Evening star., 1938-09-25
BY COL. FREDERICK PALMER.

Minister Chamberlain who holds the
trump card-sea power and all 1t
means-in the final showdown Of force
against force.
If Chancellor Hitler listens not only
to his soldier chiefs, whose eyes are
on the Czechoslovakian goal, but to
other chiefs-and they dare to be
frank with him-he will hesitate to
test the impatience Of the British to
the point where they will conclude:
He seems bound to have it. 1t
must come some time We are as
ready now against Germany as we
ever shall be-"
His naval chiefs may we'll say:
We will die for you, but that we
cannot do"
Banking, shipping, industrial and
export trade chiefs will recall to the
dictator what the sea blockade did to
Germany in l9l4-l8, and may do
again, this time without landing a
British soldier in France.
Kaiser Made Sad Error.
Well may he keep his ear attuned
to the rumble Of British public opinion
The recognition of the fact of British
sea power by the former corporal in
the trenches in the World War is the
best of reasons why he should not
everyday his hand by making the mis-
take the Kaiser made in 1914 in think
ing that Britain would not enter the
war.
In 1914 the German Navy was at
least three to five against the British.
Today, in open battle on the surface
OF the sea, which commands the sea,
1t can not be granted better than
one to 10. 1t can risk no such sortie
as that which led to Jutland All its
surface ships will be immediately bot
tied up in port behind coast defense
batteries and mine fields.
Not only will great passenger lines
such as the Bremen and Europa, speed
Tor the refuge Of the nearest neutral
harbor. where they will be interned
until Berlin and London make peace
again. Britain's cruisers and armed
naval reserve ships, operating from
her far-fiung bases, will be on a wide
spread hunt for any ship flying the
Nazi flag.
Total 1900 Ships.
Since the war, the German mer-
chant marine. starting practically
from scratch, has been rebuilt until
now 1t amounts to approximately O.
3oo ships, totaling more than 1000 600
ions. All except those in the Baltic
trade will be off the seas. not one
earning mark. Those not idle in
German ports or intended in neutral
ports would be prizes of the British.
conveyed to British ports for British
service unless they were DESTROYED by
gunfire.
There would be an end to German
trade with Britain. amounting to more
than s250.0o0.0o0 annually, and to the
great trade she has so skillfully pro-
noted with South America. to that
with the United States, and the rest
OF the world overseas, at least in Ger
man bottoms.
German factories would be deprived
OF raw materials from abroad, upon
winch they depend. They would lose
thelr overseas markets. which would
become an outlet for enemy production
or that of neutral nations. German
business men and all Germans over
seas would be unable to reach home
until the war was over.
All TINS Is vital factor, greater
IMAM III the World War, owing to the
increase OF wars mechanization and
its lar more capacious NAV for NUM-
tlons. Hitler may say that he has
made Germany self-sustaining for a
war OF long duration, but dispassionate
economic experts generally agree that
she is not so we'll prepared to meet the
economic strain as in 1914.
Submarine No Longer New.
But Germany still has the submarine
threat as her desperate and only naval
asset OF any value. This time. her
army drive will be in Central Europe.
not through Belgium, threatening the
English Channel, and establishing a
submarine nest zeebrugge.
Germany has made much of tho
secrecy OF her supposedly new and
powerful modern submarine. So far
as Is known, she may have so fit for
service at the most. Again, she would
loose them against British merchant
snlpping In an effort to starve out the
Island enemy; again, we should have
shlps torpedoed and crews and pas
sengers left to their fate in open boats
but the British Navy has fully Wis
uallzed this danger out of past experi-
ence Britain has gathered large grain
reserves against the emergency.
Again, the location of all Rrtis,,
merchant ships will be irdexed in the
British admiralty from day to day:
again, they will wait at given sta
lions outside the danger zone to form
conveys for the guardian destroyers.
The submarine is no new, as vet un-
tried element, as it was in 1914.
Hitler's air chiefs may also speak a
warning to him. The British air force
Is larger than the German and is re-
garded as being as good, plane to
plane. Surely French airdromes would
be at the service of the British. They
are as near to Berlin as the German
are to Paris.
And they are close to the great
Krupp arms plant, to the great Ger
man industrial plants on the Rhine
and to their vital railroad communi-
cations. If air raids are in the game,
two can play 1t.
If Russia should come in, with her
immense army and air force. and the
British Navy has to deal with Musso-
lini in the Mediterranean, that is an
other question. as horror spreads over
the map of Europe. In land warfare
Russia's would be the decisive DO
tentiality.
(Copyr.eht. 1888. by the North American
Newspaper Alliance, Inc)
Ugly Queen Sought.
nET EACT NortLor,o Troland fTN