1916-01-14 — Page 7

THE GERMAN WHINE,

[DY AN ENGLISHMAN.

THE HONGKONG DAILY PRESS, FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1918,

PREMIER'S APPEAL FOR

· ECONOMY,

OUR NATIONAL FINANCES. ANALYSED.

FINANCING THE WAR.

LORD INCHCAPE'S REVIEW.

Lord Inchcape delivered his inaugura! address as president of the Institute of Economy by the sacrifice of all non-Bankers at a meeting in the Hall of the essentials wee the keynote of a fine speech Goldsmiths Company, and devoted it to a brief review of the main current of made recently by Mr. Asquith to a con- ference of Labour Delegates. There were events in the banking world during the 700 delegates present, and on the platform past twelve months of war, were Colonel Warde and other members of the Commons in uniform, Mr. Arthur Henderson, the Labour Member of the Cabinet, presided. The Labour Delegates emarkable demonstration of made a welcome when the Prime Minister entered

It is in accord with the gross stupidity of the Germans that they should have the effrontery to complain that England has abused toa-power in order to exercise ses despotism." That they who aspire to the despotism of the world by son as by land should protest against England's modeat exercise of her strength but another proof of their hypocrisy and lack of humour. Wo are familiar by this time with the phrase "the freedom of the sea, a phrase long since battered out of shape and sense by England's enemies. It was heard without ceasing through our twentythe hall.

The Prime Minister, in a calm but im years of war a century ago. It was sadly echoed by the men whom Nelson swept pressive speech, analysed the national "We are," from the sex, and if we beat Napoleon in finances in striking phrases.

Dealing with tho American loan of 100,000,000 sterling. Lord luchcape said the issue of a loan in the United States was the best method that could be adopted of restoring the exchanges, both from the British point of view and that of America; but it could only be regarded as a palliative-not as a cure for the rise in the value of the dollar as measured in sovereigns, The only way to restore the purchase power of the sovereign as regards trade balance for Britain in its dealings with America, efther by an direct exports from this country, or by America having to settle liabilities incur red to other countries, by way of imports or services rendered, through London,

SECRET OF THE DOGGER BANK BATTLE.

WHY THE GERMAN FLEET DOES NOT COME OUT.

Where in that great fleet, on which so much thought and science and money have been expended, that way to be a perpetual mentor to the United King-

dom 1' the Prime Minister asked the

House of Commons in the course of his Specch on the war. As neither Lord Fisher, sitting stolid-visaged in the Peers gallery, nor any one else made any re- sponse Mr. Asquith proceeded to answer himwolf:

Locked up in the Baltic, and dare not show its face on any sea where it could' by dealt with."

the end it was because our sintesmen wisely he said, "within measurable reach of dollars was to re-establish a favourable plete in the statement of the success of

refused to abandon for a moment the sovereignty which was justly ours

That Britain ruled the seas is indeed an old and was never a vain boast, When Charles V. came to England to pay a visit to our Henry VII, he was received by Wolsey not on the dry land but amid the waves of the Channel itself, a pleasant piece of stabolism which made him under- stand that our Empire lay upon the water The claim made by her father was royally

gated at The Hague and never notified.

spending £5,000,000 a day,

Excess of

That is a formidable declaration, far result achieved by the Fleet, more com more comprehensive in information on the

our naval operations, than has ever been mentioned by those whose craft have pushed their noses well within the wet triangle of Heligoland, optimistic though the opinions often were of even the res ponsible and seasoned men who "walk their own bridge.”

Our naval and military expenditure and our finane ing this empire and the Allies since the war now totals £1,002,000,000. Thesa figures are absolutely unexampled in the history of this or any other country. Mr. Asquith them emphasied the enormous For this reason it was highly important sacrifices entailed by the war and he was that our export trades should be kept go. The Navy sometimes speaks in its own sure the burden on all classes would be ing, and that we should reader services of favoured place when there are no ears gladly and joyfully borac.

Any excess ev y description, by our ships and other to hear but those of the silent men of the either of profits or wages which were not wise, to neutral countries, so as to attract sea, and naval men are now speaking returned to the Stata. In loans and taxes money to this country. Numerous com more than in the early days, for the or which was not employed in necessary mitious were sitting with the object of prestrain of constant anxiety over the possi industries and public services was

to the national cause.

