10 
LAND & WATER 
July 2;, 1910 
occurrence almost undiscoverable. Here, too, excellent 
material has been afforded to enemy critics. Nothing, 
of course, will silence these gentry, but it seems quite 
unnecessary that they should have the whole liekl in 
this matter to them-^elves. 
How, it may be asked, would any action of Parliament 
counter, in the opinion of Allies and Neutrals, these 
belittling criticisms ? The answer is surely obvious. 
It is precisely because it is the action of Parliament and 
not the action of a department, because it is the action 
of the nation as a whole, and not of ministers and 
ofilicials only. To the people of democratic countries 
like the United States of North America, the South 
American States, the Scandinavian countries and Spain 
there is an authority behind the action of the orijcn of 
the popular judgment and the popular will, which 
attaches neither to a single minister nor indeed to a 
Cabinet. In spite of recent events our naval judgment, 
if it is a national judgment, will be trusted. The denial 
to the nation, therefore, of the opportunity of thanking 
the navy for its victory is a political error, precisely 
because it leaves the national verdict on this great event 
unspoken. 
It is a more urgent matter that the omission is patently 
unjust. It is not necessary to restate the argument for 
national action on the ground of some reparation being 
due to the seamen for the unfortunate misunderstandings 
of June 2nd and 3rd. But it is quite necessary to insist 
upon the point that reparation is due, and should be of a 
large, generous and quite unmistakable character — on a 
scale, that is, both with their achievement and our 
lamented misrepresentation of it. Lord Crewe's reply 
to the Duke of Rutland suggests that there may be some 
kind of objection to paying this due on the ground that 
terrific fighting on land has been going forward for the 
last two j-ears, that most brilliant things have been done 
by commanding officers and prodigies of skill and \-alour 
shewn by our devoted and heroic armies, and that while 
Parliament has expressed no recognition of these other 
services, it might seem out of proportion to make a first 
exception in favour of a naval victory, which however 
creditable to all concerned, was yet not of that crushing, 
and therefore necessarily final character that the high 
hopes of our seamen had led them to expect. If this is the 
Government's attitude it seems to me to argue a certain 
inability to distinguish between the character of war 
bj' land and war by sea. 
Sea war does not lend itself to the long struggles and 
insistent combats that mark the land warfare of to-day. 
All the agents that should make for speed in the modern 
battlefield — railways, self-propelled vehicles, motor trac- 
tion and the like — have been neutralised so far as adding 
to the pace of the war is concerned, by the unthought of 
numbers that these very means of communication make 
it possible to employ. For progress in engineering has 
not only aided transport, it has made the production of 
more and heavier guns possible, has multiplied the 
capacity to produce munitions almost infinitely, and 
made its supply in the field in great quantities quite 
feasible. It is' the numbers of men and of guns and 
the quantity of ammunition with which weapons can be 
supplied that make for the immobility of forces and 
consequently for the incessance of almost stationary 
• attack and defence. On land, then, it looks as if the 
paradox were true that, so far as modern war is immobile, 
it has been made so by the very factors that have made 
the most rapid and most extensive forms of movement 
possible. 
But at sea the development of steam propulsion has 
brought about — within the limits of the guns' ability to 
compete with the new conditions — an exactly contrary 
effect. So great is the radius of action, so swift the nio\e- 
ment of units of modern sea power, that an absolute and a 
universal command di the sea could be asserted by the 
stronger na\al power almost on the day that war broke 
out. Had the submarine not been invented to import 
a disturbing factor into the situation, our sea communica- 
tions for transport and supply would, for practical pur- 
poses, have been carried on throughout the war exactly 
as if no war had been going on. For only 56 merchant- 
men and no transports have fallen to the enemy's sur- 
face ships in the course of two years of war. And as 
altogether there must be 10,000 ^•essels engaged in trade, 
in transporting troops and in supply, the i)rizes that have 
fallen to the enemy's fleet proper show an annual loss of 
about a quarter of one per cent. 
Just as the developments of modern science made 
possible the employment and munitionment of guns of 
hitherto unheard of rangt^ and power on land, so, for sea 
war, they lia\'e produced weap<jns w hose power of offtnice 
stands in an entirely new relation to the power of defence 
of the ships that carry them. 
And in addition to the gun, tlun are now used in fleet 
actions other weapons, namely torpedoes, whose des- 
tructive value in some instances exceed even that of 
naval artillery. It happens therefore that no capital 
ship of the present time could survi\e five minutes hitting 
by its own guns if they were fired at anything like their 
maximum rate of discharge — if modern ships could add 
to their command of speed and manceuvring power ot 
which the old navy knew nothing, and to their fabulous 
gun power, the ability to use it with effective action, then 
the contrast between sea and land would have been 
complete— because in the latter science would have led 
to an unheard of slowness in getting results, whereas in the 
former no battle could have lasted ten minutes after 
fighting ranges were reached. 
But notwithstanding the limitations of modem gunnery 
being such that immediate results in proportion to gun 
power are not obtained, the truth still holds good that the 
operations of sea power are of a swiftness unknown in 
any other field of war. And where sea forces meet, an 
immediately decisive result is always possible. Even 
where the result is not final, great and terrible damage 
is done to material. And in sea force, material is a vital 
affair ; for its chief unit is not, as in the army the armed 
soldier— it is the armed ship. No nation has ever pos- 
sessed an indefinite quantity of these. Hence when 
fleets meet, even if the whole of the weaker force is not 
destroyed and overwhelmed, it is apt to reckon its escape 
as an end to be achie\'ed for its own sake, and having 
escaped, is more than ever disinclined to take the risk 
again. 
This is the consideration that the Government should 
have had before it in considering this question of the 
Parliamentary thanks to the Fleet. A country in a 
desperate pass may, of course, make desperate resolutions. 
The German Fleet, that w^as not strong enough to fight 
out the action on May 31st, may be forced by superior 
command to come out and fight again. But it is clear 
that there is no mihtary object to be served by a fresh 
sortie. It is equally clear that if it could not obtain 
any advantage over the British Fleet in its first essay, that 
it certainly cannot obtain any in a second. For the action 
leaves the disparity in strength more and not less marked. 
If a further sortie is to be expected then, it is one that is 
hardly in reason to suppose can end more favourably to 
the Germans, less favourably for us than did the first 
encounter. If this is manifestly so, and if, as seems to be 
the case, we are now satisfied — to borrow the King's 
phrase — that " The Fleet did all that was possible," and 
proved the command of the sea, why should \ve 
hesitate to mark the occasion for what it is ? For in 
ensuring sea command, the F'leet established the major 
premise of the Allies' case for final victory. There 
could only be one ground left then for further delay. 
Does the Government fear that the result of May 31st can 
be reversed ? The thing is unthinkable. 
From every point of view then the case for national 
action seems to be overwhelmingly strong. It is a thing 
that would go far to convince all wa\cring neutral opinion 
and, so far as it became knowTi, to shake the enemy's 
confidence. It would put fresh heart into the Allies. 
It would be extraordinarily welcome to the nation at 
home. And this, perhaps, is the real argument. For 
the nation undoubtedly considers that it was led into an 
injustice to the Navy by its divided and uncertain attitude 
when the first news reached it, and it is more than anxious 
that the slight the Navy has suffered at our hands 
should be washed out. 
Affairs of Small Graft 
It is evident that since the Battle of Jutland, the 
German Admiralty has aimed at supplying some evidence 
that that event was a (German victory. Never since the 
war began has the activity of the Cierman destroyers off 
the Dutch and Belgian coasts been greater, and in the 
