LAND AND ^V A T E R 
January ij, KjiO. 
THE FLEET AT WAR. 
By ARTHUR POLLEN. 
ON Friday of last week, I had the liuuoui 
of accompanying a party of journalists 
on a visit to one of the minor naval 
bases, the headquarters of certain 
squadions and flotillas of light cruisers, 
destroyers, and submarines. There is something 
extraordinarily stirring in seeing such craft and 
r^ien as we saw and met on the occasion. Sub- 
marines, destroyers, cruisers, — they were all just 
in from sea, just on the point of going out again. 
We caught them, as it were, on one of their all 
too short rests from toil and danger. The ships 
and men bore ample exidence of both. Some 
like Arethiisa were badly battle-scarred from 
stem to stern ; on others the cicatrices of the sea 
had hardly healed. Cheery and brave hearted in 
speech and bearing as were all we met, there was, 
to the discerning eye, a certain gravity behind 
their pleasant civilities that enhanced the dignity 
that always seems either innate or acquired by 
sailors. To converse with them, fresh from their 
work, the honours of war upon them, makes one 
long for a fuller record of the daily doings of the 
comrades the world over. What would one not 
give for a full account of the tales of the Kingani 
on Lake Tanganyika, of the naval brigades in the 
Cameroons, of the river boats on the Tigris ? 
How real are the dangers of the sea, quite apart 
from action, might have been brought home to us 
from the fact that Arethusa had lost her Gunnery 
Lieutenant— washed overboard — in the course of 
the last trip. One of the submarines, just like 
those we saw, had been driven on to the beach in 
Holland during the week. Almost while we were 
there King Edward VII. had gone down all 
standing — fortunately without loss of life, a 
triumph of good discipline and seamanship. It 
was barely a week since the Naial had blown up 
with all on board. The sea hardly really needs 
war to make it terrible ; and warships carry 
their perils with them. 
GERMANY AND AMERICA. 
Telegrams from Washington assure us that 
the trouble between the German and the American 
Government is about to be terminated in a manner 
satisfactory to both sides. We have heard the 
story of this impending settlement so often — 
the words of Germany's undertaking seem to be 
singularly like those gi\en in August — that it is as 
well to reserve judgment as to the character of the 
solution until the fact that there is a solution is 
officially announced. But the defiance of Wash- 
ington could not continue indehnitely. President 
Wilson, after all, sent Berlin an ultimatum in 
the month of July, and to that iiltimatum there 
has as yet been no answer whatever. America 
has taught us so many new lessons in the art of 
trying to remain dignified under sustained injury 
and inJ'alt, that it may seem rash to say that 
there was any obvious limit to what she could 
endure at Berlin's hands. Still, appearances 
notwithstanding, I have, as my readers perhaps 
weariedly remember, insisted throughout that 
either Germany would surrender, or America 
would light. It was not the second of these two 
ihiags that was most likely to happen. It will 
therefore be no surprise to me if in the end 
Germany's surrender is in such terms, and accom- 
panied by such substantial cash compensation 
and such solemn promises as to future conduct, 
as would actually set the question of the past 
murders at rest, and apparently set the whole 
future conduct of submarine war upon a new and 
more civilised basis. 
The first thing to strike the detached observer 
of these events is that, knowing Germany's 
record from August, 1914, to the present time, the 
American Government should find it possible to 
accept Germany's word as to her future conduct. 
It cannot be given more solemnly to the United 
States than it was given to Belgium. A signature 
to an understanding made in Washington is surely 
no more sacred than one made at the Hague, 
yet it was here that Germany bound herself 
not to sink a Prize without securing the safety 
of all persons on hoard the Prize; nor to 
scatter loose mines upon trade routes ; nor to sink 
vessels of fishers and other poor men of the sea. 
However, it is for America to judge the value 
of German paper. If memory serves me right, 
seven liners have been sunk since Mr. Wilson 
stated that a single instance of such conduct 
would be regarded as " deliberately unfriendly." 
Will he take Berlin's word to mean peace, when 
he does not take her acts to mean war ? 
A SETTLEMENT ALTERS NOTHING. 
What cQncerns us more nearly is, the effect 
such a settlement, if it is arrived at, will have 
upon the war. Very few people in this country 
suppose that the interests either of Great Britain 
particularly, or of the Allies generally, have been 
at all gravely prejudiced by the submarine 
campaign. Our feelings have been harrowed, and 
our indignation inflamed by the murders it has 
involved. But they have not deterred our mer- 
chant seamen from going to sea. Judging by the 
'Note verbale Germans and Austrians are far 
more frightened of submarines than we. 
Grievous as our losses in brave, innocent 
and valuable lives have been, they have not 
affected our capacity to subdue our enemy by 
battle and siege. Our losses in material have 
been high too, but not high relatively to what we 
have suffered in previous wars — certainly not 
high relatively to the total of national merchant 
shipping. They are inconsiderable compared with 
the total of national wealth, and the national 
economic sacrifices that we have to endure whether 
the submarine campaign exists or not. And it 
follows that if the campaign does not hurt us, 
it cannot help Germany. If then the American 
settlement were to end the submarine attacks 
altogether - and this, be it remembered, was the 
l)osition President Wilson took in his first Notes 
on this subject — it would not affect the war un- 
favourably to Germany, or favourabty to the 
Allied cause in any material manner whatever. 
But the converse of course, is not true. Were 
America to decide that the militarism of which 
the German Government is the expression is the 
