April 19, 1917 
LAND & WATEP 
II 
iTrust the American People 
By Arthur Pollen 
T! 
(HE road to victory," " the guaranioe of victoiy, 
the absolute assurance of victory is to be found in 
one word, ' ships,' and in a second word ' ships,' 
and in a third word ' ships.' " So, with the words 
of the Premier, in the closing stages of ttiewar we come-back 
to the doctrine that seemed so luminously clear to some at the 
beginning. Victory will be a matter of sea power. That it 
would be sea power expressed in terms of sea supplies has been 
equally obvious since the spring of last year, when the new 
German submarines were due for completion and a new and 
more extensive attack on commerce was threatened. This 
truth has constantly befen' kept before the readers of Land 
& VV-ViEK, and now it seems to be recognised by all and has 
been at last expressed by the Prime Minister in words that 
can liardly be improved. 
Mr. Lloyd George is \ right ' in putting the projiosed 
American contribution of thrce-tliousand-ton merchant ships 
first amongst the services our new Allies can render us. 
But President Wilson and Mr. Daniels have lost no time in 
trying to find out what otlier form of help will be most wel- 
come. The most distinguished naval officer of his generation, 
Rear Adnural Sims — holding his rank in virtue of selection 
by the Board appointed under last year's Act for picking out 
officers from the captains' list for special promotion, and 
President also of the Naval War College at Newport — was 
present at the Pilgrims' dinner on Thursday evening last, 
and heard Mr. Lloyd George's words. He must have been 
despatched, of course, before the American declaration of war, 
but in full expectation that there would be such a declaration. 
Nothing could be more eloquent of the desire of the Govern- 
ment of Washington, not only to help, but that help should 
take the most useful form. 
American Unanimity 
It is to be hoped that this overture will be received in the 
spirit in which it has been made. This may imply something 
in the reception that is not immediately obvious. In dealing 
with the American Government as an Ally in war we must not 
fall into the mistake of supposing that we can carry on in the 
European fashion. The patience of a good many of us has 
been sorely tried by America's long forbearance with our com- 
mon enemy. As at last we all realise, tliis forbearance was 
inevitable, because war between America and Germany was 
impossible until the people of America were practically un- 
animous for war. Her last vote of Congress, that on the 
^;i,40o,ooo,ooo loan, shows that the people are unanimous. 
What we have to realise now is that it is the American people 
that still, in great measure, must govern American conduct in 
the war. Our Ally is, then, more the nation than the Govern- 
ment. And if we arc to get the most out of the American 
help we must make confidants of the American people. This 
will involve revising some of our rules of secrecy. The re- 
vision may result in a good deal of useful information going to 
the enemy, but ultimately that information going to our new 
friend will be much more useful to us. In short we must tell 
tlie American people not what it may be the most diplomatic 
thing to say that we want, but quite frankly what we really 
do want. Now frankness in this matter is not going to be 
easy. It is obvious enough that we need American-built 
cargo ships. And it is big news and welcome news that pre- 
parations are in hand for laying dowTi and completing a vast 
number of three-thousand-tonners. But there arc many 
things that we need besides merchant ships. We need par- 
ticularly to protect our existing merchant tonnage and the 
tonnage we can build ourselves. We need anti-submarine 
craft in very great quantities— every destroyer we can get— 
and if we cannot get destroyers, then trawlers or their equiva- 
lent. To meet the ship and engine building these represent, 
an elfort on a colossal scale is called for. 
America is out to make sacrifices. But even America 
cannot do everything simultaneously. The need of the 
moment is to begin and to concentrate on the most necessary 
thing first. Now what is the most necessary thing ? On 
what issue does victory depend ? Tlie Prime Minister lias 
supplied tlie answer. The supplv of new ships : the protection 
of the old. Now it seeirts to me "that if we really want to get 
that supreme effort on America's part whicli'is necessary 
for the achievement of these two ends, we must make it pei- 
fectlv clear to all concerned why they are of supreme import- 
ance. We have, in other words, to admit that without 
American help our sea supplies are iii such danger as to jeoi)ar- 
dise the whole campaign. It is of course an admission that 
our shipbuilding resources, for nearly three years mono- 
polised by the Admiralty, have not been put to the best use. 
