May II, 1916 
L A N D 
& 
that America has never questioned our blockade pro- 
ceedings on the ground of humanity'. It knows that 
there never was and never will be any American effort to 
stop our exercise of sea rights, or to check the legal sale 
of American munitions. Nor will the pathos of the 
starving German arouse the sympathy of those who, 
in their civil war, compelled the rebels to surrender by 
cutting off their sea supplies. No one knows better that 
America perfectly understands the difference between the 
legitimate and illegitimate use of sea force. But so long 
as the German reader does not see that this request for 
American help in breaking the blockade is not a condition 
of Germany's surrender, but a sort of bullying appendage 
to it, then'it does duty as the only kind of gilding that 
would make a pill go down. 1 
Finally, the higher command must silence the jingoes 
by pointing out to them that a quarrel with America 
would be disastrous. The Note, accordingly, after recit- 
ing that the Central Powers have been offering peace 
right and left just because they are so powerful, says : — 
'■With all the stronger justification can the German 
Government declare that it would be an act which 
could never be vindicated in the eyes of humanity or 
of history to allow, after twenty-one months of war, 
a controversy which has arisen out of the submarine 
warfare to assume a development which \\ould 
seriously menace peace between the German and 
American peoples." 
The Surrender 
So far the reply is purely for home consumption. What 
is its substance in face of the American demand ? The 
demand, as we have seen, was for an immediate renuncia- 
tion of inhuman practices. ^ The reply is in these words : — • 
" The German naval forces have received the following 
order : In accordance with the general principles of 
visit and search and the destruction of merchantmen 
recognised by international law, such vessels, both 
wtihin and without the area declared a naval war 
zone, shall not be sunk without warning and without 
the saving of human lives, rmless the ships attempt 
to escape or to offer resistance." 
There are several things to be noticed about this. It 
is not a renunciation in words but in act, and of course 
remains a renunciation only so long as those orders remain 
in force, and are obeyed. But is not the specific order of 
more worth than any explicit promise ? Note next, that 
there is here no discrimination that excludes either armed 
ships or cargo vessels from the observance of civilised 
procedure. Nor is any distinction made between the 
war zone and the unproclaimed sections of the sea. It 
is then an executive act that abandons all the subterfuges 
that have done previous duty in the controversy. I 
cannot see how any form of words can be more explicit 
or more complete. 
Its Effect 
Its effect upon the war must naturally be of con- 
siderable importance. If submarines can only sink where 
they visit, search and save, their activities must be very 
much restricted. And w:hile I am not one of those who 
have ever believed that, however ruthless their attacks 
might be, any serious national danger could result from 
them, it has long been obvious that if the rate of destruc- 
tion was higher than our rate of new construction, a great 
deal of very serious inconvenience must result, both to us 
and to our Allies. We should be foolish if we relied on 
the reprieve which Mr. Wilson's diplomacy has secured, 
and excused ourselves from further effort either to 
destroy German submarines or replace the ships they 
have sunk. The campaign of March and April un- 
doubtedly exhibited the high water mark of what sub- 
marine attack could do. It is by no means obvious 
that we have reached the high water mark of what our 
shipbuilders can do. We know, of course, from Lord 
Curzon's recent reply in the House of Lords, that ship- 
building has been made war work, and that the Admiralty 
has removed all difficulties from the way of building 
merchant tonnage. But it would seem more logical ^or 
the Government to undertake the construction of this 
tonnage itself. It is, after all, our own Government, and 
not the Germans, who have brought our available mer- 
W A T E R 9 
chant tonnage low. And of all forms of naval short- 
sightedness, the strangest surely was the abstraction of 
half our merchant ships for naval and military purposes 
without the immediate taking in hand of building an 
equal tonnage to replace what had been abstracted. 
Nor is it too late for this salutary change to be made now. 
For the present there will be a relief on the heavier toll 
of cargo ships, but a certain toll will still be taken, and as 
we have seen, the internal condition of Germany may, at 
any moment, make the position of the Emperor desperate. 
And when this happens, no fear of America will stand 
in the way of more furious assaults than ever. 
Ships versus Zeppelins 
During the last few months we have had repeated 
evidence that light cruiser squadrons , are extremely 
active in the North Sea. My readers will remember 
how first we heard that Commodore Tyrwhitt had his 
flagship mined, then how when he had transferred his 
flag, he fought two separate actions off Sylt, how recently 
when the German battle cruisers visited Lowestoft some 
light cruisers unnamed had engaged them. But the latest 
news of the light cruisers is the most astonishing of 
all. They seem to have constituted themselves Great 
Britain's main defence against Zeppelins ! For much 
more than 18 months some of us have been urging on 
various government departments the necessity of pro- 
viding not only an adequate defence of guns for the 
main centres of British population, but what has alw'ays 
seemed to me vastly more important, adequate methods 
for ensuring that those guns are effective when the raiding 
aircraft appear. Since September last the artillerists 
and the aeronauts have been screaming themselves hoarse, 
one party advocating the multiplication of gun stations, 
the other for 1,000 aeroplanes of a new and deadly type, 
to tear the Zeppelins down out of the sky and destroy 
them incontinently. With all our efforts only, one 
Zeppelin has been brought down, though some scores of 
them have from time to time been brought over our 
fire, or been pursued by bomb-carrying airmen. But all 
this time it would seem as if the navy, personified by 
the light cruisers, had been preparing to take over these 
onerous duties from the not too successful folk on shore. 
And it was all of a piece with the navy's methods that 
while Phaeton and Galatea winged their bird, it was a 
submarine of all things that finished it off and with 
characteristic chivalry rescued the survivors. 
If ever a list is made of the imexpected things that 
happened in this war, chief amongst them certainly must 
be the discovery that our light cruisers are our best 
defences against the air raids of the enemy. Many ex- 
traordinary things were prophecied about the submarine, 
but that one of these mysterious craft should finish off 
and sm\. a Zeppelin and rescue its crew is not to be 
found in the most flamboyant vaticinations. 
The Blue Water Theory 
It must have been a revelation to most people that 
guns mounted aboard ship for this kind of almost vertica 
firing can be used with such deadly effect. Why, it may 
be asked, have not the shore guns which have had ten 
times as many opportunities, been more successful ? 
I do not think the explanation is very far to seek. The 
anti-aircraft batteries that protect our towns are im- 
mobile. They can only fire when the airship comes 
within range, so that in any event the time available for 
finding and correcting the range is exceedingly short — 
a grave disadvantage. Next the airships only come over 
the land in darkness. However good the searchlights, 
a Zeppelin artificially illumined at a great height is a 
far more difficult mark than one seen in the broad light 
of day. And then the naval guns had the great advan- 
tage that they are carried in ships that can go 30 knots. 
Supposing a Zeppelin comes straight over a shore gun 
and passes over it at a height of q.ooo feet, and assume 
the gun to have an effective range of 4,000 yards, the 
Zeppelin could be kept under fire while approaching and 
departing for about three minutes if its speed was 
60 miles an hour. But if the gun had a speed of 30 miles an 
hour the period during which the Zeppelin would be under 
fire would be increased from three minutes to over five. 
But if a Zeppelin instead of coming straight over a fi^ed 
