LAND A X D WATER 
]\Iarch (), KjiG. 
That lie would inaHtvthc junction of the South American 
and West Indian trade routes off Pernanibuco his luuiting- 
ground was fully anticipated. It was also anticiimted 
that the attentions of the British cruisers would before 
very long make this hunting-f;round too hot for him. 
The next act, we all thouj^ht, would eithei* be a search for 
a safe hiding-place, or, at worst, internment under neutral 
shelter. But the Burgra\-e having captured or sunk no 
less than fifteen ships, and found in them a great deal of 
\-aluable booty, including (50,000 in bar gold, has, after 
all, taken cash and prisoners in triumph home, where 
flags, iron crosses, and the plaudits of his frenzied country- 
men will, one supposes, recompense him for the hazards 
he has so skilfully surmounted. 
The episode illustrates a great many truths of sea 
war which ought to be more familiar to us than they are. 
It shows again, for instance, how much more effecti\e is a 
ship than a submarine, so long as it can avoid an encounter 
with another ship of superior force. But in this case, it 
shows also something more. The advantage of the sub- 
marine over the surface ship is its capacity to hide inconti- 
nently at the first sight of danger, and to pass through 
danger zones unseen. The cruise of the Mocur reminds 
us that an effective disguise is only invisibility under 
another name. There is an incident in one of Mr. ("luster- 
ton's stories which bears directly on tliis point. A murder 
was committed in a block of Hats between certain hours. 
The onlv entrance was under the obser\ation of se\eral 
persons, including the porter at tlie door. All these 
witnesses swore that no one had entered between these 
hours. But l-'ather Brown had the perspicacity to note 
that when these peojjle said " nobody " they meant nobody 
who would e.xcite suspicion.. " Nobody " does not include 
for instance, the postman, whose visit is a matter of 
routine. And it is the postman who turns out to be the 
murderer. \\'e ha\'e then another category of sea force 
to remind us that the invisibility of the submarine is 
neither a no\el nor a unique quality. The disguised 
ship must be added to the destroyer at night and the 
mine by daw But, notwithstanding the somewhat 
startling and surprising successes of the Mocivc, it still 
remains true that no very extensive preying on our com- 
mercial ships is likely to be brought about by disguised 
(ierinan raiders. Others, no" doubt, may- try to rival 
these proceedings, but it is a mathematical certainty that 
most of them will fail. 
The Reply Blockade. 
The attack on commerce, whether by converted 
merchantmen, by fast cruisers, by privateers, as was the 
case in our father's days, or by submarines as in our own, 
is tile reply of a beU'agured country to its btsiegirs, and 
it has ne\er yet been a successful reply. Om- blockade of 
Germany, so far as Cerman shipping is concerned, is com- 
plete and absolute. Our blockade of (lerman ])orts, so far 
as neutrals arc concerned, is equally complete. Our 
blockade, at one or more removes Ikroiv^h neutral ports, 
is another matter altogether. The effort to cut off all 
sujjplies being brought to (iermany in neutral ships 
through neutral ports, can, in the nature of things, never 
be complete unless we are prepared to con\ert into action 
Sir Edward Grey's dictum about the non-neutrality of 
neutral ojjposition to the exercise of our admitted rights. 
But though not complete, and even though large quanti- 
ties of food in fact, enter Germany, it is to be remembered 
that Germany's need must ob\iously be entirely incommen- 
surate with this form of supply. 1 observed, for instance, 
some few days ago, a statement that Holland was feeding 
German^^ and the allegation was based upon the alleged 
fact that the imports of food in 1(^15 were greater by 17,000 
tons than the average of 1914 and loij. But 17,000 tons 
is onh' eight or nine ounces ])er head of the ])oi)ulation 
— say a breakfast of dubious adecpiacy on one day of the 
year. If Germany got no larger extra supply of food from 
Holland than this, it would not carry a jjopulation. 
accustomed to import one-tenth of its total support 
from abroad, very far. The point of her attack on our 
trade, however, is not to increase her own supply, but 
to diminish ours. And as was long since pointed out by 
Mahaii, all these cruiser and priwitt.vr efforts in attacking 
trade, can bear no comparison in effect with the commerce 
ihstruction that follows from effecti\e blockade. 