It is an admission that the German warning of December, 
1914. was not taken seriously. It is an admiss-on that White- 
hall did not learn the lessons of the U boat campaign of Febru- 
ary to September, 1915, in home waters, nor of the autumn 
campaign in the Mediterranean, nor of the preliminary 
campaign of 1916— that was checked not by our counter- 
measures but by the American ultimatum. Now it is not par- 
ticularly pleasant for the Government of Great Britain to say 
that the chiefs of the greatest navy in the world have simply 
failed in so crucial yet elementary a duty as jirotecting the 
sea-borne commerce of a sea-girt people. Mr. Lloyd George, 
one supposes, will not allow departmental sensitiveness to 
block the way. On Thursday he was frank enough in saying 
we had gone from blunder to blunder and in expressing a hope 
that our new Allies would profit by our unhappy experience. 
But in this matter it would be well to be a little more specific. 
We do not only want our new Ally to profit by such of our blun- 
ders as he, in his good nature may detect. We want our- 
selves to profit by the course our new Ally is led to by their 
contemplation. 
The Admiralty 
It is to be hoped that the Premier is aware that there is 
the less reason for hesitation in admitting the Admiralty's 
failure, because it has for some months been extremely patent 
to all thinking people in this country. Since the change of 
personnel at Whitehall in December last, writers in the 
press have quite properly abstained from criticism in this 
matter. The simplest dictates of loyalty prescribed that 
the new men should be given a free hand, and be left un- 
hampered. But it should be said at once that the silence 
of the critics is not to be explained by any confident belief 
that things were bound to go right. Let us briefly suna up 
the circumstances that led to the change and thoSe which 
now exist. 
The collapse of the naval effort at the Dardanelles put 
an end to the Churchill-Fisher regime — a system of admini- 
stration which may be said to have combined the maximum 
of civUian interference with the minimum of expert naval 
co-operation. The vices of the previous ten years brought 
their logical and inevitable nemesis. The Balfour- Jackson 
regime succeeded, and lasted for nineteen months. Civilian 
interference with naval plans disappeared, but with it both 
the stimulus and direction came from a fiovernment with a 
strategy of its own. The supreme naval command fell out 
of contact with the supreme military command, and there 
followed an interval unkindly dubbed " the period of the 
neutrality of the navy." It was' a state of affairs that had 
only one merit. The Commanders-in-Chief at sea were 
left to themselves, the naval men at Whitehall could do as 
they liked. Its faults were, first, that the naval men were 
left too much to themselve.s — so that the whole naval force 
was to a great extent out of touch with the burning require- 
ments of the war, and next, that each department worked 
in an isolation of its own, so that in the absence of a staff 
system, the individual directors can-icd on unillumined by 
the experience that the Service was gaining. 
The misfortune 'is that a change of ])ersons was made 
without a change of system. We substituted Sir Edward 
Carson for Mr. Balfour, and Sir John Jellicoe for Sir Henry 
Jackson, but we are no nearer running the navy on scientific 
lines. The function of the Admiralty is to j)roduce and 
command a purely military force, the fleet. The production 
and administration of this force constitute, ' no doubt, a 
colossal task, but nine-tenths of it is purely civilian in its 
charactci. It could be done just as well — -and probably 
better — ^l>y men trained in industry and business as by men 
trained on the cpiarter deck, so long, of course, as everything 
was regulated hy the military character of the instrument 
to be produced and maintained. This side of the Admiralty's 
work then, though enormous, calls for no talent or genius 
which a community like ourselves has ever lacked. The 
viilUary use of the completed force is, however, quite a 
different matter, and calls for one of two things. There 
