The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-17

l cause 1t is not powerful enough to cop'
 with the British grand fleet. You ar' witnessing at the present moment thu
 most impressive manifestation of SC;
 power that history has ever recorded
 You will doubtless visit the grand flee
 before you return to America. You vii
 see it lying, as some people say, idls | swinging to it's anchors, but this i | because the German fleet remains II | port. If an earthquake should engul I the whole of the British fleet there l. l no power at present in the world which could prevent the central powers iron | dominating the seas and winning tn, war. Under these conditions if Amer. 1 ica had 30.000.00o tons of shipping anc 1 10,0Qo.0o0 soldiers with all of their eouip. ! n1ent and supplies we could do nothing simply because the Germans would hay ( I the control of the seas, and this woulc l prevent any troops or supplies being l brought to the allies The safety of the allied cause depends upon the possession ! of sufficient tonnage to supply our wants l and the ability to protect this tonnage on the sea.
 WERE WINNING WAR
 i When I first came over here vear ago last April, the central powers were winning the war, and winning it very | iast. While they could not send any of l their surface craft to sea, they were destroying about 900,OO0 tons of shipping
 a month There is a certain amount of
 rvnnage necessary to bring food to the h.uropean countries and supplies to their
 armies The allies had at this time ar sxcess over this amount of tonnage sSltne hundred thousand tons divided into .niS excess would give you the number ot' months We could hold out before hay- hg To sue for peace It is a very simple sum III arithmetic. If something had not peen done about it the war would have
 been over about last November or De- cetnper. Something was done about it. NaY1es of the allies assisted by the AlnErIcan navy, checked it. Their skill
 ana resources brought about very
 t-farked change. The convoy system was instituted and there were invented va rlous appliances, such as the depth charge, listening devices and so forth about which you do not need to know
 the details. This almost Immediately re-
 dueed the losses to from one-fourth to
 one-third of what they had been before,
 and the consequence is that, with the in
 creasing building programme, we are
 now putting in the water quarter of
 million tons more per month than are
 being sunk by the submarines.
 It should be understood that Germany
 has not been waging any naval war to
 speak Of against the navies of the al-
 lies. She is not doing So today. This is
 because she has not sufficient naval
 forces to do so with success. Her subnla-
 rnes are making war only incidentally
 against the war vessels of the allies
 She avoids them whenever she can. This
 Is easy to do because of the peculiar property of inyisibility which the sub-
 marine enjoys. The submarine can see a
 destroyer at a distance four or five
 times greater than destroyer can see
 the SIlbYl1a ina Tho l..
 the latter can dip down out of sight un-
 til the danger has passed and then go
 ahead With his regular business of de-
 stroying commerce. It is true that if there were sufficient patrol vessels the
 submarine could be kept continuously
 below the water. This is accomplished in
 certain restricted areas, but it would
 require literally millions of anti-sub-
 marine craft to protect all trade routes Great Britain has transported across the channel about 14,0Q0,O00 or 100000 pas sengers without material loss This she mas been able to do through patroling the area with anti-submarine craft placed So close together that no submarine could come up within the area without belng seen and fired upon. Similarly if sufficient destroyers are placed about convoy Of merchant vessels the subma- rine could not attack the latter without having to pass through the very dan gerous screen and thereby subjecting herself to attack by guns, depth charges and so forth. As have said before. ali these 5000 small anti-submarine craft are able to perform these essential services only because the British grand fleet is so strong that all German surface craft must remain within their pratected har- DOTS or within their minefelds. What want to make entirely clear is this that we were able to come into this war, and the allies are able to carry on this war. because of the effort that the British navy and the navies of the allies have made-because of the presence of the great British grand fleet ready at any moment to attack the German fleet if It comes out NOT AN ACCURATE IMPRESSION
 AS for the impression which the american public has gained from our press concerning the submarine situation l am afraid that it is not a very accu rate one. I do not know how many sub- marines you gentlemen saw on the way over here, but if you had the usual ex- you saw great many. have seen many accounts in our papers upon lfis subject. If you were 10 believe ; ,nese accounts you could only conclude -hat many vesselsf have crossed the 1 ocean With difficulty because Submarines were so thick that they scraped all the paint off the vessel sides. All of these accounts are, of course, unofficial They 'et into the American newspapers in va '1ous ways It is to be regretted that 'hey should be published and thereby slve such false impression
 sometime ago I saw a letter from one of our men who came over here on ship bound into the British channel lms letter was written to his girl. He stated that he intended to take the let l -er on shore and slip it into a postbox 90 that the censor would not see it. The | censor did see it, and it eventually came 70 me. This man was evidently intent i 1pon impressing upon his girl the dan ! gers through which he had passed. Itsl selated that the vessel on which he had 1 made the voyage had met two or three submarines a day; that two spies were 'ound on board and hung; and 1t stated l hat When we arrived off our port there were no less than IS submarines waiting or us, can you beat it?'
 Unfortunately we have not got quite 1 he right kind of censorship in Ameri l a. The press playS the game very cred lapiy, but few papers can resist the to publish story that will e scoop over the other papers. Re
 orters go aboard ships arriving from