LAND AND WATER, 
July 31, 1915. 
based on nitrocellulose, which are now universal alike for 
small arms and for guns and howitzers of all classes. But 
further, the superior molecular complexity of cotton 
gives it an advantage over all other substances in the 
production of nitrocellulose. As Sir William Ramsay 
has pointed out, wood pulp, and even straw, can be used ; 
but the resulting propellant is weaker and less satisfac- 
tory in other respects than one made from cotton. It has, 
therefore, followed that cotton is now a vital need of 
navies and armies, upon which their armaments depend, 
and even " the extraordinary skill and pertinacity " of 
the German chemist cannot change tiie laws of Nature. 
lie might — and doubtless he could — utilise some other 
substance; but, assuming that other necessary qualities 
were maintained, the result must be a weaker propellant. 
If a weaker propellant is adopted for existing guns and 
small arms, the range tables must be vitiated and the 
sights rendered misleading. But all guns and small arms 
iiave chambers adjusted to suit the cotton-based propel- 
lant, and if larger charges are used to obtain equivalent 
strength, these chambers would become unsuitable. The 
difficulty of adapting a propellant made from wood, 
straw, or other substance to armaments in use in the.held 
would evidently be very great, even if new machinery 
and new processes could quickly be installed to supply 
this propellant in vast quantities. What Lord Crewe 
called a " less convenient " substance might well prove 
to be prohibitive if suddenly introduced in the throes of 
a great war. All this will appear to be perfectly simple, 
and a conference of an hour in August last, bringing 
together the people who possessed the right kind of 
knowledge, would have left the facts transparently clear. 
Most unfortunately we are only now beginning to realise 
the necessity of using the right men in the right way. 
The artilleryman might not know the special properties 
of cotton, but would perfectly understand the difficulty of 
altering charges. The chemist might not know the con- 
struction of guns and rifles, but would at once explain the 
advantages of propellants based on cotton. The com- 
bination of the two experts would have secured the 
elucidation of the facts. 
The more difficult question of the possibility of 
restricting enemy imports of cotton remains; but, if 
Government had been led to recognise the vital need of 
this commodity for the purposes of the war, there can be 
little dotibt that the military situation would be very 
different to that v,hich confronts us after a year of con- 
flict. The Germans, as an essential part of their long 
and singularly complete preparations for aggressive war, 
had accumulated large reserves of cotton ; but, at the 
outset, they did not expect a long campaign, which 
became plainly inevitable in October. At the same time 
the need of a far greater provision of artillery munitions 
than any Power had anticipated was revealed, and the 
Germans were quicker to realise this need and to develop 
their production than our authorities. They therefore 
made great efforts to obtain cotton, and it is certain that 
very large quantities passed into their hands, while 
further stores were obtained in Belgium and Northern 
France. In the old wars, sulphur and saltpetre were 
commonly treated as contraband. In August last 
cotton was more important than either; but this 
had not been realised, and the staple of propel- 
lants escaped the list of commodities liable to 
capture in the abortive Declaration of London 
Good precedents to the contrary existed. As Lord 
Parmoor reminded the House of Lords, cotton 
was made contraband by the United States in 
1861, on the ground lliat it was practically specie 
giving purchasing power to the Confederacy. The pre- 
sent ground— that cotton is a prime necessity of war— is 
incontestably stronger, and Mr. Seward took the most 
sweeping view of tlie ric^hts of a belligerent to capture 
all such commodities. The exceptional stringency of 
tiie blockade estabhshed by tiie United States in the Civil 
:War. with the added doctrine of continuous voyage— 
conditions wiiich Great Britain accepted even Before the 
blockade became effecti\- 
e— gave us a strong diplomatic 
position ; but no one who valued the friendship of the 
L^niled States would have wislied to take a rigid stand on' 
the principles which they adopted when they, too, were 
fighting for their existence as a great nation. Other 
measures were open to us, if the supreme importance of 
cotton had been recognised, and even tlie purchase of the 
entire export crop of the Southern States would have paid 
us a hundredfold. Nothing was done, and the German 
stores accumulated. When on February 18 the Germans 
entered on a policy of piracy in its blackest form, 
reprisals, relatively mild, were instituted under the Order 
in Council of March 11, which placed such articles as 
toluol, wool, machine tools, and machines for making 
munitions of war, together with certain lubricants and 
large-scale maps, on the list of contraband. Not one of 
these articles was nearly so important as cotton, and the 
inconsistency of including wool used as clothing for the 
soldier and machines for making arms, while excluding 
the means of making the propellants, without which 
guns, rifles, and shells are useless, is painfully obvious. 
Toluol, on the other hand, being a product of coal tar, 
was not likely to baflle the German chemist. 
Lender the arrangements of March 11, large quanti- 
ties of cotton and cotton waste continued to reach 
Germany through neutral countries; but latterly the 
general terms of the Order in Council seem to 
have been more strictly applied, and Lord Emmott 
stated on July 15 that "supplies going to Ger- 
many in the last month or two months " have been 
'■ curtailed." Curtailment is a relative term, and we 
may earnestly hope that, in this case, it implies reduc- 
tion sufficiently great to count for the purposes of war; 
but even curtailment appears to have been secured only 
after ten or eleven months. Meanwhile there are welcome 
signs that further action may be taken. On July 20 the 
Prime Minister significantly stated : " I am not myself 
satisfied with the existing state of affairs. I believe that 
a great deal of this material, which is a necessiiry ingre- 
dient in the manufacture of some kinds of ammunition 
[all kinds used in guns and rifles], reaches the enemy 
which ought not to reach the enemy." A correspon- 
dent of the Times, writing from the American point of 
view, pleads strongly for an arrangement with the 
Southern cotton-growers, which seems eminently practic- 
able. The essence of his proposals is to " combine the 
declaration of cotton as contraband with a clear and 
generous scheme of compensation." A shortage of 
enemy cotton would at any time liave stopped the war, 
and with an expenditure approacliing four millions a day 
for this country and nearly twelve millions for the 
Alliance, such compensation is surely possible. We 
desire, above all, to preserve the most friendly re- 
lations with the great kindred people with whom we 
have been at peace for a hundred years; but they must 
realise perfectly that we and our gallant Allies are fight- 
ing for our lives, and they will not forget that, in their 
supreme crisis, we placed no difficulties in their path, 
and that the men and women of Lancashire nobly 
endured privation in order that the Union should be 
maintained. 
We cannot, of course, now know how the cotton 
reserves of the enemy stand. There are some signs of 
coming shortage, which may, however, be only indica- 
tions of the early prevision in which Germany never 
fails. In June the price of cotton in Bremen was 1.30 
marks per pound, and has since risen. An embargo has 
been placed on rags and cotton waste, while some textile 
manufactures have been prohibited. The shortage of 
wool, made contraband on March 11, threw increased 
demands on cotton in the case of goods made of both 
materials. Without accurate knowledge of the extent of 
the cotton reserves in August, or of the large total 
amounts since imported, it would be unwise to expect any 
closely approaching effect upon the supply of ammuni- 
tion. It is, however, certain that if the imports had been 
stopped or severely curtailed from the beginning the 
duration of the war would have been sharply limited, and 
it is not easy to believe that, if the facts as to the relations 
between cotton and armaments had been appreciated, 
effective steps would not have been taken in good time. 
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