10 
LAND & WATER 
February 15, 1917 
published a most interesting interview witli* Sir Nornma 
Hill, perhaps the first authority in this country on all 
problems of shipping and freight. In this Sir Norman 
])pinted out that up to the end of October the loss of 
British bhipping month by month had oscillated between 
•08 and -94 per cent. The present rate of loss is roughly 
double that of October — let us say 3 per cent. Let us 
assume this to continue for a year. Hmv shall v\e stand ? 
In the same interview Sir Norman Hill said that wc had 
last year imported over 40,000,000 tons of food, raw 
material,' and so forth. Our normal imports of food in 
peace time are 15,000,000 tons a year. If our shipping 
fell away at the rate of 2 per cent, a month, and if all other 
conditions remained constant and the loss of incoming 
freights were proportionate to the loss of shipping, our 
imports up to the lirst of I'ebruary, 1917, would show a 
falling off of 10 per cent. There is something ludicrous 
in the contrast between this figure and the German hopes. 
If Germany can do no worse than this, the danger is not 
that we shall take the submarine campaign too gloomily, 
but that we shall be too inclined to treat it as a thing of 
derision. 
It is, of course, possible that I am altogether wrong 
in thinking that the German initial effort must be the 
greatest effort. The thing may grow in efticiencj'. There 
may be a further increase in numbers. New, and con- 
ceivably more deadly weapons may be brought into play- 
But then, against these possibilities we must remember — 
so far we have measured the German effort without 
reference to our own counter-efforts. This 10 per cent, 
loss of imports will follow if we can do nothing against 
the submarines, if we cannot save our ships, if we cannot 
replace them, if, what is certainly not less important, we 
fail altogether in reorganising the methods now in use 
for loading and unloading ships and turning them round 
more quickly. Frankly it seems to me against all reason 
to suppose that we are likely to fail in all, or indeed in 
any of these respects. Let us take them one by one. 
There is the attack on submarines, the defence of mer- 
chantmen, the replacing of merchantmen, improve- 
ments in the handling of freight. The first two are the 
concern of the Admiralty, the third ought to be, the 
fourth involves all those departments of Government 
that are fighting each other to denude the labour market. 
The "New Model" Staff 
The Admiralty's two immediate functions have during 
the last two months been made the care of an organisation 
^•erJ^ greatly extended from that formerly charged with it, 
and the direct head of this organisation is the First Sea 
Lord himself. The two main aspects of the submarincj 
campaign then are, and for two months have been, directly 
under Sir John Jellicoe. He has, to carry out the policy 
resoh'ed on, an organisation of Captains and Commanders 
directed by a rear-Admiral. The organisation is in direct 
and daily touch with the twenty or more officers in local 
command of sections of the coast, and through these 
ofiicers is in immediate contact with all the organisa- 
tions afloat concerned with both attack and defence. 
TIk; organisation as a whole has been considerably ex- 
tended, as I have said, from what it was. But, and this 
point seems to me to be vital, tlie new direction has not 
stepped in with a ready-made new policy. It seems clear 
that the first step taken was the right step. It was to 
collect and collate the wide and extensive experimental 
knowledge that has been gained by officers afloat, in the 
two years of submarine war that have elapsed since Feb- 
ruary 1915. 
Readers of Land & W.^tkr may remem.ber that 
during the last 18 or 20 months a great variety of sug- 
gestions for attacking submarines and defending commerce 
have been discussed in the daily press and in these columns. 
These have included sucli diverse things as mine barriers, 
so spaced that neither on the surface nor submerged could a 
submarine pass them so long as they were intact ; buo^'ed 
nets which when carried away, would show that a submar- 
ine had passed ; the employment of underwater listening 
devices to give warning of the submarine's approach 
or passage; the arming of merchant ships with guns ; the 
cmplo\TTient by them of smoke screens ; the provision of 
patrolled lanes for traffic to and from the main ports ; 
the establishmeiU "f 'Mnvoys, and of four-" iinny others. 