The

"

never has even the most faguine sub declared anything so finзt and conclusive

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Only the other day we had another version of the invisibility of the British ARAKAN... Fleet and the story reiterated of tho mujerty of its power, writes a special correspondent of the Daily Express. The little party of British and foreign. journalists were shown over some of the familiar battle-cruisers lying in a fairly accessible anchorage. A map of sub- marine captures shown to the journalists last the public were not-told this--but only exhibited the

38 bog:

up to June immense though the results revealed by the illustration, how startling would our triumph over the German underwater on exhibition the map with the sucezed- ing, and the far more sucessful, four months" operations

sustained by Elizabeth; R2 is not made much loss, of national revenue and venting trade which might, with ony farbilities of von Tirpitz, or what that pirat | invalid by foolish declarations, promul resources and therefore so much injury fetched pos bility, prove of advantage to chief's successor may do, is to-day very

the enemy; a recruiting committee was un-much relaxed, "I lay down that

What has happened beyond the curtain As all remember, the words "the Freedom pixposition," he said, both in regard to avoidably denuding our factories, farmis,

ships, and transport workers in order to that obscures, like the very horizon itself. TJISONDARI of the sua" were ever upon the lips of Nepo profits and the earnings of the working men in the fighting line; and on the the North Sea when the British Meet leon, to mimic whom is still the vain am-classes. The income-tax has been thries bition of William II. Again and again multiplied. super-tax has been top of these a further committee had just puts out, is not always embedded within would penes have been restored to Europe largely increased and an excess profits been appointed with the object of main.the walls of impenetrable secrecy, yet KARIMOEN if only England had consented to renounce tax has been imposed. Government hastaining the normal flow of the country's the sovereignty which the courage and urged Trade Union loaders to prevent trade. It was difficult to have it both skill of her Navy had given her. When the anything in the nature of a general ways; but with common-sense and with two Emperors, Napoleon and Alexander, deinand for an advance du wages. Goy-the light which was dawn'ng, with reason. mot at Tilsit they had but one hope, one ernment has done much to make profits able give-and-take, an average might pos ambition to bring England to her knees, or carnings of capital contribute to the sibly ho arrived at which would enable the and La achieve this end it was necessary to prosecution of the war,”

Old Country without injuring itself to rompel her to recognise that "the flags of The Labour delegates listened in silence pull through and lick the Germans. all the Powers should enjoy an equal and with tense interest when the Prime Minis:

Ac perfect independence upon the sens." ter proceeded to deal with wages. England declined, very properly to throw cording to the best estimates, he declared, awny her Fleet and to sacrifice all the ad 4,500,000 workpeople have obtained vanlages, which as an island she enjoyed, since the outset of the war an average rise

of 38. 6d. per week in wages, and Napoleon yielded at last to the presrepresented only one-third of the workers, These sire of her sea-power.

A large number of men in other trades That she has exercised her power with also got advances in wages, though the justice and moderation none can deny, earnings of workers in the cotton, build In times of peace the seas which Eng-ing and other trades had been somewhat land rules are free for all to go and como prejudiced. On the other hand, there had upon. The ports which she controls the been the following substantial increases world over are open to the traffic of all in the cost of living: Food, 40 per cent; honest men She has suppressed piracy, rent, 20 per cent; fuol. and light, 25 and cleared the broad ocean of the bandits cent, olothing, 30 per cent,; miscellaneous The general which once infested it. She has the right, expenditure, 15 per cent. which she will always exercise, of destroy increase in the cost of living was on the There were indis- ing the coutueres of her foes, of blocked-average 30 per cent. ing hostile coasts, and of seeing to it that putably very large areas where after allowances had been made for an increase her enemies do not import from overseas in the cost of living, wage earners were such commodities as aro necessary for the substantially better off han before the making of warlike munitions and for supr.

