LAND A N D W A T E R 
March z, 1916. 
34.1 months. Now it is a rommonplace of shipbuilding 
that the time taken to build a ship bears very httle 
relation to the time necessary for constructing the hull, 
engines and equipment, other than armament. The 
lest of shipbuilding capacity is to build gims, mountings 
and turrets. 
Now the maximum production of Germany up to the 
year iqi4. was nineteen 12-inch gun double turrets 
ior the jjrogrannne for a single year. But for our pro- 
gramme of i()i4, the ships promised for completion for 
the Koyal Navy, Brazil. Turkey, and Chili aggregated 
1 1 ships against the German nia.ximum of four, and a 
tonnage of 28^,500 against the tierman 104.000. These 
siiips were to carry thirty-eight 13.5 double turrets, eight 
13-inch double turrets, and seven 1 2-inch double turrets, 
liearing in mind tiiat the amount of work in producing 
larger guns, turrets, <;-tc., increases roughly as the cube of 
the calibre, then lifty-three 12. 13.5 and 13-inch turrets 
are equivalent to more than scvcnh-live j2-indi turrets 
It will thus be seen that while in tonnage our 1914 pro- 
grannne was a little less than three times greater than 
(iermany's maximum output, our ordnance production was 
practically four times greater. 
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It is now barely twenty months since the war began. 
Is it conceivable that a country which had never built a 
larger gun than the 12-inch, had never built war ships 
at a faster rate than jour per annum, and had taken 
nearly three year; for the construction of each, that 
had never produced more than a cjuarter of our proved 
capacity in armament — could so have multiplied its 
resources as to produce in twenty months a homogeneous 
squadron of say six 15-inch gun ships ? It would mean 
that Krupps had multiplied its productive capacity by 
nearly five, even if we ignore altogether the time that 
must be devoted to making the new plant, new' designs, 
and experiments and tests before guns and mountings of 
he new calibre could be undertaken at all. For this 
reason then, if for no other, it seems to me that the first 
alternative, viz., of Germany seeking a decisive action at 
sea, is unlikely. 
As to the; second, the whole thing turns upon this. 
Could a sufficiently large portion of the German l^'leet 
get away from our ileet into the .\tlantic, and hold the 
.Vlantic even with the help of the escaped liners, lotv^ 
( nough to bring about the military result required ? 
This, of course, is no less than to bring Great Britain to 
a starving point. Let us, for purposes of argument, 
assume that Germany has completed, say three, heavily 
armed units and that we have completed nothing beyond 
the iqi5 programme. That *vould give Germany 25 
ships to light our 42. Let us further assume that by 
sacriticing every destroyer and light cruiser she has 
got, Germany could force the British squadron into 
dcfensi\c manoeuvres and so get half her force past 
us unengaged. What start can this force obtain? it is 
inconceivable that it would be more than a very few 
boura' s*art. If Sir David Beatty has all the available 
battle cruisers under las command, i.e.. the ^4 Lions, the 
Indefatigable, the 3 InftexilAcs. with the Neie' Zealand and 
Australia, he would have a squadron of 10 ships with a 
maximum of speed of 28 knots and a minimum of 25. In 
a race across the Atlantic, say 3,000 miles, he could give 
a 20 knot fleet — and as a fleet the escaped 12 German 
ships could not go faster than this — nearly a day's start, 
and still get there lirst. .'\ud this leaves out of account 
altogether that the pursuit would be followed up by such 
of the 32 slower British capital ships that survived 
the action with the German 13. The problem of such a 
manoeuvre as this, it seems to me. needs only to be stated 
for the improbability of its success to be apparent. For 
6ven if the whole (ierman programme succeeded up to the 
point of arming the escaped liners, all our modern ships 
would be moved from the North Sea to the Atlantic, 
and the Germans would be kept far too busy trying to 
save themselves, for their programme of isolating Great 
Britain to ha\e any chanco of being realised. 
But a third course is not impossible. This would 
take the form of attempting to draw the British Fleet 
into action on, or south-east of, the Dogger Bank, where 
the water is both .shallow and near enough to Heligoland 
to lend itself to preparation for action on German lines. 
This preparation would include the laying of minc- 
lields and the pro\ision of submarine rendcivous. The 
tactics of battle would be directed towards drawing the 
British Fleet into areas so prepared — the idea being that 
the mines and torpedoes could rectify the inequality in 
the gun power of the two sides. It is precisely this form 
of battle which the British Commander-in-Chief will most 
certainly decline. So long as the German I-Teet is. as a 
fleet, powerless to question our use of the high seas, to 
seek its destruction at any risk is unnecessary. .\nd 
bearing in mind again that Germany's objective, in all 
this sea activity, is at least as clearly the destruction of 
her enemy's moral stability as the destruction of her 
military power, the public must be prepared to hear a 
(ierman boast that the North Sea has been entered, the 
British Meet challenged and the challenge declined. 
Administration and Agitation. 
Looking then all round the subject we have quite 
plainly and frankly to face a position in which our enemy 
will use every sea resource he has, with the utmost 
resolution and ruthlessness. Such incidents as the 
destruction of the Maloja will be repeated, and next 
time not, perhaps, within sight of Dover, but on the 
high seas. How are we going to bear ourselves under 
this strain ? It is fervently to be hoped that should 
things become serious there will be no recrudescence of 
agitation to shake public faith in the Admiralty. The 
attempt to make us believe that Germany had built 
a squadron of 17-inch gun ships and was re-arming her 
old ships with them, has failed, but it was an excuse for 
calling for greater \igour. Next we had the suggestion 
that the .\dmiralty was out of touch with the fleets, and 
incapable of giving unity to our naval action. The 
inference was that only one man was capable of restoring 
the reality of power to our sea forces. The British people 
have a curious inclination to believe that when things are 
wrong, it must be., in the power of some person, with 
whose name they are familiar, to put things right. But 
things are not wrong, and if they were they are far too 
complex for so simple a solution. 
There is no way now of making good the absence from 
our administration of that staff organisation which would 
ensure right doctrine and the best methods being applied in 
any case. But in/the, course of actual war something 
like it has, as a fact, been evolved. The Nation said, 
in its issue of I'ebruary iq, that a closer co-operation 
between Whitehall and Sir John JeHicoe was imperatively 
necessary. But it is ^ necessity that has never been 
ignored. Mr. Balfour, Sir Henry Jackson, Sir Henry 
01i\-er — these are not men who decline or forbid confi- 
dence. The Fleet is to-day in closer — because in less 
formal — contact with headquarters than at any time. 
If ever it was governed and directed by its own best 
brains, and in the light of its own experiences, it is now. 
And no other method of governing it is either desirable.or 
possible. Let 11s, then, be ready to bear 'whatever we 
must bear, in the certainty that the best is being done 
— and will be done. Akthl'K Pollkn. 
