1939-04-28 — Page 6

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Hongkong Telegraph.

Wyndham St., Hongkong 'Phone 26615 April 28, 1939

One Man's Word

BY

Y TO-MORROW morning the world will know whether world peace is again to be threatened by the refusal of the German Fuehrer to give the guarantees of non-aggression, against 31 nations requested by President Roosevelt.

President Roosevelt had pre- sented the two Totalitarian dictators with a simple issuc, requiring a simple answer. Herr Hitler is at liberty to call the American President a "danger- ous enemy of civilisation", to de- nounce British Imperialism and to storm against the iniquities of democracy) The whole world will concede him the right to an opinion regarding Bolshevism -he may publicly announce that

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another security.

threat to

German

The world does not want to hear these tirades, but it will accept them.

T

CAN HE GET OVER THIS ONE?

IF BRITAIN WERE ATTACKED.

£147,779,000 worth of security this year

HIS year's naval esti- mates amount to £147,779,000. An increase of about £22,500,000 over 1938, and about three times the naval estimates of seven or eight years ago.

It is an expensive business to build up the fleet after it has been allowed to decline below the danger point. At the end of the war we possessed 49 capital ships, 110 cruisers, and more than 600 destroyers, sloops and patrol boats; these inst three classes being most needed for protecting our shipping against the sub- -marine.com

Our naval-accurity seemed to com- plete after the surrender of the Ger- man fleet in 1010 that in the follow- ing years we broke up 36 capital slips, about 80 cruisers, and more than 500 destroyers, stoops and patrol boats.

It was one of the greatest pleces of mass destruction in our naval history.

THE general European rearmament has shown us that our action was over-hasty, and though in the last few years we have been making strenuous efforts to refill the gaping ranks of our men-of-war, we can so far produce no more than 18 capital ships, 50 cruisero, 200 destroyers, elpope and patrol beats, in addition to air- craft carriers, submarines, gunboats and auxiliaries.

There are, however, nina capital

•ships, 26 cruisers, 30 destroyers, 22 sloops, alx carriers, 20 submarines building or projected; some of which will be delivered this year, some not until 1912 or 1943.

We need a powerful fest for two very good reasons. One is to keep an invader away from these shores, and the other is to ensure the steady sup-

What the world wants to hear is a direct "yes" or "no" to President Roosevelt's question: "Are you willing to give assur- ances that your armed forces will not be used in future to at- tack Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg Po land, Rumania, Hungary, Yugo- Slavin, Soviet Russia, Bulgaria, upset every calculation of states- Greece,

manship. There could be no lenson- Turkey, Iraq, the Arabins, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, being made in nearly all the coun ing of defensive preparations now Iran, Eire, Holland, Belgium,trica of Europe. If peace is desired Great Britain, France or Por-

the signal for peace must be given tugal ?"

from the only country that has dis-

That is a simple straight-turbod it. forward question, requiring a straightforward answer.

What is happening in Berlin to- day is being watched not alone by the peoples of Europe, but by the democracies of America and of the British Dominions and Colonics, who sea in "à negativo answer to President Roosevelt's appeal a growing challengo to all systems of government that have not bowed the knee to the Nazi ideal. To that, if it were seriously intended,

The answer can come from oue man, and one man only. He can, If he no desires, speak the word that will rollove the tension of the situation and case an approach to that enduring peace in Europe for which he has so often expressed his personal longing. Just as cer- tainly he can swing the balance to wards a war of which no man can the world would offer, an un- limit the scope. To rant and exampled, resistance. That truth temporise, to give an Indirect an- should be clear in the mind of Bwer, would be to intensify the Horr Hitler when he speaks in the strain to which Europe is now sub- Reichstag to-night and has the op- jeet and increase the danger that I portunity of dispelling all appre some unanticipated incident mightTM hensions.

ply of imported food and raw materiala upon which the country has become increasingly dependent during the inst hundred years.

Invasion is a very distant perll, so long as we retain the command of the BCL. Large numbers of soldiers were retained in this country in the tast war to guard against a German mid. estimated at a possible strength of 70,000 men.

Buch a rald was about as unlikely as anything could be. Consider what I would have meank The transports required for the carriage of such a force would have numbered about 100 to 120.

TO effect a simultaneous landing and to simplify naval protection, the whole of this mass or shipping would have had to sail in one huge convoy. protected by the High Seas Fleet

The concealment of such vast ex- pedition would have been exceedingly dimcuit, and if the Grand Fleet had come across it on its woy, it would have suffered a disaster without parallel in the history of the world.

For either 70,000 German soldiers would have been drowned in the North Sen or they would have ignominiously followed the Grand Fleet into harbour ns captives

And if invasion was a remote danger in the last war, it is even mora 80 now that aircraft have immensely in- creased the possibilities of scouting and observasion.

