Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 10 August 1916, Page 17

Current Topics

♦Home, Sweet Home' ■"" Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home, sang John" Howard Payne long ago, and the words have touched a tender chord in many a heart. But both the words and the sentiment are now, alas, quite out of date. Mid pleasures and picture palaces both youngsters and oldsters nowadays do most assiduously roam, and homein the real senseand home life, with their sweetening influences and associations, have become almost a thing of the past. This truth has been forcefully brought out in some lines in a little volume by Walt Mason about things in general, entitled Horse Sense in Verses Tense. The ' verses tense ' are rhymed prose, and the writer thus discourses about the ' home ' of to-day: ' Oh, Home ! It is a sacred place— was, in olden days, before the people learned to chase to moving picture plays; to tango dances, and such things, to skating on a floor; and now the youthful laughter rings within the Home no more. You will recall, old men and dames, the homes of long ago, and you'll recall the fireside games the children used to know. The neighbor's kids would come along with your own kids to play, and merry as a bridal song the evening passed away. An evening spent away from home in olden days was rare; the children hadn't learned to roam for pleasure everywhere. But now your house is but a shell where children sleep and eat; it serves that purpose very well— home is oh the street. Their home is where the lights are bright, where ragtime music flows; their noon's the middle of the night, their friends are Lord, who knows The windows of your home are dark, and silence broods o'er all; you call it Home God save the mark ! 'Tis but a sty or stall !' After the War As we have before remarked, this is the last great war until the next one, and the dream that this is the war that will end war is destined, we are afraid, to prove only a dream. In Germany, even in Church circles, they are, apparently, already looking forward to the next great struggle. The Tagliche liundschau, an evangelical Protestant paper, in a recent issue, devotes two columns to an article by Judge von Zastrow, of Berlin,' on the ' Future National Church,' and according to this authority the coming German. Church is to run on strictly militant lines. ' The new trench camaraderie will appear in Church life,' he says, ' and just as in the trenches there is neither Socialist nor Conservative, so in the new German Church sectional and sectarian difference will disappear, and in. their place will come a halcyon peace and mutual respect. The Church will bathe itself in the new streams of German power, it will drink from the water which will make our German Will strong and healthy for battle. Our German piety, our German Christianity, will assume an heroic coloring, in place of . the sentimental tone which has hitherto characterised it.' One would hardly have detected the ' sentimental tone ' which has—at least in its recent manifestationscharacterised German Christianity, but we will take the author's word for it. * A Prussian Protestant clergyman, named Schiller, as quoted in the London Times, writes in an even more bellicose strain about the period after the war. 'lt will be a hard and iron time, a time of tension, a time of strained armaments and readiness. Is the world to wake up after this war more gentle and more harmless ? How can that be ? Are the peoples to throw off hatred and bitterness as actors throw off their masks Does anybody believe that treaties will bind ? No, when the peoples awake after this war they will find themselves separated by mountains of corpses, by desolate lands, by cities in ruins, by an impoverished world. However complete the victory may be, another and an equally hard struggle will .then begin. Nothing can

