The Admiralty announced today that all ships using the Straits of! Dover must pass through the Downs, which means the British fleet Is en gaged in its frst task of ensuring the detention of all German merchant~ men, which must either be captured or driven into internment in' some neutral port, Britain wants to avoid the expense and worry of hunting armed auxiliary cruisers like the Kaiser Wilhelm and the Kron Prinz Wilhelm of the last. war. Tt_was recalled it took eight months to clear the outer seas of such Falders during the Great War.
The leet will keep a keen watch for any attempts by any of the three fast German pocket battleships of the Deutschland class to get into the Atlantic and prey on commerce, for which tactless they are eminently Atted. These ships correspond too the Von Spee squadron of 114 and it would require a force as strong as that Britain sent to Falkland Islands to cope with pocket battleships if they were at large.
Reich Has 30 U-Boats is known that Germany has over 0-U-boats completed, their tonnage varying from 500 to 700, which are fully capable of doing' destructive work at considerable distances from their bases.
Since Gerniany announced last winter her intention of building up to parity in submarine tonnage with Great Britain's, Germany's full available strength may now be nearly 60.
It was not believed, however. that Germany can maintain this number constantly in service. Experience uring the last war showed that only about one-third of the total strength 3S ever at sea at one time, even at the height of Germany's war on commerce in 1917. Out of 150. submarines there never were more than actually at sea in any one month, German mine-laying activity may algo be expected, It was felt. Britain's first action in the last war occurred through the detection "by British destroyers of German mine layers in the open sea.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.