PUBLIC FEELING INCRESINGLY ASSURED.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXX, Issue 14581, 5 June 1916, Page 5

PUBLIC FEELING INCRESINGLY ASSURED.

(Received Monday, 10.45 a.m.)

LONDON, Sunday. Now that the scraps of news can be pieced together, public feeling has been increasingly reassured.

It is indubitable that the Admiralty's first communique came as a thunderbolt to the vast majority of the population. There was no disguising the alarm and anxiety pictured on all faces on receipt of the early news. Though rumours were abroad in the city on Friday they were discredited as an old story, and the public were caught unprepared The Admiralty's first communique was reassuring in one respect, because the public felt that they had been told the worst. Indeed, there were many complaints at the Admiralty giving the British case at its worst and the enemies' at its best; besides, the public had no means of viewing the battle in its proper perspective. Later fragments seemed to indicate that the Germans were attempting some dramatic stroke, either against the English coasts or seeking to make a breach in the blockade. The stroke failed against Admiral Beatty's vigilance and the gallantry of liis battle-cruisers, which, though suffering heavily, successfully held up a far superior enemy until Admiral Jellicoe's battle fleet had time to arrive. This view was quickly taken by the French press similarly.