help us but the utmost strain and effort and the strictest holding together of the strength and efficiency of the people.' It will be a bad look-out for the world if these are the sentiments that are to prevail in the Fatherland. " The Press on Beatty's Battle Regarding the Battle of Jutland, all the world is agreed— little Peterkin— ' 'twas a famous victory,' but there is still some difference of opinion on the question, whose victory ? Perhaps it will be easier for all parties—to decide that matter a year from now. In the meantime it is interesting to compare the varying views and comments of representative enemy, Allied, and neutral papers on the point. Let us take the enemy papers first—and at least their utterances have the quality of being emphatic and unanimous. The Munich Neueste Nachrichten calls it a 'catastrophic defeat of England,' and adds: It is the beginning of a new era j the fight completely dissipates the idea, that the British Navy is superior to all others. The Leipzig Neueste Nachrichten says: 'England's invincibility on the seas is broken. The German Fleet has torn the venerable Trafalgar legend to shreds.' The Vienna Nate Freie Presse says: ' The fourth and greatest fight between the German and British fleets has ended in a glorious success for the Germans. England's pride in the supremacy of the seas must be considerably diminished.' And the Neues Wiener Journal says: 'Such a crushing defeat of the English will place in doubt their whole supremacy of the seas, and will deal a decisive blow in England at the desire to continue the war, whilst in Germany it will arouse feelings of pride and joy.' * The Allied papers also agree that the battle was a ' glorious success,' but they differ entirely as to the disposal of the laurel, and they are clear that it was German and not British conceit that received a galling blow. They are unanimous in holding that Great Britain still maintains her naval supremacy, and that the German Navy has no chance of a naval victory. M. Clemenceau was most emphatic on this point in his paper, Homme Enchaine. He says: 'For England, a loss of men and ships without any vital impairment of her naval strength for Germany a loss of men and ships, and henceforth the annihilation of all hope of any naval victory— is the net result on the established facts.' M. de Lanessan, ex-Minister of Marine, in the Petit Parisien, says: ' Two lessons may be learned. The first is that battle-cruisers cannot stand up against modern battleships. Their armament is formidable, their speed is very great, but their protection is too weak. The second is the absolute power - lessness of the German fleet in face of the British fleet. Admiral Tirpitz came to the correct conclusion when he confined the role of the Germany Navy to cunning and hypocritical submarine piracy sufficiently cowardly to sink unarmed merchantmen.' The Russian press also stresses the fact and the significance of the British victory. The Russki Invalid says: ' The Germans not only lost some of their best vessels, but convinced themselves of the complete "impossibility of appearing in the North Sea for serious naval operations, and of the brilliant services of our English guardships." Our Ally's fleet, at the cost of some of its splendid vessels and of some thousands of gallant sailors, has won a very decisive victory on the sea, inflicting exceedingly heavy losses on the enemy, and, what is the principal thing, upheld in its full scope the old English principle that the naval frontiers of England are the coasts of her enemy. True to this principle the glorious English fleet has always emerged with honor from the most difficult positions, and has consistently fulfilled the basic task of its policy, domination of the seas, to contest which the Germans have so vainly tried during the present war. Nothing but defeat has resulted from all these attempts, and the most serious defeat and most galling for German conceit was suffered on May 31 and June I.'

As to the neutrals, their utterances are naturally more restrained, but the general trend of neutral opinion seems to be to the effect that the great battle has left the question of naval supremacy exactly where it was. Both Holland and —nations of seamen—regard the battle as a British victory. The Amsterdam Handdsblad says: The Germans, who were considerably closer to their own base than the British, were apparently able to take to port some of their badly damaged bigger vessels The German enthusiasm over the "naval victory" is greatly exaggerated, because, with the destruction of some vessels, Great Britain's sea power is not at all destroyed The German fleet has returned to its harbors, and just as before Wednesday, May 31, Germany remains bottled up in an iron girdle drawn across the seas and remains cut off from, oversea countries.' Politiken (a Danish Government organ) says : ' Germany's attempt to break through the blockade was a distinct failure. The British after all undoubtedly remain victors, as they are still in undisputed possession of the immense battlefield. The balance between the proportional strength of the German and British fleets has undergone no perceptible change as a result of this battle.' In America, opinion is more divided, according as the ' neutral ' paper is of the pro- or anti-Gorman typo of 'neutrality.' Taking New York as fairly representative, the dominant sentiment seems to be that ' the Admiralty of the Atlantic remains unchanged,' The general New York feeling is bluntly summed up in the words of the New York World: 'The German Navy is still a navy in gaol, which assaults its gaoler now and then with great fury, but which remains in gaol nevertheless.' To Meet the Zeppelin Peril Judging by the results as yet accomplished, the ' peril ' can hardly be called a serious one, and, apart from their success in scout work, the Zeppelins must so far be written down as one of the greatest military failures of the war. Seven of the monsters flew over England last week, and, so far as the reports yet go, did not one particle of really serious damage. Still these unannounced visits in the dead of night are at least an annoyance, and there is no telling when one of these hitherto comparatively harmless balloons may have a bit of luck and hit the Bank of England or a munition factory. So England has been considering ways and means to meet the invader, and it has been officially announced in the House of Commons that there are unpleasant surprises in store for the next Zepp. raider that comes along. Before speculating as to the nature of the new counter-stroke, it may be interesting to give some account of the limitations and handicaps to which the invading Zeppelin is subject. According to Mr. Joynson-Hicks, M.P., who writes on the subject in The English Review, it has been shown that a Zeppelin on a raid can travel with a 'war load at the rate of sixty miles an hour in still air, for anything up to twenty hours. Its range of operations is strictly limited by the weight of its fuel, which runs up to several tons on a long trip. The amount of bombs it can carry is determined by the weight of this fuel. As far as raids on England are concerned, Zeppelins are forced to carry so much fuel that not more than a ton of explosive is to be expected on each airship. Wind is. the Zeppelin's worst enemy. Not only does a high wind impede it on its journey but it makes the operation of starting and landing more hazardous. The speed of an airship is its rate of progress over the ground in calm air. The velocity of the wind must be added or subtracted according as it is with or against the airship. Thus a Zeppelin whose speed is sixty miles an hour can advance only twenty-five miles an hour against a wind of thirty-five miles an hour. It could travel at the rate of ninetyfive miles an hour with such a wind astern. The trouble begins when the airship has to travel with the wind abeam, for then it is driven off its true course and makes leeway, as a sailor would put it, and the pilot has therefore to head it into the wind as much as circumstances

