Evening star. [volume], December 21, 1939, Page A-8, Image 8

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Outlook Is Promising
For Farmer in 1940
By the Associated Pres*.
NEW YORK, Dec. 21.—Improved
prices of farm products and a gen
eral Increase In industrial pay rolls
are expected to help the fanners
materially in 1940.
Cash farm income in 1939 is esti
mated at about $8,300,000,000, an
increase of r.bout 4 per cent over
1938. However, if prices hold up
in the new year, analysts estimate
that farm income may rise as much
as 10 per cent.
British Admiralty
Adopts Offensive as
'Deadwood' Goes
Escape of Nazi Fleet
Indicates Heavy Ships
Of England Scattered
By MAJ. GEORGE FIELDING
ELIOT.
They are throwing out the dead
wood at the admiralty. They are
finding a new spirit and a new
tempo. It has happened before.
It always seems to be necessary in
Britain's admiralty when a war
begins. In the last World War,
it was dynamic ‘‘Jac.ky’’ Fisher in
the post of first sea lord, backed
up by the same energetic and
imaginative cabinet minister who
now heads the board of admiralty,
Winston Churchill, who brought
about the change.
Today Mr. Churchill, after a
three-month tenure of office, has
as his right hand admiral of the
fleet Sir Dudley Pound to fill Fish
er's place, a different type in many
ways than Fisher, but no less force
ful and no less clear-sighted—not
as likely to fly to extremes, in fact
a most excellent complement to
Mr. Churchill. Pound has scarcely
been longer at the admiralty than
Churchill. On neither is to be
placed the blame for the rather
sorry state of affairs which they
inherited, and which they have
barely had the time to begin cor
recting.
ueiensive roiicy Loosened.
Not the least of their handicaps
was the defensive policy forced
upon them by the government, of
which Mr. Churchill was but a
single member. This shackle ap
pears to be loosening its grip We
find British submarines and British
airplanes taking the offensive in
the North Sea, and not without
success as far as the submarines,
at least, are concerned. One of
them, the Salmon, reports having
seen the major part of the Ger
man fleet at sea—the two new bat
tleships Scharnhorst and Gueise
nau, a pocket battleship (presuma
bly the Deutschland!, the heavy
cruisers Hipper and Bluecher, a
light cruiser and a destroyer flo
tilla.
This confirms our previous con
jecture that Vice Admiral Marsehall,
commanding the battleship squad
ron. went out to cover the Deutsch
land into port—and perhaps also
the Bremen, which the Salmon also
sighted but did not attack. She was
not so careful of the warships. She
reports having torpedoed at least
one heavy cruiser, perhaps two
cruisers, though she could not stay
to see what results her torpedoes
obtained. Naturally not, for the
destroyers must have been upon her
like hungry wolves. But the very
fact that Marsehall was out indi
cates how much the British armored
ships must now be scattered in
search fop German raiders, or on
convoy protection duty.
Canadian Division Escorted.
One very important phase of this
would be the escorting to Britain
of the just-arrived Canadian di
vision. It will be recalled that in
the last war the battle cruiser Prin
cess Royal was detached to cover
the crossing of the first Canadian
contingent at a time when Sturdee’s
two battle cruisers were away in the
South Atlantic chasing the squadron
of Admiral Count Spee. Just at
this time, also, the battleship King
George V had to go into dockyard
for the retubing of her condensers,
and a collision between the battle
ships Conqueror and Monarch put
them both temporarily out of ac
tion. This net withdrawal of six
capital ships left Admiral Jellicoe
with little if any numerical su
periority over the Germans, a fact*
which, he writes with relief in his
memoirs, the Germans did not
grasp in time to be of any use to
them.
Now that German •armored raid
ers are known to be at sea, a single
capital ship would not be enough
for the escort. No chances of an
attack on the Canadian troopships
could be taken. Perhaps Marschall
was out for this very purpose and
found it impracticable. More likely
he did not know of the Candian
troop movement in time to deliver
an attack.