Now the Admiralty has very wisely kept its own counsel 
as to the progress made with these various suggestions' 
for meeting the underwater peril. But it is no secret 
that there is hardly one suggestion that has been made 
or seemingly can be made, that has not been experimented 
with, and — what I confess seems to me to be the essence 
of the matter — the present organisation is based upon this 
l)rincii)le ; all experiments and all experience are now 
to be subject to impartial and impersonal examination — ■ 
and upon the reports that follow from these enquiries, 
all policy is based. 
Thus, and tlms only, can the discovery of the right 
measures result. We are not dealing with a new problem. 
It is highly unlikely that the problem we have t"o deal 
\\ath is to be soh'ed by entirely new methods. The main 
point is to turn proved methods to the best practical 
account. It is less a problem of invention and ideas than 
of careful and indeed laborious analysis and collation of 
facts, and of sheer administrative skill and energy. Take 
for instance one obvious and most important department 
of policy, the arming of merchant ships. It is some months 
since I pointed out how great were the difficulties in 
meeting this demand. How are you going to put four 
guns apiece into 4,000 ships and supply each gun with 
a trained crew of six men ? Where are you to find over 
90,000 trained naval artillerymen ? Gunnery is not the 
only demand on new methods of training. The making 
and use of smoke screens, for evasive manoeuvres, lia\'e 
been urged again and again in these columns. From 
the earliest days of the submarine menace the importance 
of keeping the .ship under alternating helms has been 
recognised. If the most is to be made of the services of the 
patrols, incoming ships must follow Admiralty instructions 
to the letter in the navigation of thoir craft. All these 
things involve the expansion of the merchant skippers 
and the merchant seamen into being officers and crew of 
ships whose duties are indistinguishable from those of 
warships. The whole use of armament, the entire em- 
ployment of defensive means, the art of keeping the 
kind of watch and look out which is required — these are 
things that cannot be effectively done merely by pre- 
scribing them to the merchant service. The personnel 
must h: trained to do them. And the provision of this 
training is one, and by no means the least, of the new 
duties that the new Admiralty department has taken on. 
It is unnecessary to go over the whole ground or into 
detail, but rt is clear that two years experience when 
brought to the test of expert examination, must afford 
guidance for the modification of almost every form of 
material hitherto employed. This branch of the subject 
alone then calls for a double organisation of its own. 
One to elucidate and define what is wanted, the other to 
provide what the campaign has thus been shown to need. 
Take other sides of the question— at random ; the selection 
of routes ; the organisation of the patrols and of the 
drifters and trawlers engaged in watching, the em- 
ployment of all the mine layers and the mine sweepers — ■ 
on "all these things the long experience of the officers 
in district after district round the coast throws valuable 
light. It is in the teachings of this experience, in a closer 
co-operation, and in a better articulated activity of all 
the forces available that salvation must be sought. 
To put th? thing shortly, it looks as if— for the first 
time in our history — one of the most extensive of the 
navy's activities is being organised on strictly staff lines, 
on the principle, that is to say, of making absolutely 
sure of the grourtd, by thorough expert enquiry, before 
executive decisions are taken. -The overwhelming ad- 
vantage of this method is that the officer finally re- 
sponsible for th3 work of this department is virtually 
safeguarded agaist error. He will not be tempted into 
slap-dash decisions when he knows that he has a body 
of experts at his hand trained to analyse, compare and 
report on any form of operation, the employment of any 
weapon, the adoption of any device. And it is needless 
to say that it is only by an organisation of this kind that the 
maddening complications of this problem can be dealt 
with at all. 
And, When the scale of the problem is understood, 
and the nature of the machine now called into 
existence to deal with it, there seems something 
quite ludicrous in the recommendation that Lord 
Fivh T <Iiniil(l t;ik(^ the thing over. A legend has grown 