dictate in order to counteract the drift. It is impossible for the crew of an airship to determine the direction and velocity of the wind once the ground has been left below. Navigation is peculiarly difficult under these conditions, especially at night. This explains some of the accidents to these airships off the English coast. The only remedy is for the pilot to head his airship into what he considers to be approximately the direction after taking into consideration the velocity and direction of the wind, and any changes that are likely to occur in either. Zeppelins loaded for a flight under war conditions are limited to an altitude of from ten thousand to fourteen thousand feet. A really well-designed aeroplane can reach this altitude as quickly as the larger craft— from twenty to forty-five minutes. A Zeppelin can, however, climb at a prodigious rate for about" a thousand feet at any altitude in case of emergency. This is achieved by depressing the tail of the aircraft by the use of the elevators while travelling at full speed and causing it to shoot up obliquely just like an aeroplane. It is said that this distance has at times been climbed in as short a space as thirty seconds. The practice is not good for the airship, as the sudden strain put upon the framework by the displacement of the heavy cars is apt to throw things out of gear. Nevertheless, more than one Zeppelin has escaped pursuit in this manner. * Bearing these points in mind, Mr. Joynson-Hicks discusses the most effective defensive course that could be taken by the invaded country : ' First is the question of meeting airship with airship. This is difficult, because in the past we have done little in this country to develop the airship. Still, we need not despair on this score, because we still have money and men for experiment, and if those who know most about airships were given a free hand a very formidable rival to the Zeppelin could be evolved in a very short time. Such an airship'need not be of the size or power of a Zeppelin, because it is required purely for defensive purposes and has no long journey to perform to get to the scene of operations. A sentinel airship over a town may in calm weather remain stationary and conserve its fuel till the time comes for action. Moreover, given reasonable warning, such an airship can bide in its shed and only rise to give battle when the approach of an intruder is announced. What is really wanted is a verv fast airship, able to outpace and outclimb a Zeppelin, and there are people in the Royal Naval Air Service who can build airships of this kind if they are given the v/ord and the necessary resources. Carrying suitable bombs, there is no reason why an airship of this sort should not make things very uncomfortable for a Zeppelin. Aeroplanes of suitable and specialised types built and equipped for long-distance flights should patrol the coasts at great altitudes r>n oil nights when Zeppelins can possibly fly. It i? but little use to send an aeroplane from the ground to attack an airship —the aeroplane must be ready to dive at the airship from above and drop its missiles before the airship's crew can get out of the way.' Is this, then, the surprise in store for the next Zeppelin raider ? In due time, doubtless, we shall see. The Irish Situation The reports of the speeches delivered in the debate in the House of .Commons on Mr. John Dillon's motion calling upon the Government to disclose their plans for the government of Ireland are exceedingly bald and meagre, and no doubt heavily censored, but sufficient has been transmitted to make it clear that the Government have received a very severe trouncing at the hands of the Irish membersas they well deserved. The outstanding features of interest in the debate are the wellmerited castigation of the Government, to which we have referred the firm but measured utterance of Mr. ""Redmond; and the welcome but not altogether convincing assurance of Mr. Asquith .that a permanent' and peaceful"solution of the problem will yet be found, and that more speedily than most people imagine. ' With' regard to the first, we are told that the- all-night

