LAND AND WATEE 
September 25, 1915. 
them was thaf we were free for ever from the 
crushing weight of maintaining large armies, so 
long as we maintained a suincient fleet. The 
theory, therefore, stipulated a Navy of overwhelm- 
ing strength; a professional army small in 
numbers, but highly trained and perfectly 
equipped, for service beyond the seas; and, as a 
sort of reserve — should, despite the Navy, a 
military defence of these islands prove tem- 
?orarily necessary — a partly trained but numerous 
'erritorial Force. If we were involved in a 
European war, it would be for oxir Allies to supply 
the main land forces. Another theory, also, held 
the field, which gave coherence to the first. It was 
that, should war break out, the Powers would be 
so grouped that the superiority in numbers would 
be on the side of those with whom we should be 
allied. The supposition, then, that we could take 
part in a Continental war without possessing an 
army on a Continental scale seemed perfectly 
reasonable. 
But the theory that the Russian and French 
numbers combined would be superior to the Ger- 
lyan and Austrian numbers was very soon proved 
to be entirely fallacious, and we have had to 
rectify this disparity. 
It is one of the paradoxes of the present state 
of afi'airs that the possession of an invincible 
Navy — the corner-stone of the old theory — in- 
stead of freeing us from military obligations, has 
placed them on our shoulders. The sea, which 
we all looked upon as the main outwork in the 
lines of national defence, has, by the very scale of 
our naval strength, been converted into a conduit 
which makes this country one with the territory 
of our Allies. So absolutely is our sea supremacy 
accepted by the enemy that we have lost, in a mili- 
tary sense, some of both the advantages and the 
disadvantages of being an island. The more 
completely is the sea an obstacle to an enemy's 
invasion the more completely does it become an 
open road for the advance of our own armies. 
So far, then, from our great fleet having relieved 
us of the duty of creating and maintaining an 
army proportionate in strength to itself, it is 
precisely the fleet, and nothing else, that, by 
enabling us to use such a force, has imposed on us 
the burden of creating it. 
has saved civilisation in the last twelve months. 
Is what our seamen have won for us and humanity 
once more to be whittled away by lawyers ? The 
whole controversy is to be deprecated, and upon 
several grounds. The Foreign Secretary surely 
did not fly his kite to conciliate or please Ger- 
many. There will be time enough to deal with 
Germany's wishes when Germany is beaten. As 
certainly it was not done to please our Allies, for 
France, Russia, and Italy all owe a debt to the 
British Fleet indistinguishable from our own. 
Was it done to please America? We have made 
many concessions, many derogations from our sea 
rights, to ease the strain of war to the traders 
of the great Republic. It may be wise and profit- 
able to make further concessions still, so long as 
every such concession is without prejudice to our 
general rights, and on the distinct understanding 
that we are not bound by it as by a precedent. 
In the year of war the United States of America 
have been of great service to the belligerent 
Powers. The lot of prisoners has been improved ; 
the miseries of Belgium assuaged. In a great 
war there is a manifest role for the kindly and 
humane intervention of a great neutral Power, 
and in every philanthropic respect America has 
filled that role nobly. America as a great neutral 
market is of incalculable value to all of us. And, 
both for her philanthropic and material help, 
America is entitled to very special consideration. 
AMERICA AND THE ISSUES. 
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS. 
It is precisely when one recognises that our 
share in this war is in the strictest sense of words 
less in our own cause than in the cause of freedom 
and of right, and of all that civilisation stands 
for, that one regrets most that Sir Edward Grey 
should have been drawn into controversy over the 
Freedom of the Seas." Without question, his 
letter on this subject has excited very genuine un- 
easiness and alarm. It seemed as if there were 
something in our sea-power he would willinffly 
if he could, disown. Much of the uneasiness and 
all the alarm should be dissipated by what Lord 
Robert Cecil had to say last week. But it still 
ev^r^r ^I^r^^'y to the onlooker why we should 
ever have taken a share in this controversy at all 
of Tr.^'fol''''''" ^ fentury-that is. since the Battle 
^disnntif" ~^''- ^?."^"^^"d of the sea has been 
^tiof ^n J^r^^ ^disputable. There is not a 
pAT V^^ T''^'^ 'h^t- i° all this long period 
Tower t'-" ^l ^"- '^"^^^ "°J"^*^ "«« ofTr ea-' 
ftTZ'A /' *^^ existence of this sea-power and 
it^ moderate and civilised employment that alone 
12 
But the present is something more than a 
great war. The issues are neither national nor 
dynastic. The Old World is in arms to break or 
save the old civilisation. And on these issues 
America has not yet declared itself. In the in- 
vasion of Belgium, in the treatment of non-com- 
batants, in the bombardment by sea and air of 
undefended towns, and in countless other ways, 
the Germans, from the very opening of the war' 
proclaimed themselves outlaws from the code that 
binds civilised peoples when they fight. 
Mr. Wilson passed each offence without pro- 
test. It was not until Germany extended her 
atrocities from the land to the sea, and announced 
a policy which must result in indiscriminate 
murder that America perceived that Germany's 
claim that her necessities overrode the rules 'of 
right and wron^ would threaten American lives 
and American rights as no atrocities on land had 
done. And m due course there followed the out- 
rages on American ships and American passen- 
gers, culminating in the murders of the Lusitania 
and the Arabic. The position to-day is that Ger- 
many has for two months been in receipt of an 
American ultimatum to which Berlin has not re- 
plied. That the American Administration has 
not treated the last Lusitania Note as an ultima- 
tum and acted on it when the AraUc was sunk 
fr.^M? ^"^ air of unreality to the threat whicli 
that Note contained. But it cannot be doubted 
that, however patient Washington may be, Ger- 
many will either have to yield or America must 
intervene. 
Her position, then, with regard to the main 
controversy-Germany versus^ civilisation-is 
tl}jf^^T\- ^^'^ ^^"g t^^^ ^ase, is it not 
premature to discuss the rules of war until we 
V\!^^i% ""^""iT ^^^^' '^^°™ ^^e have to discuss 
them ? For if America is driven into belligerency, 
its views of the use of sea power can hardly sur- 
