DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13580, 7 September 1917, Page 4

DAY BY DAY.

Captain Kuhlwetter has written a long article in the Cologne Belittling Gazette depreciating the America's strength United States, with the object of cheering up the German people and assuring them that American aid on the European battlefields conies too late. He is especially sarcastic about the appointment of Admiral Sims, "who often fought yonder with his mouth," and Colonel Roosevelt's sons, whose appointment, he says, are purely for advertising purposes. "The American battle fleet," he says, "cannot come across to Europe because America does not possess enough light cruisers and destroyers or supply ships. The fleet cannot be brought to war strength, because America cannot find the crews. The fleet was shorthanded in peace times, and it is worse off now, when so much money is to be made in war industries." Captain Kuhlwetter refers to the arrival of the American destroyer squadron as a rumour, and says America possesses very few good, up-to-date destroyers. Stories about America building submarine chasers, he says, are exaggerations. With regard to the mercantile fleet, he puts the amount of tonnage available from the seized German vessels at a maximum of fifty to sixty thousand tons, owing to the impossibility of repairing the damage to them and obtaining crews. "America will hardly build a million tons of new shipping this year," he writes, "though a year hence her fresh tonnage would have to be taken seriously. As for the American army, it would require 3,000,000 tons to supply an afmy of 500,000 men in Europe, and the total available tonnage in the world for such supply is only about 5,000,000 tons." Finally, the writer agrees that the moral effect of American intervention is great, and that it is being advertised for all it is worth by appointments like those of Sims and the Roosevelts.