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BRITAIN S SEA FORCES

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BRITAIN S SEA FORCES LIFTING THE VEIL. Front Our Special Correspondent. FIRST ARTICLE. When the late Sir George Chesney depicted, in "The Battle of Dork ing the mournful fat,- of Great Britain after a brief imaginary war with tovo maritime Powers, he told how the British Fleet put. to sea a fortnight after the declaration of; jwar, and was almost annihilated in a single action. L recall this not for (the purpose of contrasting what Sir (TP,orge Chesney supposed as pos- sible forty years ago with the reality ;the present generation hat, wit- aiessed, but to cnll attention to the different ideas of publicity preva lent Jthen and now. It is not a little amusing to read this distinguished general s conception of what might rIe expected to happen when the Tieel pnt to se«. The Admiral s Flagshlp, as it proceeded, paid out Ii, submarine cable, and frequent messages were sent to the Admir- alty reporting progress. The Ad- amralty promptly handed tliese to jthe newspapers, and all day special ♦difcknas were appearing disclosing the latitude and longitud" of the ships and what they were doing, .until the mam fleet had met the ?nemy and an action had begun. pn came a truncated mesge. fol- 10wed by silence, and two days afterwards the &ole un-rvor of our steamed into Portsmouth I Harbour. THE NEED OF SECRECY. I It is difficult, for those who have lived through the last two years to avalise how a publicity policy of this kind could have been conceived even as a possibility. Down to the pre- sent day. 1 do not think the locality ¡ )of a single British warship has been {mentioned in the Press until it has! Leen in action, and not always then. Probably the gre-at rllajorit. of the people in England have only a vague idea of the bases from which the squadrons operate. The enemy I fcnows. or thinks he knows, but not, from the Press has he received any confirmation of his suppositions, and! though the policy of concealment; may seem in some of its aspects j absolutely futile, it is founded, and, reasonablv founded, on the unwis- dom of permitting the enemy to check his reports and confirm his in- formation fromi authentic, British sources. At last, the Admiralty have de- rided to lift the veil a little way, and have permitted a representative partv of British journalists to make a tcror of the naval bases, to see iwhat is being done. and how it is done, to set eyes on the Grand Fleet the many auxiliary forces which ha\"e enabled Britain to achieve the one decisive victory of the war. FrMTch and Russian journalists have ¡bet-'n allowed to see some of these ithings. but none, I believe, has had # view behind the scenes so compre- hensive as that obtained by the company with which I am privileged •Jo spend the present week. The object of the special corres- jpondent is, as a rule. to enable the jpublic to see. through his eyes, the rthings in which they are interested. b wish I could fulfil that function on Itbe present occasion, but we are. fnnder severe restrictions, and pro- tperly sn. SECURING PEACEFUL HOMES. I As mv readers cannot see with my eyes, let me say at the outset :what 1 think is the impression would have received had they been able to do so. As" our week's tour lprogressed. it was more and more rbotne in upon probably all of us that [the public can have no conception of hp ivwnuitn, the resourcefulness, fthe high thinking and hard working bo say nothing of the keen fighting •;when opportunity oecurr-whieh are applied to the task of. securing to (fthem peacefulness in their hornet, rand a sufficiency of the things they live?s, The (. < ) m need in their daily lives. The corn- manding officer at the port we first Tisid, thought it would be a good fthing if the Press were to see some- thing of the Navy, because the .people do not understand it. or com- iprehend what it'does for them. That •thev do not understand it, I fully admitted, but I ventured to assure him that though they see as .I,hrough a gla.ss darkly," and cannot measure the immensity of its work, they have a tolerably good compre- hension of what they owe to it. SWEEPERS. I This was at one of two places on the East Coast where we had the opportunity to see some of the less conspicuous auxiliaries of the Grand Fleet. Among tkem 1 should give & high position to the fishing vessels —trawlers and drifters—which have for the time being undertaken ser- vice in defence of the country. Of the number so employed one can speal- only in general terms, but i may repeat a broad figure which is given in this year' s Navy League Annual." It is there stated that be- tween 2,000 and 3,000 trawlers, drifters, yachts, tugs. and motor craft have been requisitioned or built for war service. Hardy men of the sea are the skippers of these boats, many of an age which puts the; landsman in the comfortable position of lamenting that he is ;mueh too old for his country to think of employing him for military ser ..of employin'o, him for mi f ]"tary ser- The wor? of the converted ??in? boats has been in the main a work of mercy. The sweeping of the sea for mines is a perilous task, and a tedlotis, trying, and uncomfortable lonp. but night and day in good weather, the plucky skippers and their men have stuck to I t-anil with magnificent reults There: down the North Sea Coast a channel which has been kept, free for naviga- tion, and about this we were told a fact which will astonish most people. In the course of a year over 21.000 ships passed up and down this channel, and of those who navi- gated it, according to instructions, only three were damaged. Another fact will give satisfaction to those who imagine that the enemy have succeeded, to some.1 extent, L in his endeavours to cripple the British shipping industry. Of 1,587 steamers which passed a given spot on the English coast in March, 1,156 were British. A SPLENDID SERVICE. These httlf steamers have also co-I operated eAectively with squadrons in action. It may be recalled that A ice-Admiral Bacon, in his report on the extensive naval operations off the Belg iau coast, commented on I t-be remarkable aptitnde shown by j the officers and crews of the; drifters and trawlers, who, under' ((it.icns totally strange t? then) I maintained their allotted positions j without a single accident, exhibiting! under fire a coolness well worthy of a service well inured to danger. Those then were some of the craft we saw in harbour on the East Coast. Other boats of special design there were, and the leas we sav: about them the better will be their chance to make a wholesome impres- sion upon the enemy. The presence of a few submarines gave us the op- portunity to examine the wonderful variety and intricacy of their inter- nal appliances, and mechanical con- trivances. At one of the ports, some of the apparatus which have brought about the formidable losses in German submarines were exhibited with no small pride, and here, as in everything with which the Navy is concerned, we saw in combination ingenuity and resourcefulness. Not far away was an extensive arr station, whére scores of aeroplanes and seaplanes are ready for instamt action. Some of the brighl eyed, eager officers had already given the Germans a taste of their quality, and very modest they are about it--a characteristic of naval men as well as of seamen. That machine had the good luck to drop a bomb on a German flagship." said a young officer, after explaining its qualities. He did not tell you he had done it himself, said a comrade when we had moved away.

STRUCK OFF REGISTER.

DROWNED IN THE DOCK. I

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