29th September.
To us who are almost on the spot, can fancy that we hear the thunder of the guns, and have at any rate seen with our own eyes some of the results of the sea-fighting between here and Port Arthur, it is very interesting to read the comments of a writer sitting quietly in his chair ab the other side of the world, and we find some in an article with the above title in the New York "Nation" of the "8th ult. The writer, it must be premised, does not seem to realise one fact that certainly cousiderably hampered Admiral Togo's action on the 10th alt, when the Russian fleet came out of Port Arthur to make a bold dash for freedom; that fact "being that Japan cannot afford to lose even vue of her ironclads or armoured or protected cruisers. because she c: nnot replace them while the war las She is under the necessity of having "0 use every sh-p she has, and having no reserve. One of her finest ironclads she has had sunk by amine and one of her cruisers by evllision; but the Russians, who began the war with at least un equal fleet to hers, have not sunk one of her vessels of any real importance la a fight.
Russia," says the "Nation," "had little to expect from the sortie from Port Arthur, Witgefs, like Cervera Letore him, preferred to go down fighting to being pounded to pieces in harbour. The most he ¢ wd hope was to sell his fleet dearly, and possibly to get.a handful of the swifter vessels through to Viadivestack On every count such hopes have been disappointed." Mention is made of the fate of the Cesarevitch and the Askold and some of the destroyers; but at the time of writing ation" hal not heard of the Diana and the Novik, and even now we do not know for certain wha has happened to the B and one raiser crept back to Port Arthur, the " Nation" says: "Add to. this that Kamimaura on Sunday sank the Rank and dove the great armoured cruisers Rassia and Gromobsi back to Viadivostock, and that in all this fighting no Japanese vessel of the larger classes app ars to have been disabled, and measure of the Russian disaster is complete. Command of the sea, which, had the Ru n fle+t been pt intact until reinforced from Baltic, would have been seriously in question, now belongs unqualifiedly to Japan."
The battle of the 10: h of August, she "Nation" goes on fo say, was the first engagemen* between fleets of modern vessels of fairly aqua ngth, The Russians had six battleships, the Japanese five, but the Japanese were stronger in cruisers. "Togo's nominal inf-rivrity of one battleship was more than made up by the damaged condition of at least half the Russian vessels, and more particularly by the superior armament of the Japanese cruisers, which mounted main batteries of 8-inch guns. Since the Russian warships commanded nothing between twelve and. six inches, they were at a great disadvantage in long-range firing, Togo, who may later need his fleet to meet the Baltic squadron, pursued his usual cautious tactics, and his victory was due to the accuracy of the Japauies? gunnery and their greatly superior weight of metal at the long distance." Looking back.at the action now, however, we see that it was hardly a battle at all. What all of us thought was, that the Russians wou'd argue that they must sink one or two Japanese ships even if they were sunk themselves in doing it, and that they would accordingly try to come to close quarters with the Japanese and fight as long as their ammunition lasted. But when they once got out into the open, their sole object was flight, while Togo's object was to do them as much damage as possible without risking the loss of a ship. 'The damage Pogo did we know and he dit it at the cost of only a few score casualties and not a single ship; while not one Russian ship, except those thit fled back into Port Arthur, succeeded in getting to a Russian' port, and the Cesarevitch and Askold were still full of ammunition when they took refuge in Iving-tro and Shanghai As for the Diana "A great dread is removed from Japan, fr there his always been the off chance that the control of the sea might pass to Rusti.... In other words, the inealenlable clement of the war has largely c'iminat-d, and the nese are apparently beyond the point where they need fear any snd-den or overwhelming - catastrophe such as hitherto has impended."
The following is the conclusion of the " Nation's " article ientifie deductions from the son-fighting, experts will make in due time. Already it is apparent that the eff-tiveness of dirigible torpedoes has been grossly ovr-Festimated. Frequent hits have been er the moss favourable con-[dition=, but no vessel struck isuuk, and five of the Russian ships which on Wednesday week went the far severe feal of gan fire hat been torpedoed at Port Arthur, The battle of last week seems to shew that, barring that treacherous weapon the mine, the gun is still the most destructive arm, land the battleship still the master of [the seas, Persone wha gre not ex.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.