12 
LAND & N\' A i L R 
July b, iyi6 
design and by the course of naval ordnance administra- 
tion, had been governed by the purely defensive idea 
A providing ships fast enough to keep outside of the 
ione of the enemv's iire, arnled witli guns that outrange 
him. The professed object was to ha\e a chance of hitting 
v'our enemy when he had no chance of hitting you 
■xactly reproduced the fallacy of the line of battle, 
in the issue of March i6th of this journal I showed 
how at the Falkland Islands there was given a 
classic example of the tactics that follow from this con- 
L-eption On the assumption that twenty-five 12 inch 
gun hits would suffice to sink each of the enemy's ar- 
moured cruisers, it appeared that in this engagement 
he 12 inch gun had attained the rate of one hit per gun 
per 75 minutes. This tigurc was contrasted with the one 
hit her gun per 72 seconds attained by the Severn, in her 
second engagement with the Koenigsberg at the Kufigi. 
The contrast seemed to show that it was only the obses- 
sion of the defensive theory that explained contentment 
with methods of gunnery so extraordinarily ineffective 
in battle conditions. For the diifcrence in the rate of 
hitting was almost completely explained by the range 
being constant at the Rufigi, and inconstant at the Falk- 
lands And the methods of fire control in use were 
proved at the Falklands to be unequal to finding, and 
continuously keeping, accurate knowledge of an in- 
constant range. 
What light does the Jutland battle throw on this 
problem? "it is, of course, premature to dogmatise. 
But if as appears from such reports as we have had, 
that in the fast division— ()hcc« Mary, Indcjattgable, 
and Invincible being omitted from consideration— three 
ships carrying 13.5 guns and one carrying 12 inch guns 
were in action for four hours— four ships carrying 15 
mch guns, for three hours and a-half, and two more 
carrying 12 inch guns for an hour, it would seem to follow 
that' there might have been 6,720 minutes of 15 inch gun 
fire 5.760 minutes of 13.5 ft^, and 2,880 minutes of 12 
inch gun fire. If we accept the Falkland Islands stand- 
ard of one hit per gun per 75 minutes as right for the 12 
inch we should be right in assuming that a 13.5 could hit 
iay once in 60 minutes, and the 15 inch once m 50 minutes 
—for at ranges over 10,000, the 13.5 must have more 
than this advantage over the 12 inch, and at ranges over 
1 7 000 yards, the advantage of the 15 mch must be tar 
greater 'still. However, if we take these figures, the 15 
inch guns should have made 134 hits, the 13.5's c)6, and 
the 12 inch 38. 
How many hits from these guns would sink, or at any 
rate hopelessly disable, the best armoured ship that the 
(Jerman Navy possesses ? Only by extraordinarily good 
luck could any ship survive 40 12 inch gun hits, 30 13.5, 
or 20 15 inch. 
The supposed hits I have enumerated above then, 
would account for 10 or 11 enemy ships at least. But 
there secm-s no reason for supposing that the enemy lost 
more than half this number, and some that he lost un- 
doubtedly owed their destruction to torpedoes. It 
cannot be supposed, then, that the gunnery efficiency at 
the battle of Jutland attained anything like the standard 
even of the Falkland Islands. And this is particularly 
interesting, because it is well known that never in the 
history of the British fleet has the standard of ships' 
skill in gunnery been so high as that attained by the 
assiduous practice and constant drill of the last 18 months. 
If less has been achieved by the guns than was ho])ed, 
the fault certainly docs not lie with the officers. The 
light of course was bad, there was constant mist and 
there was necessarily much manceuvring. In bad light 
accurate observation of fire — and without it there can be 
no hitting — the obtaining of accurate results from the 
range-finder, even a clear and distinct view of the target 
either through the gunsights or the director telescope, 
are all made uncertain or altogether impossible. Unless 
the optical instruments employed are specially designed 
to be of the highest possible light-gathering power^ 
twilight and the thinnest veil of mist blots out the enem> 
from instrumental view, and at the long ranges that are 
now compulsory, unaided human sight is useless. There 
may, then, have been many factors hostile to hitting at 
the Jutland battle that were not present at the Falklands, 
where the visibility was good at the longest range. 
But when all is said we have to recognise that to em- 
ploy Nelsonian methods in modern war it is necessary 
to possess the Nelsonian instrument, and that is a ship 
whose artillery— at the very lowest— mws^ not deteriorate 
when the ship is mancvuvrcd. For the object of all 
tactics is to win a position that is only advantageous 
because it affords the opportunity to hit the enemy more 
rapidly than he can hit back. There is manifestly no 
advantage in brilliant tactics, if their very brilliancy ensures 
a nugatoVy result with the guns. Akthuk Poli en 
How Germany has pushed Her Trade 
By Lewis R. Freeman 
IT was not long before the outbreak of the war that 
the able German financier and economist, Dn 
Heffernich, made the claim that his country had 
made greater progress in industry in the preceding 
decade than any other organised body of men had ever 
achieved in a similar period of history. This is a tact 
and it would be as idle as unfair to attempt to controvert 
it It would also be unfair to ignore the fact that der- 
many's industrial structure is soundly based and that 
it has been largely, though not entirely built up by 
legitimate methods. Germany's foreign trade was another 
matter, but before going on to a survey of activities m 
which deliberately underhand, not to say deceitful, 
nractices were in overwhelmingly greater evidence tlian 
legitimate ones, it will be only just to epitomise Dr. 
Heffcrnich's summary of the basic elements of industrial 
progress, and to admit how thoroughly Germany contnved 
to fultil them. ' • , uu ,i« 
Heffernich maintained that commercial wealth de- 
pended upon labour applied to nature, and that produc- 
tion is determined by economic organisation and technique 
Technique is defined as " the scientific application ot 
brains to industry, the supercession of human labour by 
machinery the creation of new materials by chemical 
processes, and the discovery and application of new 
natural forces. " Under economic organisation he in- 
cluded " the division of labour, the association and 
management of labour, discipline, specialisation of educa- 
tion, and the providing by capital of a smtable equipment 
of the instruments of industry." That Germany did aU 
of these things efficiently and well, it is most desirable 
that her trade rivals should remember ; that she will 
continue to do them better rather than worse, they can- 
not too early begin to take into account. These are the 
things in which it will be to their interests to emulate 
Germany. Just as France and England had tardily 
to follow Germany's system of industrial mobilisation to 
provide themselves with adequate munitions, so will they 
have to take cognizance of the admirable features of 
Germany's industrial system that they may fight her 
upon equal terms in the coming trade war. 
In Germany's foreign trade system, while it, too, had 
its admirable features, there was little that Great 
Britain^ — especially in view of the lessons already driven 
home to her^ — need care to emulate. There were, how- 
ever, a great number of highly reprehensible though 
specious practices with which British traders will do well 
to make themselves famihar in order that they can be 
reckoned with in time, and more adequate measures taken 
than in the past to guard against their insidious menace. 
It is to a few of the long list of questionable methods of 
the German foreign trader, ranging all the way from 
" sharp " practices to downright crookedness, that I 
desire to call attention in this article. 
Germany's trade campaign of the past, like her military 
campaign of the present, was planned from Berhn, 
though there was always much to indicate that most of 
the "strategy" that was in such palpable violation of 
what we might call the " commercial Hague Convention " 
— common business decency, to put it plainly — were 
