NovemDer 27, 1915. 
LAND AND W A I E K 
of these enterprising navigators in the service of 
their submarines. A strict blockade, if it serves 
no other purpose, may give us the opportunity of 
seeing to wliat extent if at all, this traffic is being 
carried on, and that will be useful information 
whatever the political results of the blockade may 
be. 
MORE SUBMARINES FOR THE BALTIC. 
It is perhaps wiser to regard the story of 
Dreadnoughts escorting our submarines to the 
Sound more as symptomatic of the state of mind 
of observers in Sweden and Norway, than as 
evidence of the somewhat sensational events it 
represents as having happened. That more sub- 
marines will be sent into the Baltic we may take 
for granted, probably in point of .fact as many as 
the situation there calls for. There is, of course, 
a limit to the number that can conveniently 
be kept supplied by our Allies, and equally a 
limit to the number that can be spared. But it is 
known that large orders were placed for submarines 
when the war began, and it is not unlikely that 
while the Russian preparations for looking after 
our submarines have been increasing, our own 
supply of submarines has grown far beyond our 
home needs. 
If cruisers, battleships and torpedo-boat 
destroyers were sent to escort submarines past 
the Skaw and into the Cattegat, it would not 
probably be with the primary idea of protecting 
the submarines. It is quite possible that sweeping 
movements of all arms of this sort may from 
time to time be undertaken, but it would be more 
with the idea of catching any German cruiser 
bold enough to push its way out than to stand 
between the submarine and the cruiser. For 
that matter, it is far more likely that the cruiser 
would be afraid of the submarine than the sub- 
marine of the cruiser. Enemy destroyers, of 
course, stand on a different basis. They are fast 
and small and difficult marks to hit with a torpedo. 
But if it were intended to convoy the submarines, 
to protect them against destroyer attacks, one 
would e.xpect the convoy to consist chiefly of 
destrovers also. The story describes the British 
flotilla as being dri\en oil' by superior German 
numbers. 
The primary object ot convoying, if it were 
done, would not, I imagine, be to make the journey 
an}' safer for the submarine, but only to ensure a 
longer surface passage to it. Running awash, 
modern submarines can do anything from 16 to 
19 knots. The under-water speed of the fastest 
is scarcely ever more than 10, and it takes a 
considerable period on the surface to store up the 
electrical energy necessary for running under 
water. It is, therefore, well worth while to save 
the submarine every hour's submersion that is 
possible. And once in or through the Sound, it is 
important that the submarine should have in 
reserve its utmost capacity fol" submerged work. 
If anything like the numbers mentioned by these 
correspondents have gone through, it seems reason- 
able to look for still greater stringency in the 
blockade of the Russian and Courland coasts. 
There has been little news from this field of war 
for some time, but it is to be remembered that we 
may hear of no new casualties, because both the 
Russians and the Germans have good reasons for 
keeping the progress of the campaign secret. 
Much of the news that reaches us from Sweden and 
Norway is obviously unreliable. Note for instance 
that there is no confirmation of a successful attack 
on the Frauenlob. 
A. H. POLLEN. 
[The above was written before the Foreign Office 
statement oj Wednesday, A'oveinber 2.\th.] 
LIFE OF RUSSIAN FUGITIVES. 
By Stephen Graham. 
THE greatest phenomenon of this autumn in 
Russia is the great movement eastward of the 
Slav population "of Western Russia — Poles, 
Little Russians, Russians, Lithuanians. Some 
two million have fled at the approach of the Geriuans, 
and all roads north, south arid east are crowded day in 
day out with the everlasting procession of old men, women 
and children, with their carts and their liorses and their 
cattle.. 
All Western Russia is on the road, and the distinctive 
dresses of a dozen provinces may be noted, the different 
style of the sheepskin and its embroidered sleeves, of the 
ornamented cottons of the women, of the way of doing 
the hair. The rich, the townsfolk, have long since gone 
by rail and have got into the more comfortable places in 
Central and Eastern Russia. They were thick at the great 
termini of Moscow, and Kief and Petrograd last August, 
and have been distributed. But the poor arc on the road 
and afford an historic, though pathetic and even harrowing 
spectacle. Ahead come the stronger, the better fed and 
the less poor, and behind them drags the long crowd less 
and less hale, the broken, the weary, the desolate. Along 
the great highways are established relief stations— 
" pitatelny punkti " — ^where free food is given out — bread, 
hot tea, pork-fat, salt, where medical aid is afforded, police 
orders as to direction received, shelter given to a few. The 
police direct the stream to this road, or that road, and give 
to each family a paper with a written allocation. There- 
is endless ditficulty over providing food, over attending to 
dysentery and typhoid cases. Fortunately there is neither 
typhus nor cholera, and the autumn weather is unusually 
warm and dry. But there is appaUing distress. Just before 
leaving Petrograd 1 heard Punshkeyc\'itch give his im- 
pressions of the road. He had travelled in his relief car 
past leagues of carts, hstened to the cries of lost and fright- 
ened children in the forests and given the help he could, 
emptied all his provisions and medicines as he went. His 
story brought tears to the eyes. Another Russian who has 
been along the roads describes the streets of Roslavl, the 
first great Russian town reached by the Poles and Little 
Russians coming out of the broken and ruined West. 
" Along the main street of Roskul, from earliest 
morning till the darkness of night, without interruption, 
without ceasing, go two processions, one one way, the 
other the other. 
" On one side of the road come an endless series of 
grey carts, one after another endlessly — and pass away 
towards that s retch of the road where yesterday we 
saw innumerable camp bonfires. 
" On the other side, coming from that place, come 
refugees on horseback, some astride, some side-saddle on 
little worn-out horses. They go to the town market. 
" Betwixt the two processions is the long empty 
alley of the street. 
" On neither side is a word spoken. 
" It is as if funeral processions going in opposite 
directions were meeting one another. They do not look 
at one another's faces ; it is as if they passed without 
remarking. 
" .\re these who go to th ■ town going to seek 
food ? To enquire what further orders have been 
given as to their point of destination '^ No, no, they are 
carrying coftins back tothetown. Mostly children's cothns. 
" A peasant is carrying a coftin on his shoulders. 
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