Mr. William Simms, foreign editor of the Scripps-Howard newspapers in the United States, has made an. interesting review of the damage done to British shipping by the unrestricted submarine, and mine campaign conducted by Germany, and is in itself a sharp answer to the extraordinary claims put forward by the Reich. In two months and nineteen days the amount of British shipping destroyed was 252,000 tons. Against that 128 ships have been completed, or made available, and seventy prizes have been secured, making a net loss on balance of 54 ships. For the similar period in 1917, when the German submarine campaign was at its height, 810,000 tons were destroyed, so that up to the present the rate of German destruction of British shipping is something rather over one-quarter of what it was then. There has been no serious variation in the amount of tonnage entering British ports during the period under review as compared with 1917, the difference amounting to no more than 98,000 tons out of a gross tonnage in 1917 of 12,205,000. While it would be unwise to seek to minimize the amount of damage which the German submarine and mine have been doing. the conclusion is unescapable that unless the enemy cán do much more harm than they are at present effecting they will be able to make no really valuable contribution to the decision of the war in their favour, for, as Mr. Simms Points out, at the present rate of destruction it would take Germany fifteen years to sweep Allied and neutral shipping off the seas. The Allies would be in a very parlous condition with regard to foodstuffs long before that period had elapsed, but the success of the—anti-U-boat campaign, and the confidence that the mine menace will shortly be adequately countered, affords every reason for believing that the not too distant future will see another reduction in the amount of harm the Reich will be able to do to the Allies' mercantile marine. At the same time a substantial number of German vessels has already fallen into Allied hands, and more may be expected before the war ends, while victory should ensure that whatever German vessels there may be available shall fall into Allied possession as reparation for the harm which is now being inflicted, Such Language!
Vituperation over the radio, a product of the Goebbels school of vocal strategy, might well be the new weapon which Hitler mentioned for it possesses in full the qualification Hitler claimed. That was, Germany could not be attacked by it, and this point is conceded because few other peoples, as obtuse and lacking a sense of humour as the Nazi rulers of Germany, would be so asinine as to indulge in it. However, this form of offence is not confined to Germany, Judging by the latest telegrams Soviet Russian action against Finland was preceded by a smoke screen of abuse worthy of some of the best effort of the Goebbels' school. Things have come to a sorry pass in international affairs when, in order to prepare the ground for a severance of diplomatic relations Prior to military action, the army has to be stirred into a sense of fury by the use of such epithets as "mad dogs," "dirty dogs, jesters and bastards" directed at the enemy over the radio. This is how the radio propaganda school of Soviet Russia approached ihe Finnish problem. The rigours of warfare and the violent passions aroused always did undermine the delicacy of words and thought otherwise maintained in relations between states but not to the extent of the present conflict and its threatening repercussions in the Baltic region. Sir Nevile Henderson, former British Ambassador to Berlin, has described in his final report the influence of Dr, Goebbels' propaganda machine which was swung into action not only to sway German public opinion on contemplated military coups, but also when Hitler himself showed signg of indecision regarding his ultimate designs which the extremists desired to expedite, Would it be too farfetched to suggest that a similar condition exists in regard to Stalin and his army? The introduction of Billingsgate market atmosphere into these conflicts between nations is, to say the least, a sorry form of apology for aggression.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.