Februaiy 15, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
II 
up that all na\'al cUingors always have vanished at his 
magic touch — including the first submarine campaign, 
which continued until September when Lord Fisher's 
tenure of office ended early in May. But it should be 
understood now that we are faced, not by a neW and un- 
measured thing, but by a problem 'complex enough, but 
analysed ; that it is to be met, not by novel and un- 
tried means, but by measures tested and proved, and that 
to break up this machine and confide our 'fortunes to 
any individual — however brilliant and resourceful — ^who 
was incapable of proceeding on the patient lines of staff 
co-operation, would be to jeopardize the greatest of 
our national assets. 
Mr. Wilson's Patience 
Another week has passed, and a good many people are 
surprised that America is not yet at war. They note that 
the undertaking, given by Germany in May 1916, has not 
only been denounced ; Germany has not been satisfied 
with merely threatening to sink all- ships at sight; she 
has put her threat into effect, and has done it thoroughly. 
I stated last week that we were to expect a far greater 
increase in the nuijiber of murders than in the number 
of sinkings. The last seven days' experience bear out this 
forecast. The increased rate of destruction of ships 
is, as we have seen above, not only immensely short of 
Germany's expectation, not only much less than, I think, 
every expert in this country feared, but in reality so 
small as to be almost negUgible as a war measure. But 
in the taking of human life, the campaign had been a 
splendid success. Omitting the sinking of the Liisitania, 
(iermany has never had two such productive weeks 
at sea. The actual number of those killed cannot be > 
stated exactly,, but it cert?.inly exceeds two hundred. 
Well over half of these are British subjects ; between 
thirty and fortj' are Norwegians ; sixteen are Spaniards ; 
the whole crew of the Lars Kruse, except one, are drowned 
and, so ^r as is known, these were all Danes. Richard 
\Vallacc of the Eavcstonc remains so far the only A,merican 
subject known to have been killed — ^unless there were 
American children in the California. Why have these, 
murders not been taken up by President Wilson as 
a casus belli ? 
To begin with President Wilson has never threatened 
Germany with war. What he has said is that he will 
come to Congress for authority to use all the necessary 
means for enforcing American rights. The employment of 
these means will no doubt involve war. But they can be 
put into force without any formal declaration of war. 
There are many indications that the President is waiting 
to have his hand forced. He has been slow to act 
adversely to Germany ; he has, in fact, allowed the threat 
to sink American ships to be to this extent effective. 
that he has kept most American sliips in port. And he 
has taken no warlike steps at all. There was apparently 
no authority behind the statement of German ships 
interned in American ports being seized or of measures 
taken to ])revcnt their engines being destroyed. The 
steamship companies have been most anxious to arm 
their ships ; but they cannot buy guns from the makers 
and the Navy Department has neither volunteered to 
lend them or given any favourable response to the re- 
quest for them. For that matter, the Secretary of 
the Navy has accidentally involved himself, according to 
the Daily Chronicle's correspondent, in a way that seems 
quite incompatible with any expectation that he is soon 
to appear in a martial character. To put the thing bluntly, 
he seems to have been made the cats-paw of a Pacifist 
effort in which Mr. Bryan, late Secretary of State, has been 
co-operating with the correspondent of a German paper 
acting under the inspiration of the late German Embassy. 
It is a situation altogether incomprehensible to those who 
are inclined to look upon the Government at Washington 
as something analagous to the Government of a European 
country. It is difficult to conceive of the First Lord of the 
Admiralty facilitating an appeal to a prospective enemy 
for peace, by suspending th:; embargo on the use of 
Government wireless stations, and doing this in favour 
of the known agent of a power with whom diplomatic 
relations have been broken off by the head of the Govern- 
ment. 1 h ■ thing, no d jubt, has not the same significance 
at Washington as it would have here, nor is it likely to be 
followed by the same results. But it throws an informing 
light on ,Mr. Wilson's surroundings. 
Meanwliile, there seems to be little doubt that the 
German Higher Command has clutched at the straw thus 
throM-n to them. It has angrily denied tlie sending of 
any note of a pacificatory kind ; but it has never stated 
that any such note had been sent. What was stated, and 
what seems certainly to be true, is that an informal 
proposal for a modus vivendi came to the President 
through the Swiss Minister. The response was exactly 
what might have been expected. Berlin has been told 
that no proposal short of the revocation of last week's 
note can possibly be entertained. The situation there- 
fore remains as it was. Sooner or later some American 
ship will suffer the fate that has befallen other neutrals- 
other Americans will share the end of M'allace, and of 
his two hundred predecessors. Two ships indeed, so 
we are told, have already left America for Bordeaux, 
and have left unarmed, with the precise object of challeng- 
ing Germany to the overt act for which both countries are 
waiting. There is nothing in any German vrtterance, 
journalistic or official, to lead one "to suppose that these 
ships will be spared. It is quite certain if they are not, 
that war between Germany and the United States must 
become an accomplished fact. Arthur Pollen 
Land Without Labour 
«« AND 
A 
By the Editor 
« AND Pharoah said : ' Go therefore now and 
work ; for there shall no straw be given you, 
yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks.' " This 
.incident related in the Book of Exodus has 
liitherto been accepted as typical of the most grievous 
burden a taskmaster can impose upon a people. But 
in the future it may well be that another episode shall 
take its place which may be briefly described in Biblical 
language thus : " And in the third year of the Great War 
the British Government said unto the tillers of the 
soil, ' Go now therefore and work and increase the yield 
of the fields a hundredfold, ploughing where ye have not 
ploughed, reaping where ye have not reaped. The 
labour that still remaineth to the land shall be taken from 
you, yet shall the yield of the fields be increased a 
hundredfold.' " 
This summarises fairly accurately the agricultural 
position at the moment. If the War Office insists on 
withdrawing 30,000 skilled hands from those that remain 
on the land, it is impossible for production to be 
augmented next harvest even if climatic conditions are 
most favourable. The position grows more serious ever}' 
week. The sowings of winter wheat are much below 
the a\-erage, mainly on account of the wet weather 
last autumn, though lack of labour also had its 
influence. Spring 'wheat is in normal seasons a light 
crop, liable to bUght, and though the time is short 
when even this can be put into the ground, we ha^■e 
on one side the \\s.x Office demanding that the full 
quota of agricultural labourers shall join the army, and 
on the other agricultural authorities unanimously de- 
claring that already the shortage of labour is so great 
that much arable land will remain uncropped, to say 
nothing of the acres of grass land which have already been 
ploughed up. When Mr. Leslie Scott stated in the House 
of Commons last week that we ought to have on the land 
200,000 additional efficient workers or their equivalent 
at the earliest possible moment, it is perfectly well known 
to all interesteci in farming that he expressed an 
opinion which is based on the best agricultural infor- 
mation available. 
But wliere is this ad(lifi(iii:i1 efficient labour to come 