She porting the life of their people," claims for her Navy the same privileges which Germany claimed for the armies which encircled Paris in 1870, and nothing but a strenger arm shall ever wrest that privilege from her.

per

THE OPINION OF THE NAVY,

York Building, Hongkong, 11th January, 1916

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THE EXCESS PROFITS TAX, As regards the fuanging of the war, there appeared to be a consensus of opin ion that the money had been raised in this most part be regarded as sound. Whether country by means which might for the we had raised a sufficiently high propor- tion by taxation, and whether the in- creased taxation was imposed at a suffi ciently tarly stage, were points upon which there was considerable difference of opinion: whether the tax on capital by monus of the excess profits tax was alto-

Since then the people have read, with Kether orthodox was questionable. It meant a withdrawal from reproductive in-well-justified pride, of the marvellous vestment which would have produced a daring of the British submarines in taxable revenue and it could not but have Baltic and the Sea of Marmor. Within an injurious effect on enterprise, energy, sight of the Straits of Constantinople. and initiative. But, apart from this, wo their operations are mainly trammelled had avoided the slippery path on which by mines and nets; from Elsmore to our enemies had embarked,

Gothland our courageous seamen are the Reviewing the German system of finane hidden power in the Baltic, The Government," continued Mr. Asing the war, Lord Inchcape said each suc quith, asks your help in securing that cessive German loan meant a fresh infle-

In all the panoply of war, in all the of all classes and not least the working tion of the currency, which showed itself classes, which ham contributed so nobly in a steady and sustained rise in prices: Valorous deedy of the battlefield, amid in flesh and blood. They will in the same

The task of redeeming the securities and the records of dauntless bravery of the spirit of patriotism and self-sacrifics, be retiring the notes issued by the Reichs-retreat from Mons and the unrivalled hit The Germans, being completely defeated prepared to deal with the question of bank would be left for an exhausted and back on the Blore, or the imperishable Our defeated nation to face after the conclu- the Dardanelles, pride still rites highest on the sea, whine, as is their custom, that wages and contribute their share

courage of the first footholds gained in England has take an unfrir advantage: task is cne common interest, and upon son of peaco.

in the breasts of the peoples of the Bri She has the advantage, by no means units successful prosecution and complete

tish race in the memories of the fight fair, that an invincible Fleet gives her, achievement the economic forties and and faced by an implacable and inserupu honour and national life of the country

against crushing odds off Coronel, in the 1HREE PATENT SLIPWAYS taking veele ap to 3,000 tons displaæment, providing revenge we took at the Falklands, and Jous foo she refuses and will always refuse depend" (Loud cheers.) to permit his commerce'at, sen ta be free in Mr. Reginald McKenna also addressed

the thunderotis cbase by the cruiser squad- Thoren after the scurrying Germans past the was as in peace. And let it not be sup the conference, It is contrary, he said,

Dogger Bank, posed for a moment that Germany desires to the interests of the State that the poor- to keep the ocean' opon as a highway for or classes and workers themselves should all the notions Has she rot sail that her demand higher wages in particular trades future lies upon the water And when at present. If he had to mortgage his 13st she charges England with sea despotisma, shilling of capital he would insist on hav does she mean anything than that, ifing the means of enabling our gallant sol. it were possible, she would transfer the diers to fight. No matter what the cost of their munitions, artillery; clothes and sovereignty of the ocean to herself? Wo have coon how she makes war on land, how food we must pay it.. Big wages hail bon earned, and the present trouble would she tramples upon neutral sacks and burns not have arisen if these wages had not their towns, slaughters thei: women, turn-been lavishly spent. If during the War ine into mockery the havoured laws of the people bought imported goods they war. We have seen also thrt, being a lend threw upon the State the extraordinary rat, she would also be "n sea-rat-I mean dificult task of paying for them. A pirate." But happily England atill rules the waves, and wily rule them hon- estly and benign'y when Tirpitz and his erew of Jolly Rogers lie humbled and dis- graced.

And what is that the Germans would Emean by the freedom of the sea if only were within their control? · Nothing more than the freedom to drown and kill. The fate of the Lusitania showed us what they would do if they had not been swept from the sea like burnt ashes from a hearth stone. To sink passenger ships without warning, to kill women and children, to send to the bottom vescis which they could neither examine nor take into port, to make no attempt to save the lives of non- combatants these are the ill-emered pri- vileges which they would put into their charter of freedom. It is the freedom of the murderer and the highwaymoan that they would claim, the licence to kill and rob, as they choose without restraint and without punishment, And it is this licence which England's sovereignty will suppress without fear and without rest until the terms of peace be signed.

Whether this country could continue in the path of financial rectitude which had hitherto been followed depended en how far the people responded to the urgent de-

and for thrift and economy. amounts we should still have to raise, both for ourselves and for our Allies, were enor-. mous. The nation, however, would rise to the occasion, and though the sacrifices would be heavy they would be niet.