sitting was a ' stormy' one, and that Mr. Redmond had evidently given his followers their heads—and remembering the Irish members' well-known capacity for vigor and vehemence of attack the rest may safely be left to our imagination. It needs only to be said that the full reports of the Nationalist members' speeches—if these should ever see the —will be awaited with keenest interest. Mr. Redmond evidently spoke under severe self-restraint, but his words are all the more weighty and significant on that account. He protested against the outrageous establishment of a Unionist Executive, denounced the threatened revival of Dublin Castle rule as ' serious ' —a grave word in the present state of Irish feelingand declared that it would be the duty of his party to watch and criticise, and, if necessary, to oppose the new administration as they pleased —and this plain intimation will, we may be sure, be carried out to the letter. His reassurance on the subject of his attitude towards the war showed his usual judicial broad-mindedness, and evinced a magnanimity of spirit that has so far received but a poor return from the reactionary element in the British Cabinet. * Mr. Asquith's statement as to the prospect of a settlement is, of course, extremely interesting, and would be entirely reassuring were it not that the Prime Minister has rather & genius for making soothing speeches and holding out flattering hopes which somehow fail to materialise. His utterance is quite explicit: ' The recent negotiations, although they had broken down, had revealed an approximation of attitudes, and created a new situation. The House was dealing with a period of transition, and in a short time—shorter than some people imagined would be able to arrive at a permanent arrangement.' That is, as we have already indicated, a very welcome announcement; but fine words butter no parsnips, and Mr. Asquith will have to show more backbone than he has hitherto displayed in seeing to it that his words are made good. Thanks to the bungling of the military and civil authorities the situation in Ireland is really serious. On this point Mr. T. P. O'Connor has uttered sentiments so closely identical with those that have already been expressed in our columns that we make no excuse for reproducing them in full. Writing in Reynolds's Newspaper, Mr. O'Connor says: 'I am sure very few people in England realise how serious the situation in Ireland is. It is, in some respects, more serious than during the rebellion. The number of executions, the shooting of Mr. Sheehy Skeffington and two others under circumstances that are now the subject of investigation, some other acts alleged against some of the soldiers, the treatment of prisoners— now, perhaps, so much as at the beginning of the imprisonment wholesale arrests; in short, all the things that always occur when military authorities are given unchecked —these things have produced a state of exasperation which has affected the whole attitude of Ireland. When first the Sinn Feiners began their mad enterprise nine-tenths of Ireland were against them . . . and many of them would have been ready to go and fight them and put them down. But lam bound to state that this is no longer the feeling. Men dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night—especially men who were vehement supporters of the policy of Mr. Redmond — deported to England or hustled into not very desirable prisons last grievance, I am glad to say, appears to have~been removedmen who underwent this treatment were not likely to think that the loyalty of their attitude had received very grateful recognition. I record this change in the temperature of Ireland not because I want to dwell on the past—is unwise to think too. much of the past in such a vivid, fruitful, and momentous present at this hour — because I want it to be recognised that the temper, the atmosphere, in Ireland to-day is not as favorable te rational and clear consideration of a a certain—settlement as it ought to be, and migJft have been, if there had been less military severity and thoughtlessness. If no settlement comes, this spirit of exasperation will undoubtedly go on increasing. It

may, indeed, go on increasing to such an extent as to make a Constitutional movement more difficult than, ever. I repeat what I have said a thousand times—and often to unlistening earsthat Mr. Redmond and his colleagues are the chief thing to-day in Ireland between rational agitation and anarchy. If British statesmanship makes Mr. Redmond’s position impossible, then it is chaos come again. Such an ending of the Sinn Fein rebellion would give that movement its greatest triumph, for there is nothing which its idealists in Ireland and its sordid German agents in America, desired more fervently than the breakdown of the Constitutional movement and the relapse of Ireland into conspiracy and revolution. This is a prospect which no man in his senses, whether Englishman or Irishman, can contemplate without horror.’ And Mr, O’Connor’s final summing-up of the position will be everywhere endorsed : ‘ This being the situation, I end as I began, with the statement that if there be no settlement of the Irish problem, here and now, then the statesmanship of Great Britain and of Ireland must confess itself bankrupt to a shocked and disgusted world.’