What the Germans are booing against hope to effect 
is' "the 'reversal ojfnheJg^eart A'merican writct's ^ictum. 
Nor is it possible to exaggerate tlie importance of the 
stake that they are playing for. Foreign trade, or as it 
is perhaps more scientific to call it during war— foreign 
supplies — must always be a matter of vital moment 
to a country whose economic life and well being is based 
primarily, or even largely upon the give and take of over- 
seas connnerce. But if this was true in the great wars 
of 100 years ago, it is a truth that applies with enor- 
inously greater emphasis to-day because the ratio of 
national resources devoted to war is now so much greater 
than it was in olden times. 
When every Euroi>ean nation is mobiliring at 
the present time ten per cent of its po])ulation to light, 
and oringing all these into the field within two years 
instead of within twenty.^ the intensity with which 
economic forces aftect the situation must grow with a 
corresponding, concentration. The Germans, therefore, 
are gauging the situation quite correctly in supposing 
that if they can ciit off the overseas supplies of France, 
luigland and Russia they will be doing more towards 
determining tlie war in their fa\'our than by any success 
tiiat the most sanguine Hun can think possible on land. 
The destruction of ships, if carried far enough, must be 
vital, because it is on ships that this war is ])riinarily 
based. It is ob\iou:., for instance, that if the submarine 
campaign of i()i5 Juid been, let us say, three times as 
destructive as in fact it was, Great Britain and her 
Allies must have been so short of shipping as to have 
been gravely hanchcapped in tiie double task of keeping 
their civil populations well fed and content, white at the 
same time maintaining great military forces in the field 
that must be supplied from ()\-ersea. .'\nd notwith- 
standing the comparative failure of the first submarine 
campaign, and even if its sequel is no more successful, the 
event may still prove that the supreme direction has been 
gravely at fault in ignoring the danger from this quarter. 
There has been a neglect to continue the construction 
of merchant shipping, which in war, is a vital national 
necessity. Secondly tliere has been no adcciuaie effort 
to see that such shipping as is available is employed 
solely for those supplies that are necessary for the suste- 
nance of the people and the successful carrying on of the 
war. Everything else is a check on military efficiency. 
And to remedy both these things very drastic measures 
must be taken, and taken soon, h'or although there is so 
far no proof that tlie new submarine campaign is any 
more efficient than the old, it seems jjnident to ^nppos',' 
that it is likely to prove so. 
Fortunately it cannot prove seriously nion- clte( ii\e 
without, as we have fretpiently seen in these pages, 
bringing Germany into conflict with the United States. 
And there are many indications that this certainty 
is daunting the (iennan critics of tiie \un Tirjiitz policy 
Sea Power in the Black Sea and North Sea. 
There is not space this week to do- more than note 
the significance of \arious items of news. The Russian 
Black Sea Fleet has joined hands with the Russian .Vrmy in 
Anatolia. A landing has been effected at Atina, and 'i"re- 
bizond is not likely to hold out nnich longer. The speed of a 
military movement westward from the Trebizond- 
luv.eroum line must gain greatly by the supplies and 
reinforcements which will reach General I'ndarich with 
far greater rai)idity, once he can establish an ad\anced 
sea base. Neithtr the Gocb:n nor any of the surviving 
Turkish battleships have shown any such capacity for 
action as would lead one to suppose that the}' can redeem 
the .situation at sea. The success of the Russians by 
both land and water is so complete, the embarrassment 
into wlii(-h Constaiitiiidple is thrown so great, that we may 
soon be wbiuleriiig whethei' it was altogether wise to have 
left (iallipoli when wv'did. 
The German Fleet in" Being and Buildinj^. 
.\ circumstantial telegram from Holland asserts that , 
a German fleet of over zo units has been seen off the Dutch 
coast. That the 'High Seas licet might come out and 
l^arade in shallow water is a contingency that was ])ointet: 
out last week to be extremely i)robable And no com- 
ment on tiie news' of i^ndi an e\ent standing by itself i; 
necessary. 
