LAiND & WATER 
December 21, 1916 
The " Decay " of Sea Power 
By Arthur Pollen 
IT has become a commonplace that the Cjcrmans 
embarked upon this war because they wore 
intoxicated bv contemplation of their own mili- 
tary, civil and cultural \irtues. Are we to fmd 
in this same intoxication a reason of their recent 
exhibition of Dutch courage in donning the white feather ? 
That they pretend it is the " white flower of a blameless 
life " seems to make it certain'that they are still out of 
contact with the thoughts and standards of other peoples. 
There is also something very Falstaftian in yielding to 
fear and explaining it by an excess of courage. But 
we must not forget that a" man in liquor does sometimes 
actually gain in wit or cunning or courage. And no 
doubt our rulers are quite awake to whatever elements of 
danger there are in the German move. In this article 
I am more concerned by the degree to which sea con- 
ditions have prompted it. 
Our enemy, obviously desperately anxious for peace, 
has as us^ual accompanied his offer by an effort to per- 
suade. In this process he knows only one method — 
the method of menace. He has a threat for each of the 
Allies in turn. He thinks that in his submariiles 
he 'holds a threat over England that must give pause 
to the haughty islanders. And so he tells the world 
that the alternative to the immediate acceptance of 
peace discussions is a redoubling of the horrors he has 
committed on land and sea. The slavery oi Belgium 
and of Northern France is to be made crueller yet. If 
Poland is to be spared, it is only at the cost of the Poles 
turning traitors to their cause. Roimiania will not be 
spared and Heaxen help all folks — neutral. Allied or 
British — that go to sea. 
\nd it is Great Britain, with her proverbial tenacity, 
her undoubted wealth, her comparatively unimpaired 
resources of men, her incomparable resources in 
her native industry, and her large command of the 
products of neutral industries, that seems to Germany 
to be the heart and soul of the Alliance. She is 
at once the most formidable and the most obstinate of 
her enemies. It is our belligerency then that is the 
greatest obstacle to peace. It is right, therefore, that 
for us should be reserved the most terrible fate if we 
refuse. It seems to me, therefore, that we shall find 
the explanation of the offer of peace less in the German 
conquest of Roumania than in the German belief that 
the submarines have conquered the sea. A few days 
before the Chancellor made his historic confession in the 
Reichstag, the most moderate of German papers— the 
great organ of the Jew financiers of Frankfurt— begged us 
to contemplate the unquestioned fact that the cruiser 
successes of the under-water boats were a conclusive 
proof of the " decay of sea power." And the Chancellor, _ 
true to his text, commended his eirenikon to us by remind- 
ing us thai; the spectre of famine was abroad. 
Threat to England 
Now we must not disguise from ourselves that if the 
German threat is well founded, if, that is to say, sub- 
marine frightfulness really can be very greatly increased, 
notxvithstanding any efforts of ours to reduce it, then the 
length of time during which the Allies can carry on the 
war is easily measurable. There is a certain known 
amount of shipping available for the service of these 
islands and the other belligerent coimtries. Part of it 
is devoted to food, part to raw material, part to coal, part 
to munitions and so forth. Some of this shipping is no 
doubt wasted, that is, is not put to the best use. And 
part of what the shipping brings is wasted and therefore 
unnecessary. With wide and drastic economies, and no 
less drastic reorganisations, it is clearly possible to make 
a considerably smaller shipping do all that the jjresent 
shipping does. Let us, for purposes of argument, assume 
that, by limiting our needs and bettering our employ- 
ment of the ships, we sa\c a margin of hftcen per cent. 
Then clearly the (ierman submarines can destroy this 
margin of the world's shipping, and still leave the .Mlics 
unaffected in the prosecution of the war. But when 
this fifteen per cent, is gone, not a siiip can be lost without 
causing either pri\-ations to the civil population, or .some 
diminution of military effort. It is here, if we have no* 
other remedy, that we have to rely on replacement, that 
is, by building new ships to do the work of those that 
have been sunk. From here on, it is a race between the 
U boat conmianders and the shipbuilders. According to 
German statements, the rate of destruction since August 
approximates tiiree million tons a year. Cireat Britain's 
normal capacity for shipbuilding may be put at two 
millions. We do not know yet whether depletion of the 
labour market has lessened this capacity more. than the 
war organisation of labour can increase the output. But • 
clearly the length of time during which the Allies can 
continue to fight must depend first on how long it will 
take the submarines to bring the existing shipping to an 
irreducible minimum, and, secondly, on the capacity of 
the shipbuilding of the Allies to keep pace with subse- 
quent 'destruction. Those who know the totals of the 
present rate of destruction and the anticipated rate of 
production, can make the calculation easily. 
Replacement of Ships 
The reader will lia\e observed that in the foregoing I 
ha\e assumed that our inability to stop the depreda- 
tions of the submarines is to continue, and that the 
capacity of the submarines to increase their destructive- 
ness is taken for granted. I have assiuned this because 
this is the German case for the alternatives addressed to 
us — an immediate armistice and the discussion of peace 
terhis, with the alternative of famine, as resulting from a 
continuous and highly magnified piracy. And the assump- 
tion will further be useful if it fastens our attention on 
two aspects of mitigating the results of the submarine 
campaign, about which there is no chspute. I allude, of 
course to the arming of merchantmen and the building 
of new merchantmen. It is highly satisfactory to note 
that, in Tuesday's debate in the House of Commons, 
Mr. Bonar Law stated that the Controller of Shipping 
would gi\e his whole time to his work, and so stay out of 
Parliament, and that he had already put himself in touch 
with the Admiralty as well as the Board of Trade. ' As 
my readers know, the argument for making the whole of 
his constructive work \irtually an Admiralty department 
seems to me exceedingly strong. It is stronger yet, when 
we bear in mind what the arming of all ships invohes in 
the way of trained gunners and so forth. But we must 
be cautious before pushing this matter to its logical 
conclusion and assuming we ought to have a Royal 
Merchant Marine, with every captain and officer holding a 
commission from the Admiralty, and every seaman, stoker, 
and steward being under purely naval discipline. It is 
a thing that might save the lives of a few skippers —if we 
are powerless otherwise to protect them from judicial 
murder. But we must remember that, to nationalise 
shipping would be to give the U boats precisely the 
excuse they want for escaping their obligations of search 
and providing for the safety of the people on board. It 
may be said that the time has passed when making a 
present of the legal position to the enemy confers any 
advantage on him, because his crimes already are black 
enough, and we ha\e to deal with facts, and not with 
theories .\nd this in the end may prove to be the right 
view. But it is one thing that wants cautious examina- 
tion before hasty steps are taken. For the moment let 
us content ourselves with noting that it is not an essential 
part of two obvious requirements of the situation, first 
that the necessities of war alone sliould dictate what ships 
are now to be pushed to completion, and that the 