扎拍:

After reviewing the war situation, Lord chape proceeded: 1

sanguine ough to believe that yo-day is something akin to the darkest hour that comes before be dawn. It may be three months, it may be six, it may be nine, possibly it may be, twelve, but as certain as the sun will rise in the heavens. to-morrow, Gerranny and her militarism will be crushed, and the peace of the world, so far as anything she can do to prevent it will be secured for Mr. McKenna said the excess profits of another hundred years. (Cheers,). the rich were taxed at 50 per cent.

A voice: What about the rich !.....

TRADING IN WAR MATERIAL,

In Bow Street Police Court George Priestly, a commission agent, was tenced to four months' imprisonment for having attempted to trade in war material without a permit. Intercepted letters in- dicated that the prisoner was attempting to push the sale of 1,000,000 or 2,000,000 Mauser rifles. Other documents related to the sale of 4,000 tons of picric acid, and included plans of mines, bombs, aeroplanes and airships. Mr. H. Bodkin, prosecuting counsel, said on behalf of the War Office that German agents in America were putting people forward to contract for the supply of munitions: The Allies, knowing them to be unable to supply the goods, the importance of the scheme could not be exaggerated. :

LABOUR AND CONSCRIPTION.

The man at home, equally with the man who is in the outpusts of the Empire, reads the filmy, word gorgeous pulso tingling, but all-unsatisfying half-visione of their matchless Fleet, and they ask of themselves anew when the mammoth wolter on the deep is to take place, when the ocean leviathans will pound each other in the agony for the destination of world power.

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BUTTERFIELD & SWIRE. in the heart of things say the sailors

HONGKONG, CHINA, AND JAPAN, AGENTS, who for fifteen months have braved the gales and the dangers of the deep, the

Telegraphio Addrese " TAIKOO DOCK, dangers represented by the enemy's mur- derous craft; the men who have watched.

Mr. Asquith has gono further. Apart who has been there. The Germans know with never ceasing vigil every move.

German waters, who have from his announcement that the German what we have done. They know that uur ment in

the Grand minefields have embraced their own mine- risked within the minefields, with mar- Fleet was locked up, he said vellous daring and unexampled skill; Fleet, has made us absolutely sure against fields, set to defend their channels and those watchers who have gone into invasion." That was elementary, a come harbours. We have left a space for them the very Elbe itself, to see and report monplace, a comment on the obvious, for to come out and fight in. If they wish. what they saw, whose courage it would a fleet that is locked up cannot come cut.

to come out and fight they have plenty Mr. J. H. Thomas, Labour M.P. In a be insulting to refer to whose unrecord- There is a great and deep secret in the of open water do not be afraid but that special interview last month, said "Laed sacrifices in their duty has no parallel Grand Flect, a secret well kept and we'l we will give them ample sea room to sink guarded, which need not be withheld an in-but the pitch is of our choosing. They hour is not connected with any peace move-in naval history. They say-ever.

Stripped of the flowery decoration of longer from an Empire that is thirsting will not surprise us now.

parched for even a sprinkling of ment, but my union of 300,000 railwayman.

ing news about the men and the ships A network of fast patrol boats, a and other large unions have unanimously language, the skeleton word is never.

against conscription. Labour There will be no Trafalgar for the Grand wherein our very birthright is entwined, myriad armada of patrollers of the deep, resolved throughout the war has shown unmistak Fleet. They have been thwarted in their It need no longer be kept from a neutral and wireless telegraphy make light of ably its readiness to give every assistance object. The upper deck and the lower world that is waiting for the arm of space from the fringe of the German wine- to the successful prosecution of the war deck think so. The great naval engage immeasurable British might to strike; it field to the necessary bases, and it will Their urion rules, the result of years of ment of this world-war is already anced not be kept back from Germany, for even occur to the lay mind that if the agitation, have gone overboard; they have memory. The occasion passed, and we on the naked truth penetrated the minds of German fleet is anchored along a narrow

the pirate gang nine months ago.

canal it cannot come out in battle order been either abandoned or amended, with a now only reflect on the cutcome. view of increasing production. Un-

as quickly and a readily as the British "'.HOPELESS," questionably, Labour supports the war, be lieving that the contest is for freedom as

