February 3, 1916. 
LAND AUD water 
fighting on the Russian front, but the fantastic figure 
pf 11,000 given in the House of Commons is negligible. 
Reprissls. 
In the present mood of the enemy it is exceedingly 
important that opinion, in this country especially, should 
be clear headed upon the question of reprisals. 
Reprisals in war, which cannot be often repeated, 
must have a military object, and a mihtary object alone. 
In other words, if during war you forgot even for a moment 
the prime object of war — if you turn to consider 
revenge for mere " scoring " or occupation of territory, or 
the discomtiture of important persons, you are not only 
losing your own power but you are inevitably lowering 
your general fighting strength. 
Reprisals, then, are essentially political acts under- 
taken with a political object, which political object is 
expected to react upon the whole military situation. 
Short of that they are worth nothing. If, for instance, 
you are fighting an enemy who tortures his prisoners, 
as savage tribes have done in warfare against Europeans, 
there would be nothing but waste of energy and worse 
in torturing the prisoners you took unless you thought 
that such an action might weaken the moral of the 
enemy. The punishment you propose to inflict upon an 
imscrupulous, barbaric, or insane enemy, should in all 
military common sense be postponed to the period of 
execution which follows victory. 
If we only keep this first principle steadily in mind, 
it will be a sure guide to the actions wherewith we 
should meet the enemy's consistent and increasing 
tendency to savage or insane action in the present struggle. 
It is always from the enemy's side that the first breaches 
of common morals have come. They began with the 
murder of innocent civilians, nuirders committed with the 
object of striking terror and securing the passage of his 
armies. They proceeded to indiscriminate murder at 
sea, then to the use of poison gases on land, and to the 
dropping of high explosives upon open towns. They 
may perfectly well in the near future go on to the employ- 
ment of poison in ordinary life, they may attempt to 
taint the water supplies of our great cities ; they may 
go from that to the massacre of prisoners. They have 
no very clear object in what they are doing. Their 
action is spasmodic and sometimes particularly exulted in 
because they are inexcusable. Their general motive 
is obvious enough. They propose to cause confusion 
in the political organisation of the Alhes, dissatisfaction 
of citizens with their Government, and weariness with 
the war in general. As against these attempts we must 
remember that the modern German is politically vulner- 
able for reprisals for two reasons : first of all, he is ner- 
vous in type, mainly a town dweller, and, as the whole 
course of the war has proved, peculiarly unstable under 
a nervous strain. He is, especially during this struggle, 
in a mood of " exultation." Secondly, he has been almost 
entirely immmie so far as his own soil and his own political 
organisation are concerned. 
The conclusion is that sharp reprisals undertaken 
as soon as possible after eacla of his crimes would 
be of real service, though reprisals should be thorough., 
but should occupy as little of the energy and the time 
of the Allies as possible. And it is to be concluded 
with fair certitude that if a few really vigorous examples 
were made with certain of the Rhenish towns, for instance, 
together with action against enemy property, it would 
infiuence him in the immediate future. H, Belloc. 
AN EVENTFUL WEEK. 
By Arthur Pollen. 
THE past week has been interesting for three 
exceedingly important developments. In the 
Blockade debate, the Government did not dis- 
close either the character of the steps to make 
the siege of Germany more strict, nor indeed that greater 
stringency was to be enforced. Yet the debate as a 
whole made this intention obvious. That the American 
attitude towards the belligerents is on the verge of 
dramatic change can hardly be questioned. On Thurs- 
day, January, 27th, the summary of Mr. Lansing's new 
note on submarine war and the arming of merchantmen, 
was published, and it was followed immediately by a 
series of speeches by Mr. Wilson, all couched in a tone 
entirely new to that strong but singular man. It is 
significant that the Note and the speeches coincided 
with the stay in Berhn of Colonel House, reputed to be 
Mr. Wilson's unofiicial emissary to Europe. Finally the 
news that anchored German mines had been found oH 
the Spanish coast and that ships had been lost by them, 
indicate new and tragic departures by the enemy. 
The Blockade Debate. 
The case Sir Edward Grey had to meet in the debate 
was, that the Government had not carried out Mr. Asquith's 
threat that we would prevent commodities of any kind 
from entering or leaving Germany. It was part of the 
case that this failure could partly be explained by the 
fact that we had proceeded by a method of 
our own, under an Order in Council, instead of by strict 
blockade, which the facts of the naval situation and a 
reasonable interpretation of the American doctrine of 
" continuous voyage " would have enabled us to do. It 
is, of course, only by an appeal to this doctrine that we 
establish our title to hit at Germany through the neutral 
ports at all. A blockade, it was maintained, would add 
nothing to the diplomatic difficulties of the position, 
would indeed in some respects simplify it, by resting 
our case on a better legal basis, and, if feasible, must 
certainly be more effective. It was also urged that, in 
proceeding against Germany at sea we should act as the 
agent of all the Allies, and not as if the cause were our 
own singly. 
Such was the case put forward by Mr. Benn and Mr. 
LesHe Scott, and it is substantially identical with the 
suggestions put forward in these columns since September 
last. On only one of the points raised did Sir Edward 
Grey give any direct satisfaction to his critics. He inade 
it clear that for the future all discussion with America is 
to be carried on by Great Britain and France jointly. 
I have urged this now for five months, and the concession 
seems to me both useful and important. For the rest 
Sir Edward Grey made no attempt to answer any of these 
criticisms ; nor did he see his way to accept any other of 
the suggestions made. Indeed he made light of his 
opponents. A certain proportion of goods had no doubt 
got past us to the enemy, but Lord Faringdon, who had 
made special enquiries into the matter, was S itisfied that 
much less had gone through " than could have been 
expected " — a not very specific method of indicating the 
success or failure of our efforts. The figures that had 
recently been published had been subjected on the 
j>revious day to a somewhat damaging criticism in a 
White Paper issued by the War Trade Department. 
Sir Edward pushed this form of criticism still further, 
and repudiated with complete success the accusation that 
the Foreign Office had interfered with the action of- the 
Admiralty. He also asserted with great force and vigour 
that if we attempted a strict blockade of all the neutrals 
in Europe, we might indeed end the war more quickly, 
but in a fashion disastrous to ourselves. Indeed nearly 
ten out of the sixteen columns of Sir Edward Grey's speech 
in Hansard are devoted to these three points, the mis- 
leading figures of the American exports, the alleged 
interference by the diplomatists with the navy, the folly 
of threatening all Eiuope with a blockade for tlic sake ol 
starving Germany. But no one in the House of Commons 
had made himself responsible for any of these accusations 
or proposals, so that Sir Edward was demolisliing critics 
who hadn't appeared in the lists against him. 
Up to this point it was as if he had said that the 
blockade was so well managed that it could hardly be 
