March 8, 1917 
LAND & WATER. 
.9 
acceptance of responsibility, jointly with other civihzed 
nations, for the preservation of the reign of humanity and 
justice on this planet. And it is a picturesque addition 
to the attitude America now takes, that China, so remote 
from us in geographical position,. in social organisation 
and in ethical and philosophical thought, should be the only 
country to respond to Dr. Wilson's invitation that in this 
matter all neutrals should make common cause. 
The American Situation 
There is not space at my disposal to-day to deal with 
all of these developments, nor indeed fully with any one 
of them. At the moment of writing, if one can judge by 
the headUnes of the daily papers, the matter of the 
greatest immediate interest is how the situation in 
America will develop. At the end of last week it seemed 
an absolute certainty that, before Congress dissolved by 
completing its legal term of existence, it would, with 
practical unanimity, confer upon President Wilson 
authority to arm the merchant vessels of the United 
States and to take any further steps that might be neces- 
sary for the preservation of the national interests — and 
woiald supply the funds required. But when it came to 
the point of making the actual decision, though the House 
of Representatives carried the necessary resolution by 
a majority of twenty to one, in the Senate it was made 
impossible to put the resolution to the House at all. 
This august assembly has long prided itself on a com- 
bination of public spirit and urbanity that makes rules 
of debate altogether superfluous.^ The events of last week 
have shown a stra.nge peril to exist in this complacency. 
A baker's dozen of pro-German recalcitrants, unmoved 
by the virtual unanimity of the nation, actually " talked 
out " a resolution which the President of the United States 
had asked for as essential to the national dignity and 
safety. The thing is without precedent in the history 
of representative assemblies — and no doubt its repetition 
will be made impossible in the American Senate. Mean- 
while a situation as humiliating as it is dangerous, has 
been created. It cannot perhaps be better qualified than 
in President Wilson's own words : 
" A httle group of wilful men. representing no opinion 
but their own, have rendered the great Government of 
the United States helpless and contemptible.", 
Perhaps events may show that had President Wilson 
said " have done their worst to make it helpless and 
contemptible " he might have been nearer the mark. 
When the American constitution wasdrawn up nothing 
was further from the minds of the sturdy men that framed 
it, than that the thirteen colonics, now an autonomous 
nation, could ever be called upon to act in a world crisis 
at all. or in any crisis except after the leisurely preliminaries 
that, in those days always preceded war. The power 
to declare war, therefore, was left with Congress, and 
it was only after such a declaration that the executive 
— and absolutely dictatorial — powers of the nation at war 
were vested in the President. No provision was made 
to provide the President with powers necessary for 
organising the immediate defence of national interests, 
were they to be assailed suddenly and Avdthout warning. 
These powers are undoubtedly inherent in the oflice 
and it was on a legal principle — sains populi stimma 
lex — that the greatest of Dr. Wilson's predecessors acted 
when the Southern States sec(«led. His action, as 
Lord Bryce points out, made it necessary for Congress 
to indemnify Abraham Lincoln. President Wilson's 
position is, however, different. For there is a statute 
still unrepealed providing for the arming of merchant 
vessels against pirates, but specifically excluding this 
measure against the armed forces of a frvindli nation. Still 
there would seem to be several ways out of the difficulty. 
Lawyers are familiar with the doctrine that a state of 
war can exist without war being declared. It is difficult 
to suppose that the supreme Court would, after the events 
• of the last fortnight and the revelations of Zimmermann's 
and Bernstorff's efforts to draw Mexico and Japan into a 
hostile alliance against their country, hold the Govern- 
ment of the Kaiser to be in " friendly " relations with the 
United States. Indeed, the action of the thirteen 
Senators may prove to be a blessing in disguise. It may 
not be long before it is realized that they have failed 
in making the " great Government of the United States 
helpless " and have only succeeded in making themselves 
" contemptible." 