As we have previously suggested,
it may be that the British dispersal
may afford some opportunity to the
Germans for attempting to avenge
the loss of the Graf Spee. It may
be that the activities of British
submarines in the North Sea are
for the very purpose of preventing
such a German enterprise. Or it
may be that they mark the open
ing phase of a new series of offen
sive operations intended to confine
the German fleet to the vicinity
of its coasts in order to cover the
crossing of supplies and perhaps re
inforcements to Scandinavian ports
en route to Finland.
rinnisn Angle Enters.
The decisibn to support Finland
“as far as possible” having been
taken, the first prerequisite is an
assured line of communications by
which this may be done. The direct
route by sea is, of course, through
the Skagerrak, the Kattegat and
the Baltic. But this route is com
manded at one point by German
coast artillery, at many by German
submarines, light craft and air
planes. One has to envisage the
Germans standing quietly by and
watch their enemies pour in sup
plies to be used against their quasi
ally. It does not seem likely. It is
certainly not safe to count upon
it, especially as German policy in
the Russo-Finnish affair is as yet
unclarified. The other route is via
Norwegian ports, then rail into Fin
land, or transshipment at a Swedish
port on the Gulf of Bothnia, into
which the Russian fleet has not yet
penetrated. This seems to be safer
and the more likely choice.
But in the last war the British
found that from Scapa Flow they
could not always assure the safety
of convoys proceeding to Bergen.
They may now be starting a cam
paign to tie up German naval activi
ties in the Bight of Helgoland, which
is the only way they can be reason
ably sure of safe traffic farther north.
It cannot be repeated too often
that Britain cannot stand by and
see the Norwegian coast line fall
into hostile hands. If Finland falls,
Sweden and Norway are gravely
imperiled. We get back, of course,
as always in discussing these north
ern strategical problems, to Ger
many's intentions—still obscure.
Germans Experiment at Sea.
Of course, the British have plenty
of troubles of their own. The sink
ings of merchant ships by mine and
I
torpedo are being supplemented by
air attack directed not only against
merchant shipping, but against the
small craft carrying on mine sweep-,
lng and patrol activities in the
North See. These attacks appear
so far to have had some measure of
success. They are, of course, ex
perimental. Indeed, the whole of the
German activities in this area may
be so described—experiments to de
termine whether a grand, full-out
attack on British sea communica
tions would pay, airplanes bombing
ships and patrol craft and attack
ing ports and dockyards, submarines
working at full strength on the ship
ping lanes, surface, subsurface and
aerial mine layers also going full
blast.
In such an attack Germany would
throw on the table many of her
best cards—her air force, or a great
part of it; most of her reserve of
gasoline, her submarines, backed and
covered as they would have to be
by the rest of her navy. There are
hints coming from Germany that
such an attack is planned for the
spring wphen the new submarines
will be ready, when the German air
strength may be expected to reach
its peak. What is happening now is
but the preliminary feeling-out
operations, the weighing of chances,
the reduction of those chances to
the mathematical equations so dear
and so necessary to the German
military mind.
(Copyright. 1939, New York Tribune. Inc )
French Warned Hitler
Of Communist Victory,
'Yellow Book'Reveals
Told Trotsky
Doctrines Alone Would
Benefit by War
By the Associated Press.
PARIS, Dec. 21.—Publication of
a French “Yellow Book” on origin
of the w’ar disclosed today that the
last French Ambassador to Berlin,
Robert Coulondre, had told Reichs
fuehrer Hitler he feared the only
real victor of a new war would be
“Trotsky Communism.’’
M. Coulondre’s fears were ex
pressed to Hitler in an interview
last August 25, when the Fuehrer
gave him a personal message for
Prime Minister Daladier expressing
the hope that France would not go
to war against Germany.
The Ambassador, in a report which
he wrote immediately after the in
terview and which is published in
the "Yellow Book," said he had giv
en Hitler "my word as a soldier that
I have not the slightest doubt that
if Poland should be attacked, France
would be with Its forces at the side
of Poland.”
