Salmon, then Acfmiral of the Fleet, 'stated frankly that the Navy oould not afford complete protection to the mercantile marine. "We may hope/' he said, "that to a certain, extent, but not at the beginning of a war, the trade routes may be kept fred; at the commencement of a war they would be very much interfered with." The late Admiral Close was more emphatic. "It is no use your boasting that we have a powerful Navy, and therefore, having command of tne sea, our food supply is safe," he said. "You cannot get a naval officer to say so. We never had command of the sea, so;far as-the protection of our merchant ships is concerned. If there was a period in the history of this country when we might say we had command of the sea, it was after the Battle of Trafalgar, when there was not an enemy left on the eea. Yet after that battle hundreds of our merchant ships were captured; and it will be so again. We cannot protect our merchant ships; the thing is impossible."

This subject, which has become suddenly one of pressing importance, was discussed recently by Mr Jesse Collings in an article contributed to the " National Review." "Have our authorities considered the event of a number of lightly armed, swift—twen-ty-five to thirty kn#ts —commerce destroyers let loose on our trade routes?" he said. "No doubt great difficulties are connected with such an enterprise, but they are difficulties which, looking at the end in view, our . enemies would leave no stone unturned to overcome.

"The chief difficulty in the way of 1 these hostile destroyers is to get a supply of coal to enable them to keep at sea. But even this drawback has, in the past, been largely met by taking from captured ships, before sinking them, fresh supplies of coal as weH as of food and other stores. The Confederate States of America, their Navy destroyed, and acting under every conceivable difficulty, contrived to secure a few ahip3 for the purpose of harassing their enemy in the way we are discussing. In 1862 the Alabama sailed from Liverpool under the name of No. 290. For two years she managed to keep the sea and to eludo every effort on the part of the United States Navy to catch hrsr. until 1864; when she was met and destroyed by the Kearsage. The operations of this ship and of the two other Confederate cruisers, the Florida and the Georgia, earned on as they were under every adverse circumstance, afford a striking object-lesson to this country.

"The outcome of the operations of these few Confederate cruisers was that the American carrying ships were driven off the sea, and the splendid mercantile fleet, second only to that of England, which the United States possessed, ■was by capture, sale, or inaction. , practically destroyed. Had the States been dependent for their daily bread on oversea supplies—as this country is—the effect of the war must have been disastrous: in our own case the result of similar operations would be too terrible to contemplate. In. case of war our enemies, fully equipped for the purpose, full of resources, themselves selffeeding, would adopt the above tactics, and, though our Nary might fight successful battles, it is difficult to see how our food supplies could be secured and our ' Island Fortress' saved from being starved into surrender." Mr Collings has not proved altogether a live prophet. He tliat " on the outbreak of hostilities with a first-class Power—to say nothing of two Powers—the British mercantile marine would become paralysed. Shipowners would not send their ships to sea unless insured against loss, and insurance, except at prohibitive rates, would bo impossible." ' The events of the last week have shown that the British shipowners are not so easily frightened. The insurance difficulty has been overcome by the Imperial Government, which has supported the shipowners with a guarantee, and as far as the cablegrams indicate British shipping is moving quite freely. But there is time still for commerce destroyers to embarrass the Empire considerably, and the mention of converted cruisers having left Bremerhav-en has a rather sinister interest.