For more difficult, is the Navy's task of protecting the merchant shipping on which the feeding of the popula tion and the activity of our industries depond.

The chief trouble is that whereas Invasion can only take place some where on the comparatively limited coastal areas, the attack on our world- wide shipping can be made at any point on any of the trade routes all over the world.

In the last

war, for

Derlin❤

EMISION GERMANY

NANCE

ITALY

[ Hisnie

instance,

by Commdr RUSSELL GRENFELL

Second in a series of articles on Britain's de- fensive forces and the strategic preoccupations of

their commanders, Commander Grenfell, a leading authority on naval strategy, was for- merly un the teaching staff of the Royal Navni College at Greenwich. A4- vocates more commissions from the lower deck and better conditions of pay and service all round for ∙naval ratings.

shipping was attacked in the Indian Ocean by the Emden, in the South Atlantic by the Karlsruhe, off the coasts of Africa and in the Eastern Seas by the disguised raiders, and in the Mediterrancan and the seas rourtd the British Isles by the U-boats.

Bo dispersed an attack naturally calls for an equally dispersed defence, which is why the Admiralty is always so persistent in its call for cruisers. For, ke hounds in search of a fox which has been eating the chickens, it always takes a number of slips to find. one raider,

WE had about twenty crulaora chasing

the

Emden, and something like fifty were engaged in the search for Van Speo's Far Eastern Squadron of five.

What makes even greater demands on the defending Navy is submarine- warfare. against contmorco.

For protection against this invisible danger in the last war our merchant shipping had to be put into convoy and

KIRT AND

LAND

TACT

THE map

on

the right b published in Schwarze Corps, newspaper of Her Black Guards. The white area indi- cates the eastern section of the first "German Empire" between 1250 and 1400 A.D. It purports to justify Hitler's conquests in "ro- erecting the old historical daries,"

boun-

The map is cut off so that

. does not show how much of Mussolini's Italy is "historically" German

4

On the left a sketch map còm- pletes the picture.

round each convoy had to be placed enough escorting warships to give a fair chance of hampering the sub- maring in making its attack, and of Navig ́a man-of-war in a reasonably good position to drop its depth charges, from whichever direction the submarine made its approach.

The great volume of British shipping requiring anti-submarino protection caused a large number of destroyers, sloops and other small craft to be cm- ployed on that duty,

During the height of the German submarine campaign, we had about 250 of these vessels on convoy escort work in the Channel, the North Bon, and the waters norit and south of Ireland; while there were about another 100 in the Mediterranean.

UNFORTUNATELY, largo numbers of these were broken up after the war, and we can now only produco ...about 130. as compared with the 360, employed in Home Waters and the Mediterrancan last time. There are many who view this deflelency with gravo concern, especially as thô addi- tion of air to submarino attack has · intensified the protective problem.

In addition to direct protection against raiders, steps have to be taken to prevent an enemy's main fighting flest from taking a hand in the game, That is to say, his battleships and whatever cruisers, destroyers, and alre craft carriers they may haya withi them. These have to be matched by a watching fleet of corresponding typë but superior dimensions.

"The strength, needed for this pur- pase is therefore directly proportional to the battleship and auxiliary, ton- pago possessed by the other sido. That is why we have had to keep pace with renewed battleship construction by Germany, Italy and Japan

The provision of the necessary num- ber of ships is, however, only half the battle. Rather less than half, in fact. For the men who man the ships aro more important than the ships them- selves

Good men in poor ships,” na fnmoun naval historian has onid. "will nearly always beat poor mon in good ships."*

The recruitment of sufficient person- nel of the requisite quality is there- fore of Icast as much importanca as the actual construction programmes. Except in certain skilled branches, the Navy is getting all the men it wants. The number of officers and men has increased from 00,000 to 133,000 in Ave years, though it is atli. 12,000 below the figure for July, 1014. Certain of the artificer classes aro not, however, coming forward in the numbers desired. The Admiralty's explanation that the great demand *for skilled men in industry is keeping the Navy short carries, however, the obvious corollary that the naval con- ditions of skilled service are insufi- ciently attractive.

THE demand for a rapid increase of numbers is almost more dimcult to meet in, the case of the officers than in that or the men, 'chledy owing to the limited accommodation in the training colleges

Having alled these to capacity, the Admiralty then turned to the Mor chant Service, and a number of mer cantile oneers turned over to the Royal Navy, “

This step brought the natural criticism that in than ignoring its own non-commissioned ranks, the Admir alty was belying it oft-repeated declarations in favour of promotion from the Lower Deck,

It is therefore satisfactory that a recent Admiralty order should have announced a considerable increase.of numbers to be drawn from this Intter source.