How Goes the Fight?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12064, 20 July 1917, Page 2

How Goes the Fight?

BOTES ON THE WAR, THE POSITION ANALYSED. OHRISTCHUr? C'H, July 20. Tlio differences of opinion between Major-General Goethals and Mr Donman. chairman of the Shipping Board, which is said to be delaying the. construction of new merchantmen in the United States, arc not of sudden growth. The New York " Sun " of May 27 records that there was already a sharp controversy between the two regarding the construction of wooden ships. " While all the controversy has been in progress as to the. merits and demerits of the wooden ship plan, and whilo reports have persisted that Goethals has been violently opposing the construction of wooden ships," it says, Chairman Den man has invariably let it- be, understood that he and the general wero in perfect accord and that the general, while he regretted, as tho board regretted, the necessity of wooden ships, nevertheless was reconciled to their construction as a supplement to tonnage obtainable from steel. The emphatic utterances of the general in New York have placed a complexion on the situation much at variance with that reflected in the statements of Chairman Donman, and make it appear either that Donman has been greatly misled as to the exact attitude of Goethals or has been making something of an effort, to gloss over a situation that threatened the success of the shipbuilding programme."'

So far as the published reports reveal the. facts Major-General Goethals was chosen by the Shipping Board to control the construction programme, and it might have been supposed that there would be at once a frank discussion between the board and the controller as io the policy to be pursued. Mr Donman was enamoured of the wooden .ship policy from the first, and although General Goethals was reported to be opposed to it. the plan was adopted, and tho number of wooden ships to be built- was determined by an investigation of the rapacity of existing yards and an estimate of tho rapacity of new yards to be laid out. The programme, was considered, also, by Congress committees and approved, so that, on this issue there should not, have been any marked dispute between board and controller.

Unfortunately, however, there had not been any char definition of the respective powers of board and controller. The hoard was created by statute, and it was directed to form a corporation with a capital of fifty million dollars, to undertake the construction of an emergency fleet. General Goethals became general manager of the corporation. The. differences on the subject of the respective powers of the board and its chief officer were ventilated before, the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives, and the committee exprfpsed the opinion that General Goethals should have unrestricted power in carrying out the constnictini, programme. Hut. an amendment inserted in a war measure by the Senate, authorising the President, to delegate certain powers to General Goethals, was struck out by a. committee, of the House, which substituted a provision that the President, should himself exorcise th?. powers indicated. This left, the position very much where it had b"en before. It. is easy to understand how friction would then arise, for General Goethals believed that it was his business to let. contracts for new ships, while the board naturally asked what purpose it had if it had no control over the programme.

The commandeered British shins referred to in the cable message a,re those under const run ion in American yards. The controversy on this question also dates hack" to May. A clause of the Budget, Bill empowered the President to assume direct control over the shipbuilding industry of the. nation, to take over at a price to he fixed by agreement, ships in course of construction for private parties, whether Americans or foreigners, and to take over ship and engine parts and the plants employed in their construction. Apparently General Goethals proposed to spend part of the ,£'30,000.000 appropriated for the purchase of ships in the purchase of ships under construction in America for foreign companies, or, as an alternative, to use some of the money in hiring those, ships, leaving the ownership unaffected. Mr Deumnn strenuously objected to both proposals. He urged that the unfinished ships should be commandeered by the Government and should be permanently incorporated in the American mercantile marine. The Senate accepted General Goethnls's alternative proposal, but a committee of the Howe, moved by Mr Denman's arguments., struck the provision out. and a separate. Bill was drafted to authorise the seizure of the ships. There the matter rested, and there, apparently, it still rests. It was stated in the course of the discussion that of two million tons of steel ordered from American firms more than one-half, was required for ships under construction for British firms.

Tho report of the New York " Tribune " that American nnv;i 1 circles favour the idea, of :i great concerted Allied naval offensive, even to tho extent of attacking German bases, does not show a. particularly clear appreciation of the problem. Tho Americans have apparently forgotten the interview with Sir John Jellicoe which the Associated Press distributed in April, the interview in which Sir John mentioned some of salient features of the naval problem. "It. cannot be denied that naval strategy has undergone •>. vast change as tho result of the illegal use by Germany of submarines,"' Sir John said "Of course, it is aiso •undeniable that their use legitimately has changed naval warfare. But tho legitimate change is not so great, nor so difficult to cope with as the lilegnl use of submarines. Their advent as a. fighting weapon has made a, coast blockade of an enemy's coast impossible, and has added to the difficulties we face on account of natural features of the German coast lino for either attack or defence.

" Against naval Germany the British Isles are tipped the wrong way. One of the disadvantages under which avo suffered during the early part of th. r ~ war was that we had n» harb-;ur

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in tlio North Sea his; enough to hold Iho growing grand fleet where it conid lie within easy striking distance of the cnftniv. (Inn of the most striking results nf the legitimate use of submarines has been to compel heav} ships, in order to obtain protection from their attacks, to he accompanied by destroyers when they put to sea, nnd this fact, reduces the radius of action of a fleet on account of the limited fuel capacity of the destroyers. The most striking feature of the. change in our historic naval policy resulting from the illegal uso of submarines nnd from the fact that enemy surface ships have been driven from the pen, is that wo have been compelled to abandon a definite offensive policy for one which may he called an offensive, defensive, since our only active, enemy is the submarine engaged in piracy and murder.

"We must give our mercantile fleet, n measure of protection which would not be dreamed of if the Germans merely used their U-boats for legitimate naval warfare, and so many of our smaller warships must be. used for this purpose that, the ' tip-and-run ' raid becomes a possibility, while our own blockading efforts .suffer. This again brings us back to the importance of small craft for the protect ion of the mercantile marine. But, they cannot end the submarina'; 1 menace by merely keeping the U-boats beneath the water We want to end the evil by destroying the 'boats, and wo mean to do it. r lVu> solution of this problem offers plenty of sscopu for the inventive genius of both navies.

" Zeebmgge forms another of our problems. It is difficult to deal with now, owing to German occupation and fortification of the Belgian coast. No naval officer, even before this war, ever believed that it was the business of a capital ship to stand, up against aland fort, as land guns always have greater facilities for finding tho range than a. gun mounted on a ship- But the fortified Belgian coast is a fact which we have to face, and the destroyers maintained there have made our work of guarding the Straits of Dover moro

difficult. The Germans, in their tip-and-run raids, during which they have committed additional illegality and tho inhumanity of bombarding open towns, have the great advantage of choosing the time of attack, and when as many as thirty destroyers can attack a patrol, you may gain somo idea of the number of vessels wo need on guard constantly to stop every raid. Wo have met them more than once at night, hut it, is difficult, to insure- that tho meeting shall not, find us in considerable inferiority, owing to the dispersion necessary to a watching force."