August 
14, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
If its units are intact, it may number twenty- 
three battleships and battle-cruisers of the all- 
big gun type. A year ago we possessed twenty- 
eight ships of this type, each individually more 
powerful than the German. Since then we have 
purchased two Turkish and one Chilean ships. 
During the year we have been completing, as Mr. 
Churchill told us in November, twelve more. As 
the Benhow, Emperor of India, Warspits, 
Valiant, and Barhavi were all, according to the 
pre-war programme, due for completion before 
February this year, and as we know that Erin, 
Agincourt, Queen Elizabeth, and Tiger have 
already joined the Fleet, it seems safe to assume 
that our numbers cannot be less than thirty-seven 
to the German twenty-three. The German Fleet, 
then, is not increasing relatively. It is falling 
more hopelessly behind. If Germany would not 
engage when the odds were twenty-three to 
twenty -eight — and she had as many opportunities 
as there were days between August 4 and 
the first increase to our strength — is it likely that 
she will seek an engagement when the odds are at 
twenty-three to thirty-seven? And if the Ger- 
man Fleet is not, in what I believe to be the true 
meaning of the phrase, " a fleet in being," can 
it be wildly wrong and ignorant to speak of our 
possessing the " command of the sea," and of its 
having been " conceded to us " ? 
I should not have laboured this point but 
for two things. The position in the Baltic makes 
it quite important to keep the distinction between 
a " fleet in being " and an immobilised fleet in 
view. Vis-k-vis to the German fleet, the Russian 
seems most certainly to be " a fleet in being." 
It must either be destroyed or Germany will not 
be aTjIe to use the Baltic as if she had control of it. 
COBBLER AND LAST. 
My second reason for this prolixity is that 
my critic goes on as follows : " The Navy has done 
so much that it is a pity naval writers who are 
not sailors should assume that the task in front 
of the Grand Fleet is as good as done. This is 
surely jumping at conclusions, and explaining 
things that haven't happened. There is no 
disguising the fact that I am not a sailor; 
I wish to heaven I were. I am quite con- 
scious of my disadvantage, and well aware 
that laicism exposes me to the accusation of 
presumption. I humbly try to avoid that vice. 
But, in the present instance at least, I really 
do not think I have offended. If to assume that 
the Grand Fleet's task is as good as done, is 
a pitiful business, at least I can console myself 
with the reflection that it is not my business. I 
never assumed or said anything so foolish. 
The Grand Fleet's task is no more done to- 
day than it was done on Thursday, August 12, 
1914. The task of the Grand Fleet is to immobi- 
lise the German Fleet. And it will not be done 
until the sword is sheathed, until the wrongs 
of Belgium, France, and Russia are righted, 
and it has been put out of Germany's power, 
either by fleet,, submarine, or army, to violate 
the rights of others. The task laid by the King 
on Sir John Jellicoe in August last remains that 
gallant and distinguished man's continuing task 
— with all it involves for him and the incom- 
parable and cheerful thousands whom he com- 
mands — until the end, 
A. H. POLLEN. 
SIR MORTIMER DURAND ON BRITISH 
RULE IN INDIA. 
To the Editor of Land and Water. 
Sir, — Your number of July 24 has an articl© by E.- 
March Phillipps on the Ideals of the War, which oontaioj 
the following statement: 
If India, Uke the Colonies, is fighting on onr side to-day, it is becans* 
our Indian rule has undergone the same change as our Colonial 
rule. India, in the East India Company days, was treated m 
an English fierquisite, delivered into our hands to tw exploited and 
ransacked for our own advantage. Theie followed the Mutiny. 
The Indian Mutiny was in the East what the American revolt waa 
in the West — a furious protest against tyranny. And it had Qt» 
same eflect. 
As your paper is very widely read, will you allow m« 
to enter a protest against this attempt to justify the Mutiaj 
at the expense of our forefathers, who cannot defend then*. 
selves ? When the East India Company entered upon its ria* 
to Imperial dominion, India, parcelled out among numerowj 
chiefs, largely soldiers of fortune, had for generations beea 
one vast warfield, over which armies aggregating perhapa 
two millions of men, many of them foreign free-lanoea, 
marched and fought and ravaged. The sufferings of th« 
people under such conditions need not be described. Th« 
Company rescued India from this state of chronic warfars 
and devastation, and gave to the Indian masses not only 
protection and peace, but the most beneficent rule they 
had ever known. FitzJames Stephen, an English Judga^ 
writing of the early days of the Company, has said that th« 
whole Indian enterprise was " not a tyrannical and deteafc- 
able ' ' one, but ' ' the greatest of English, one might almost 
say of human, enterprises." 
There are no facts in history more clearly demonstrable 
than the facts that the Company rose to Imperial dominion 
with the goodwill and active help of vast numbers of Indians; 
and that, when the Bengal Army broke into revolt, as too 
powerful armies have done before, the Company's dominioa 
was upheld, as it had been established, by the goodwill and 
active help of vast numbers of Indians. The district* 
which the revolt threw into anarchy, mainly district-s in whidi 
the Bengal Army was recruited, did not comprise a t«nth pari 
of India; not one of the great ruling chiefs joined the rebels; 
the smaller armies of Bombay and Madras remained faithful; 
and many thousands of Indians from the Bengal Presidency 
itself, enlisting of their own free will under the British Flag, 
fought with the British troops against the mutineers. Of th« 
force which stormed Delhi not one half, hardly more than a 
third, were white men. And so it was elsewhere. Then, as mw, 
India wsis on our side, and the Mutiny was crushed. Sine* 
then the Crown has developed the work of the Company, 
ruling, as the Company ruled, for the good of the people. 
I submit that, in justice to Englishmen and Indiana 
alike, sudi statements as the one quot-ed above — statement* 
which can do much harm in India — ought not to be lightly 
made. H. M. Durans. 
POEMS OF AND FROM THE "TIMES." 
The anthology of War Poems which the Times issued aa 
a Supplement on Monday is a remarkable publication. In 
not a line can one detect the faintest echo of doubt as to 
the ultimate issue. But there is never a thought traceaUa 
here that it is to be accomplished easily or lightly. 
The poems of Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy aoAOi 
to stand above the re.st, for the very reason that these writea 
are true .seers. " Faith and fire " can alone conquer, " iron 
sacrifice " only win through. And they told us this befora 
the roir of German guns reverberated down the summer skies. 
And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light, 
And a striving evermore for these; 
And he is dead who will not figitt; 
And who dies fighting has iaci<ease. 
So sang that very gallant soldier Julian Grenfell before ha 
joined the glorious company of England's sons who up tha 
steep crimsoned by their life blood have borne, and still bear, 
the lionour and good fame of the Motherland to the ever- 
lasting gates of Heaven. 
This broad sheet of War Poems, of the same size as tl»a 
weekly Literary Supplement of our contemporary, is illus- 
trated on every page by Mr. Joseph Simpson. Tliough hia 
drawings are in black-and white, they might almost be termed 
illuminations, so aptly do th^ emphasise the true inwardness 
of the ver.se. The Timei is to be congratulated on this Supple- 
ment. It not only worthily reflects the literary enterprise of 
Printing Uouse Square, but it brings together conv£iuenUl 
poems, which one is glad to have always at the elbow. 