The German feet was almost trapped The Blohm and Voss yards at Hamburg, Flest, which lies at moorings in wide into the position to fight and was offered the naval yards on the Weser, the Vulkan and deep, if sheltered, waters. against militarism,

battle for the deciding of the supremseyWorks at Stettin, the Krupp and the Im- It is obvious that while the British The unity of the nation is essential of the waves off the Dagger Bank on the peris yards at Kiel were not, after the Fleet can clear for action at the first Political factions, religious differences, morning of Sunday, January 24th. Dogger Bank, turned on the vain effort flicker of the signal from the admiral's and social disinctions are swept away in

to catch up on British sea power. The ship, it is not so with the Germans. That To the Journalists who visited the The Germans are coated with a triple

the determination to present a united brass of arrogance or they would be shamed The problem is plain for all the world front The sole danger to this unity is the Fleet the other day it was said: We Germans saw enough off the Dogger to is one of our enormous natural advant

meet the British on equal terms, They if they contrasted the conduct of our sub-

Our squadrons can be at the anchor- to ponder and to salve. Which method of introduction of conscription, Lord Derby's do not claim merely to command the North know the hopelessness of their quest to ages in ses fighting

Sea; we actually exercise command over marines in the Baltic with the piracies sovereignty does the world profer? The scheme is different, but conscription will it, as the German, well know." I will save up fair fighting for piracy, and which they carried on about our coasts sovereignty of England, which in justice undoubtedly lead to friction, and, I am show presently why and how the Germans rapidly they dropped further and fur lages when the people in the little villages morning, when they look where the great until their power of evil was snatched herself prevents merchandise from afraid, to a serious revolt, The response from them.

that historic Sunday morning in the very quit while it settles for ever the ships lay, there is nothing but the buoys,

The story, while it liners, we have drowned neither woman with the ancient law of nations, or Geref the British workers, particularly North Sea.

chano's of a sea fight on the grand scale, In the dead of night the men-o'-way can nor child. We have jurned our submarines nany's plan of what the sovereignty of the the sacrifices made by the Australians at

Twenty-five days after the Dower Bank reveals the inter reason why the German silently and swiftly pass to the realm of to their just and proper use. Our inson would be it unco it were within her Galipali. We are not fighting Germah

in order to set up another bunt, and von Tirpitz had time to cogitats feet which attacked the north-east coast of nowhere. But a fleet out of a canal! trepid sailors have nindo the German Navy grasp, the plan of indiscriminate pillage militarism

the result thereof, he issued on February England on December 10th, and was again Recken how the chips are shifted. What the poorer by not a few ships of war, they and murder. carried on without pur form of it in our midst. There will be 18th his submarine blockade crder. There-sallying out on a similar mission about a peerless advantage we fight under! have put an end to the German import of pose and without warning? Only those many political and industriul problems after it was only submarines we had a month later. retired to the abelter of We have not bottled them up, but Mr. iron ore, and they have done all this with who put money before human life can be in after the war, and that will be the testing deal with, and by the end of August the the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, and why, Asquith's declaration that they are courtesy, with expedition, with a scrupu- donbt for a moment. For so long as naime For Labour. But we hope our submarines were a menace no longer. If unless the ships are scrapped to make "locked up is even more eloquent than "bottled." They drink no longer to lous respect of civil life. No Lusitana, notions war cne against another there shall strength is such as will influence the poll the craft were not all gone, the skilled fodder for cannon, they are likely to re- Ancona will go down to their discredit surely be a sovereignty of the sea. And cies of the Government and prevent à craftsmen were practicile exhausted main there until our victoricus army Der Tag." The day the German navy had prepared for and had so often bois Our men are sailors, no butchers, and which is better! The just dominion of the violent reaction paralysing industry. Lo and so to-day we are in absolute commaches through Berlin. never will ecunt among their duties dolī. Laitor or the foul licence of the assasin bour's utmost efforts will be thus mand of the sea-and the Germans well We have not battled them up-not hy lerously toasted came and went in the

directed." berate murder upon the bigla sias

any means. That is the dictum of one shareful scatter of January 24th. Daily Mail.

ALMOST TRAPPED.

We have sunk no peaceful enching the ports of Germany, in necord of the colonies has stirred the babandoned their claim to sea power on ther back in the comparative strength of on shore turn in to sleep, and in the

know it.