CHAPTER XXVII 



NORTH SEA MEN AND THE NAVY 



To some extent the nation is awakening to the need of 

 allying more closely with the Royal Navy the thousands 

 of men and boys who toil ceaselessly on the waters of 

 the North Sea. I have tried to show that no greater 

 social and industrial revolution has been known in recent 

 years than that which has taken place on the Dogger 

 and the other North Sea fishing-banks. The smack 

 has vanished and with her has gone the venerable beam- 

 trawl. The old-world skipper, illiterate, yet able to read 

 his North Sea with the lead as easily as one reads type, 

 has departed, and he has been followed by a race that 

 has been handled but neither moulded nor spoiled by 

 the Board School. The fishing-craft have changed 

 completely ; the men and boys are of a later and more 

 progressive generation, but the old brave spirit dominates 

 the fishermen, and quietly, patiently, doggedly, and with 

 never-failing resolution, they work out their hard and 

 gloomy lives on the turgid waters east and west of 

 which are the world's two most powerful nations in 

 arms Germany and England. Simultaneous with 

 that change has been one of the most remarkable ad- 

 vances known the stepping of a continental nation 

 from a position of no naval or maritime importance 



