December 4, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
" Precisely those which would cause our people to beg 
for peace." Hence all the horrors and deeds of fright- 
fulness at which the world has stood aghast ! 
Here it would be well to notice how unwittingly 
our enemies have exposed the true inwardness of their 
own character by their interpretation of the psychology 
of other nations. Knowing that fear and greed are the 
two most potent influences by which they themselves are 
swayed, they calmly assume that by these same influences 
the whole world can be governed. This affords us a 
most interesting view of the kind of " Kultur " the 
Germans have acquired. It is a fact that the greatest 
surprise and disappointment the German rtilers have yet 
experienced during the war, is the utter failure of their 
deeds of frightfulness^Zeppelin raids, etc. — to create 
panic and terror among their adversaries. This has 
puzzled them beyond words. That their methods have 
succeeded in the Balkans need not astonish us, for it is 
among those races whose psychology and morals (or 
r«nnorals) are nearest akin to' their own, that one would 
naturally have predicted the results that have happened, 
one might almost say inevitably. 
The psychological factor is far. too large a subject 
with which to deal in detail within the space of a single 
article. Some time ago I suggested the creation of a 
" Ministry of Psychology " to work in conjunction with 
the Ministry of War and Munitions. Perhaps a 
" Ministry of Publication " would be a better term, since 
it is chiefly by publication that psj-chological effects are 
produced. The object of such a Ministry would be to 
endeavour to influence — through suitable channels — 
piblic opinion, both at home and abroad, and enlist the 
sympathies of all neutral countries ; to supervise and 
censor all publications at home and to stimulate and 
encourage the martial feelings of our own soldiers and 
sailors, as well as those of our civilians, by giving ample 
information of the origin, meaning and object of thecou- 
flict ; the results to this country and to the ♦•■wid if th« 
enemy succeeds, and also if he is defeated. Graphic 
accounts of military and naval encounters and exploits 
against the enemy and publications of the names of those 
regiments, ships, officers and men who have distinguished 
themselves should be given as often as possible. The 
presentation of suitable scenes and incidents in the 
Great War by films, which should be shown, not only to 
the troops themselves and civilians, but particularly to 
those employed in munition and other works. Had a 
large number of such views, been prepared by us and 
arrangements made for their displa}' by means of cinema 
shows accompanied by lectures at all the great industrial 
centres once or twice ever}- month, there would have been 
for instance in the past, far less delay in munition work. 
Such a Ministry would necessarily require a profound 
and intimate knowledge of the psychology of all nations, 
including, of course, our own. 
No finer war material was ever possessed by a nation 
than the men who form our armies and navies in this 
great war. That they have maintained their cheerfulness 
and ardour with so little help and encouragement from 
those psychological aids which our enemies provide in 
abundance, shows the wonderful quality of the men. 
The war is not yet over. The psychological factor will 
assume a greater and greater importance as the end 
approaches. It is not yet too late for the Allies — and 
particularly Great Britain — to create a department con- 
trolled by men of world-wide experience, who would know 
how to employ this factor in a manner that would prove 
of incalculable value to the Allied Cause. 
THE BISHOP OF RUHLEBEN. 
By Francis Gribble. 
'rr\i 
^HE Bishop " was our nickname for him ; he was 
really a Baptist Minister who summoned 
sinners to repentance in one of the smaller 
towns in the Rhine Provinces, exhorting them 
at the top of his truculent voice, somewhat after the 
manner of a German non-commissioned officer cursing 
his company, and in the German lariguage. Technically 
he was a British subject, and his name was English 
enough — suppose I call him Robinson. Vcr^- possibly 
his great-great-grandfather had been English : but he 
himself only spoke linghsh with the laborious inexactitude 
of one who had learnt it in a German school . and his 
sympathies, of which he made no secret, were those of a 
German of the Goti strajc England kind. Consequently 
he regarded himself as a martyr. 
"It rejoices me that I suffer for Germany," he once 
said to me ; whereto I answered : 
" Very well, my friend. I wish you a Merry Christmas 
and a Happy Heldentod ' ; and he looked pained, and 
sulked. 
His case, he felt, was the harder because it had been 
given out that ministers of religion would not be in- 
terned ; but religion is only religious in German eyes 
when it is a branch of the Civil Service. Baptists, from 
the point of view of the State, are irregular practitioners, 
no more to be regarded as clergymen than faith-healers 
are to be regarded as doctors ; so here was Dr. Robinson 
• — an oleaginous elderly gentleman with a flowing beard 
— marching by day to fetch his soup from the. kitchen in 
a tin bowl, and sleeping by night on a bed of straw laid 
upon concrete in the loose box of a stable. And all that 
in correct ecclesiastical costume — black coat, white tie 
and all the rest of it. 
" It is God's will," he moaned, " that I should 
endure this trial." 
" It must be a great consolation to you," we replied, 
" to think that you are only being treated as you deserve 
:o be." That also made him cross. 
As a matter of fact, however, he was better off 
:han most of us. The ilock to which he had been ac- 
customed to minister sjMritually now ministered to him 
materially. Parcels of good things to eat poured in upon 
him at Ruhleben ; tinned meats, tinned fruits, pots of 
jam, pots of hone}', cakes of chocolate, jars of dried 
fruit. So he and his son — a good-looking boy who spoke 
no English at all — lived on the fat of the land, while 
the rest of us consumed the prison fare. I cannot remem- 
ber that the old man ever offered so much as a stick of 
chocolate or a fig to the other inmates of his bo.x — his 
" stable-companions " as we called ourselves. 
His conversation, even more than that of his stable- 
companicns, ran on the subject of release. There was 
a spiritualist in our Barrack who declared that he had 
fallen into a trance, in which it had been revealed to him 
that all the civil prisoners would be released in the 
course of the first fortnight in January. He was a queer- 
looking person, with a far-away look in his eyes, whose 
mind had probably been inihinged by persecution ; and 
people's attitude towards him varied. Some announced 
that they would punch his head if his ])rediction were not 
fulfilled ; others clung to the belief that the man was 
really a seer who had been privileged to jjeep down the 
vistas of futurity. Dr. Robinson belonged to the latter 
group. He held long confabulations with the spiritualist 
who was, to all intents, a German like himself. 
" These things are mysteries," he said. " God, 
chooses his own instruments for his own purposes. It may 
be that, if I pray without ceasing " 
But Dr. Robinson did not place his whole rehance 
upon prayer ; he also tried, in vulgar language, to " work 
the oracle " by other means. We frequently observed 
him engaged in whispered colloquies with his son; we 
wondered what it was all about, and we eventually 
discovered. 
It had been made known that any elderly gentleman of 
unblemished character would be allowed to return to his 
home if he had sons of military age who were willing to 
join the German army ; and Dr. Robinson was bringing 
pressure to bear upon his first-born. 
" For my sake — " 
" £s gcht nicht." 
" For your poor mother's sake — " 
" Hs gcht nicht." 
" For the ^ake of Gemiany — " 
" Es gcht nicht." - , 
Such were the scraps of conversation which we 
TO 
