September 4, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER. 
GERMAN SUBMARINE POLICY. 
By A H. POLLEN. 
lo accordance with the requirements of tbe Press Bureau, nhicb does oot object to tbe publication as censored, and takes no 
res<)fosibilily for tbe correctness, of tbe statements. 
THE GERMAN PROMISE TO 
AMERICA. 
FOR a day or two last week it really seemed 
as if Germany realised that a blimder, 
and a dangerous blunder, had been com- 
mitted in sinking the Arabic. The 
reports from Washington were quite unequivocal. 
Germany, said Count Bernstorff, in so many 
words, would give full satisfaction to the United 
States for sinking the Arabic, and, if the ship had 
been sunk without warning, something more than 
a mere disavowal would be made. And he begged 
that this statement might be taken to mean that 
submarine commanders would be instructed 
definitely to attack no more merchant ships with- 
out warning. Another version watered down 
" merchant ships " to " passenger steamers." 
Even then the concession was immense when it is 
remembei'ed that that last Lvsitania Note is not 
yet answered. The American Press was jubilant. 
America's combination of patience and firmness 
had at last won a moral victory ! It so happened 
that on the day I saw these telegrams I also 
bought a copy of the New York Life, one of the 
very best comic journals published anywhere. 
There was a charming Gibson picture in it of a 
young husband and wife. " George, ' sajs the 
pouting and offended lady, " you have broken your 
promise to me." To which George replies, 
" Never mind, dearie, I will make you another." 
It occurred to me at once that, if Count Berns- 
torff was thrown over by Berlin, it would not be 
the first time that this has happened. It is, after 
all, very easy for a country to pledge its word, 
when we know from its own word that no pledge 
binds in case of necessity. Meantime, it was, at 
any rate, good business to allay anger. 
Later news from Washington, and the 
reports of American correspondents in Berlin, 
showed that the rejoicings over the American 
victoiy were premature. The news that Germany 
had climbed down through Count Bernstorff was 
dated August 27. The American Press inter- 
preted it in the light of two official announce- 
ments made in England. In publishing the sink- 
ing of a German submarine by Lieutenant-Com- 
mander Bigsworth, the Admiralty informed the 
world that, for very good reasons, details concern- 
ing the sinking of the German submarines were 
not made known, except in the case of those boats 
whose loss would necessarily be communicated to 
the enemy by other direct evidence. And it was 
added that those losses had been important. On 
the 26th Lord Selborne, speaking in the House of 
Lords, described the Navy as " having the sub- 
marine menace well in hand." The Americans 
naturally explained the submission of Germany as 
dictated quite as much bv the failure of the sub- 
marine campaign as by fear of American resent- 
ment. 
But a curious wireless telegram from Berlin, 
published on the 28th, might have warned us that 
the situation was not quite so simple as it looked. 
Any amends offered to America, said this message, 
would be dependent upon two things. First, it 
would have to be possible to make these amends 
without developing internal differences in Ger- 
many ; next, the form of reparation required must 
not affect the prestige of Germany or amount to a 
public humiliation. " George's new promise " was 
obviously in the process of being whittled away. 
Then came the further news, this time from 
America, of a third condition. The amend was 
contingent on America obtaining some mitigation 
of our blockade ! The situation, far from being 
clo.sed, is really more complicated than ever it 
was, for it depends for its solution on the 
antagonism between the Chancellor and the 
Foreign OflBce on the one side and the murderer 
Von Tirpitz on the other. 
USE AND ABUSE OF SEA-POWER. 
Both in redressing inequalities in gun 
and shell power and in maintaining financial 
stability America has been, and will undoubtedly 
continue to be, of the greatest possible assistance 
to the Allies. She has not given this assistance 
because a vast majority of the Americans sympa- 
thise with the Allies and do not sympathise with 
Germany; the relations of America with France, 
Russia, and ourselves have been of a purely busi- 
ness nature. The reason that the United States 
of America are of such enormous importance in 
this struggle is precisely because it is possible for 
the Allies only to have business dealings with 
them. At the end of a year of war the power and 
influence of the United States upon the struggle 
becomes therefore much greater month by 
month. This the Chancellor and von Jagow un- 
doubtedly see extremely clearly. What, in point 
of fact, they are appreciating is one of the many 
decisive services which the British Fleet has 
rendered to the Allied cause. And it is all the 
greater because Germany did not foresee it. 
Von Tirpitz and the German Admiralty, 
face to face with the impregnable ascendency of 
the British Fleet, decided some eight months ago 
to try to neutralise it by piracy and murder on the 
High Seas. If the British Fleet could not be 
beaten into submission, at any rate the British 
consumer could be starved into it. If submarines 
could sink cruisers and battleships by day or by 
night, surely it should be a pretty simple business 
to torpedo at least the greater part of the two 
hundred ships which every day of the week either 
enter or issue from the ports of these islands. The 
readers of Land and Water are quite familiar 
with the fact that this campaign, viewed simply 
as an experiment in the use of sea-power, has not 
produced anything like so large a crop of suc- 
cesses as might reasonably have been expected 
when the courage and skill of the officers and men 
employed and the greatly improved appliances 
which German science and skill had put at their 
la 
