Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-03-31 | Page 4 | Doubts if England can be Starved Out

000815 IF EiLlB GIN BE M OUT Captain Persius, Naval Critic of Tageblatt, Sees No Hope. COPEXHAGEX, March 30, via London, Lon-don, 2 : ( j 1 p. m. -Open skepticism as to the possibility of bringing Great Britain to her !;:iees by a submarine campaign an3 through the direct pressure of starvation star-vation is expressed by Captain Persius, the naval critic of the Berliner Tageblatt. Tage-blatt. Insteai, the hope and belief of Captain Persius is that by an average monthly loss of half a million tons of shipping iu the next six months. Great Britain may be brought to realize that a continuation of the v.-ar would be unprofitable, un-profitable, though this result, he de- ( elares, has not yet been attained. The article is noteworthy for citations cita-tions of passages iu an address recent- ! ly delivered by Professor Harms, the new rector of Kiel university, giving a careful study of food conditions in England En-gland and upon -which Captain Persius bases his argument. Professor Harms, who is an authority m this field, estimated esti-mated the -wheat supply in England when the new submarine blockade was declared as enough to last until March 30. This was based on the supposition that all imports being interrupted by the blockade, the supply in Great Britain could be stretched by the use of oats, rice, etc., by rationing and by grain cargoes -which it is known could get through the blockade. The danger he contended would come before July when the first fruits of the home harvest would be available. Should England succeed in weathering weather-ing this critical period by imports and organization, Professor Harms and Captain Cap-tain Persius point out that the population popu-lation could exist for a time on the British crop and that the now danger would come when this was consumed. Meanwhile an extension of the submarine subma-rine zone is hinted by the admiralty-press admiralty-press bureau. As all European entente ports are now included in the blockade zone by the measure against Russia, the only room for an extension of the zones would seem to be in non-European waters.