Sir Edward Carson's Analysis of .the 
Submarine Campaign 
6 
Of the speech of tlie First Lord of the Admiralty the 
most important part was, naturally enough, the infor- 
mation he gave on the two most \ital aspects of the 
submarine campaign — namely, exact details as . to the' 
number of ships attacked and sunk, the ratio these bear, 
to the total number entering and leaving our ports, tW 
ratios of armed and unarmed ships that escaped sub- 
marines when they were encountered, and the rate at 
which the navy and the armed merchantmen are bringing 
the submarines to action. His speech dealt with the 
period February i — i8th, and since then ooe weekly state- 
ment, giving arrivals, sailings, losses of ships over and 
under 1,600 tons and of fishing vessels, and the numbers 
of ships unsuccessfully attacked by submarines, has 
been published. This return, so far as it states Ipsses, 
mentions British ships only, that is to say Allied and 
neutral vessels are not included. According to this 
return the rate of loss to February 25th was about the 
same as during the first 18 days of the month. The 
deductions drawn from the e\'ents of the period' that the 
First Lord analysed in full remain, therefore, in all 
probabihty true of the succeeding week. 
From the statement itself we learn that out of 12,000 
ships entering or leaving the war zone in 18 days, 134 
or I.I per cent, were last. The proportion purely 
British losses bore to the total entrances and clearances 
was .42 per cent. The net British loss in this period 
was 47 steamers of over 1,000 tons displacement, and 
they aggregated just under 170,000 tons in all. Lord 
Curzon has recently told us that 43 per cent, of the 
merchant tonnage available for trade before the war, is 
still available for the general needs of the civil population 
of these islands. Mr. Hammond, in his recent address 
to the Liverpool and District Bankers Institute, put the 
pre-war total at 29,000,000. The present tonnage for 
civilian supply is therefore roughly 12,500,000. The 
present rate of destruction is at the rate of 250,000 per 
month, or 3,000,000 tons per annum. If then we are 
neither (i) able to replace our losses nor yet (2) to improve 
our means of defending ships, nor, what is far more 
important still, (3) add to and improve our methods of 
attacking submarines, we shall, by March ist, iq'iS, 
have to rely upon 9,500,000 tons of shipping instead of 
upon our present quantity. The loss, that is to sa}', is 
at the rate of 25 per cent, per annum. But this is a 
statement which must be qualified in several directions. 
In the first place, if we are unable to replace our losses, 
then there must be a steady diminution in the number 
of targets, so that a loss of 2 per cent, per month instead 
. of aggregating 3,000,000 tons, would come out at approxi- 
mately half a uiillion less. But I see little consolation 
in this figure, for it is sincerely to be hoped that, instead 
of allowing the number of targets to diminish, our ship- 
building efforts will add to it materially. If then our 
losses are to be mitigated, we must look to the other two 
measures, the defence of ships and the attack on the 
pirates. 
Of the self-defence of ships Sir Edward Carson gave 
an illuminative piece of information. 74 or 75 per cent, 
of armed merchantmen beat off or survived attack, 
compared with only 25 per' cent, of the unarmed. Now 
the disproportion used to be much greater. It seems 
'unquestionable then that the transition from the policy 
'of warning ships before sinking them, to that of sinking 
•at sight, has made a very material difference, not indeed 
to the value of arming ships, but to its relative vaiwe. 
'For observe, if 25 per cent, of unarmed ships escape 
'submarine attack, 25 percent, of the armed ships tiiat 
J escape will probably not owe their escape to their arma- 
-'ment. 1 Out of every hundred armed ships that get 
laway theh, little more than half can owe it to their 
'guns. The First Lord did not say whether these pro- 
portions were, taken over the whole period of submarine 
war, or only over the period with which he was dealing. 
If over the whole period, we must expect the ratio of 
successful e\-asion, in the two classes of ships, to apprpxi- 
mate still more closely. In other words, the arming of 
merchantmen, though still multiplying the ship's chances 
of safety very considerably, will not multiply thein by 
six or se\cn as wasi at one time the case,. nor by three as 
would appear from; the First Lord's figures, nor ^ yet 