Then M. Coulondre added: "Al
though I think really that we would
be victorious, I ilso have the fesr
that at the end of a war there would
be only one real victor—M. Trotsky.”
It was significant that M. Coulon
dre used the name of Leon Trotsky,
leader of Communists working for
world revolution, rather than that
of Josef Stalin, whose form of com
munism is considered by the French
national rather than international.
The "Yellow Book” consists of 350
diplomatic documents recording de
velopments from the Munich con
ference of September, 1938, to the
start of the war. In form its fol
lows closely a similar publication
by the British government.
Journalists Sentenced
By Military Court
By the Associated Press.
PARIS, Dec. 21.—A military tri
bunal today sentenced a writer,
Henri Jeanson, and a newspaper
director, Rene Freaudets, to five
years in prison and fined them 1,000
francs ($22) each for “provoking
military disobedience and insubordi
nation.”
The action resulted from an article
by Jeanson in Freaudets* Anarchist
newspaper, “Ofgane de la Solidarite
Internationale Antl-Fasciste."
F. A. Silcox Funeral
To Be Held Tomorrow
Private funeral services for F. A.
Silcox, who died yesterday of a heart
attack at his Alexandria, Va., home,
will be held at 3 p.m. tomorrow in
the Wheatley funeral home in Alex
andria. Burial also will be private.
Chief of the Forest Service of the
Department of Agriculture since
1933, Mr. Silcox had been in ap
parent good health since he under
went treatment for coronary throm
bosis last year.
A native of Columbus, Ga., he was
educated at Yale University where
he received his forestry degree. In
1905 he entered the Forest Service
and worked up to the post of the
Nation’s chief forester. He would
have been 57 years old Christmas
I. - -!
Day. He Is survived by his widow,
Mrs. Marie Thatcher Silcox, who
was with him at the time of his
death.
Rossheim to Retire
From Exchange Firm
By the Associated Press.
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 21.—Ir
ving D. Rossheim announced he
would retire January 1 from New
burger, Loeb & Co., a brokerage firm
in which he has been a general
partner for 10 years. Before that t
he was president of First National
Pictures Corp. and the Stanley Co.
of America.
i For the Convenience of
! Last-Minute Shoppers
We Will Be
OPEN SUNDAY
Dec. 24, 1 P.M, to 9 P.M.
GARRISON'S
"The House Full of Christmas Oi/ts"
1215 I S». N.W.
GIVE
HIM
A
GLADSTONE
Top grain cowhide. HE
Initials put on free.
Reg. $12.95. Others ^
$5.95 up.
George W. King, Jr.
511 11th ST. N.W.
Julius Lonsburah Furniture, 909 F St. N.\y.
OPEN NIGHTS ’TIL 9
Guaranteed Delivery for Christmas
u w 11
NEST OF TABLES. Gradu
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$1 Q.50
GOVERNOR WINTHROP
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3 drawers, grille front
bookcase, excellent desk
appointments.
*29
COFFEE TABLE. A
All exposed J / W
woodwork dis- ^ *
plays rich carvings of^
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walnut veneer, glass top
REVOLVING « m Qr
BOOKCASE. Dun- 3£ly3
can P h y f e base
with brass tip feet, walnut
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LAMP
TABLE.
D uncan
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with brass
claw feet,
glass tray
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walnut or j
m ahogany
TAMBOUR
DESK. Grace- If
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legs, roll front « A ^
desk com
p a r t m e nts, r *
spacious writing bed,
two large drawers. Solid
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COFFEE TABLE. 18th Century
style with round glass top Solid
walnut or mahogany over hard
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*695
Up to
18 Months
to Pay!
$79
/ y
JOHN HANCOCK DESK.
Note the completeness of the
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PAY NEXT YEAR
Julius Lansburgh
Furniture Company
909 F ST. N.W.
#
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Lady's 15-J. Elgin
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Lady’s 17-J. Grnen
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one of the most beautiful
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B —BB-■ ..
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