May 4, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
LAND & WATER 
EMPIRE HOUSE, KINGSWAY, LONDON, W.C 
Telephone: HOLBORN 2828 
THURSDAY, MAY 4. 1916 
CONTENTS 
The Last Ride Together. By Louis Raemaekers i 
ItaHan Etchings., (Photographs.) 2 
The PoUtical Situation. (Leading Article.) 3 
The Battle of Verdun is Won. By Hilaire Belloc 4 
Contrasts in Sea Methods. By Arthur Pollen 8 
The City of Fear.— A Poem. By Gilbert Frankau 10 
Sortes ShakespearianiE. By Sir Sidney Lee 11 
British Kinship with France. By Arthur L. Salmon 12 
Air Problems. By F. W. Lanchester 13 
Waste. By Charles W. Simpson 15 
German Trade Methods. By Arthur Kitson 17 
Italian Etchings. By Marcus B. Huish 18 
Chaya. By H. dc Vere Stacpoole 19 
Town and Country . 24 
The West End 26 
Choosing Kit 
xvn. 
THE POLITICAL SITUATION 
THE statement made by Mr. Asquith in the House 
of Commons on Tuesday has done a great deal 
to clear the political situation. For the first 
time we have been explicitly and officially told, 
what was of course well known to the enemy, that this 
country alone is maintaining 71 divisions in the field — ■ 
apart from 12 divisions contributed by our Dominions, 
and that the total military and naval effort of the British 
Empire from the beginning of the war exceeds the enor- 
mous total of five million men. 
It is perhaps a matter for regret that the military 
authorities did not feel themselves free to make the figures 
public several months ago. Such a course would have 
differed from the practice of our French Allies— but then 
so does the policy of publishing casuality hsts. It would 
have completely disposed of all that calculated campaign 
of slander through which certain people have sought to 
belittle and discredit the loyalty of their fellow-country- 
men. If the Bill, which is now being introduced into 
Parliament, v\ith the apparent consent of all Parties, 
really achieves the end which is desired by the Prime 
Minister ; if it settles once and for all the whole miserable 
controversy, it will be a great step in the direction of 
national unity. The precise form of the measure is 
admittedly a question of political expediency, but neither 
this nor any other measure can really secure the result 
which is described in that high-sounding phrase " equahty 
of sacrifice." Indeed; the very word " sacrifice " reveals 
a narrow and selfish spirit. The country calls for service, 
not sacrifice, and the Government has the indisputable 
right, without recourse to legislation, to demand the 
willing service of every man and woman, whether single 
or married, whether under forty or over, in any capacity 
for which they are fitted: any arbitrary fine of demarca- 
tion is bound to give rise to individual grievances and 
unnecessary comparisons. From the political point of 
view alone, apart from its obvious fairness, we might 
have wished that the principle of universal service had 
been adopted by the Government early in the war, 
when it was urgently advocated by many pubhc men. 
It would certainly have received the unqualified support 
of tlie nation. 
It must not, however, be forgotten that the problem 
of recruiting in this country was at once wholly different 
from that presented to any of our Allies, and was solved 
in an unexpectedly successful, if not complete, manner. 
If the violent controversy upon the method of recruiting 
had not arisen, the attention of our AUies would certainly 
be directed to the astonishing voluntary effort made by 
this country. Certainly the attention of history will 
chiefly be directed to that effort. 
Let us consider what it has meant. A conscript 
nation prepares for war, not in a year or two, but over 
a generation. All its energies and activities are co- 
ordinated to fit in with the conscript system. Every 
man taken for service knows himself liable to lose his 
existing occupation should war break out, and is at 
fixed intervals experienced in the adjustments necessary 
to such a system, by his regular and periodical summoning 
to the colours for training. There are a thousand details 
which the system of conscription secures and establishes 
when it is part of a regular law, and these make a con- 
script country something different wholly in texture 
from nations such as Great Britain and the United States, 
to which such a system has never applied. 
This country, which depends for its very life upon a 
vast overseas trade, as well as upon extensive manufactures 
at home, suddenly finds itself involved in a great war. 
It is possessed of a small professional army of a few 
divisions, mainly established for the purpose of garrisoning 
great possessions in the East, and of finding service for 
that garrison. It has side by side with this a volunteer 
force, also very small in proportion to the population, 
and composed of men with comparatively slight military 
training only. Within eighteen months, that nation 
produces an army comparable in size with the long 
trained and conscript armies of its Allies. It feeds, 
clothes, and trains this enormous mass of new material 
without a hitch, and what is perhaps most remarkable 
of all, it provides an adequate supply of officers. Within 
the twenty-first month of the war, it can boast of the 
mobilization of a force superior to that proportion of 
one-tenth, which, before this great war was regarded as 
the maximum effort possible in any country. 
The truth is that this voluntary effort .has not only 
proved triumphantly successful, but successful after a 
fashion which no one had dreamed possible and— we may 
say it with pride — which our Allies perhaps would have 
thought even less possible than we. What is now in 
progress is no more than a rounding off and completing 
of a task which had left a comparatively small margin 
of work undone. When the violence of the present 
controversy is forgotten in the great events of the summer 
which lies before us, this truth will be fully apparent 
to all. 
There is one thing more to be said now that the final 
settlement of these controversies has been reached. Let 
us have no further complication of the issues by sensa- 
tional " exposures " of this or that hitch in the extremely 
difficult work of apportioning military and civil duties to 
the small remaining margin of men who will come under 
the new law. It is perfectly easy for the leaders .of an 
uncensored press in time of excitement and strain, to throw 
out of all proportion any details to which they choose to 
turn. If their object be to weaken us at the crucial moments 
of this tremendous task, they could not adopt a better 
method. Above all it is well to remember that the con- 
duct of the campaign is not in the hands of the Press, but 
of the General Staff ; and nothing could possibly be more 
mischievous than complaints, formulated in the news- 
papers, that we are "everywhere on the defensive." The 
right moment for the great offensive will be chosen by 
those who are competent to decide, and it is on their 
decision that we build our hopes of linal and complete 
victory. 
