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LAND & WATER 
LAND & WATER 
OLD SERJEANTS' INN. LONDON, W.C. 
Telephone HOLBORN 2828. 
THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1917 
CONTENTS 
A Friend's Advice. By Louis Raemaekers 
Admiralty. Reform. (Leader) j 
Ihc Mill.' By Hilairc Belloc 
The Naval Crisis. By Arthur Pollen 
(lifts (Poem). By N. M. F. Corbett 
Admiralty Reform (Correspondence). By Prof. Spenser 
Wilkinson and Admiral W. H. Henderson 
Drafts. Bv Centurion 
The Allies' "April Offensive. By H. Bidou 
Salmon as Food Supply. By W. Baden-Powell, K.C. 
Petrograd and Moscow. By E. S. Luboff 
A Voyage of Peace in War Time. By Rachel Q. 
Henriques 
Battle of the Marne (a Review) ' 
Life and Letters. By J. C. Squire 
Jinoks to Read. By Lucian Oldcrsliaw 
War's Desolation 
Domestic Economy 
Kit and Eciuipment 
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ADMIRALTY REFORM 
THE unofficial announcement that a Naval War 
Staff is to be appointed irrimediately at the Ad- 
miralty in Whitehall is the culniination of those 
demands for reform which have been persistently 
urged in these columfis. Last Thursday the weekly contribu- 
tion by oiu- na\al writer, Mr. Arthur Pollen, was suppressed 
by the Censor. We were considerably surprised to learn that 
the reason, as officially given in the House of Commons, was 
that the article was " calculated to prejudice the dis- 
ripline and administration of His Majesty's Naval Forces," 
and that if published " it would have been detrimental to the 
best interests of the State and an encouragement to our 
enemies." All criticism if it be ably expressed must nece's^ 
sarily " prejudice discipline " to some extent. This is true 
whether the criticism be directed against the Prime Minister 
for the time being or against the administration of a depart- 
ment, say the Food Controller's. At the present moment, for 
intance, a section of the press is strongly criticising f-ord 
Devonport for his failure to institute bread tickets, but the 
Chief Censor takes no steps ^o stop these criticisms, though 
they may be. thought to prejudice that' discipline to which 
the peoples of these islands have voluntarily submitted. 
The suggestion, of course, is that if bread tickets are not at 
once in force, the country will be in danger of faminVi before 
the harvest ; whether this fear be justified or not, it is surely 
calculated to encourage our enemies. But we shall be in a 
dangerous position indeed if we were ever driven to hide the 
truth from ourselves for fear of its effect on the foe. 
In fairness to Mr. Pollen it should be mentioned that, 
while liis article certainly criticised the organisation and 
personnel of the Admiralty, it was only a summary^a very 
able and cogent summary, we admit — of the views he has con- 
sistently maintained in L.xxd & W.\ter, and which are now 
being adopted by many other organs of public opinion. His 
arguments, supported as they were by a "Flag Officer " in a 
letter published in these columns, have been the basis of the 
greatest discussion which has taken place over the navy since 
the war began. One of our contemporaries, the Sphere, 
alluded to Mr. Pollen's " careful and well-informed criticism 
on naval matters as never having erred on the side of rash- 
ness." Other journals of such diverse political opinions 
as the Spectator, New Statesman, Times, Daily Telegraph, 
Daily Chronicle, Evening Neies and Westminster Gazette, have 
all opened their columns to discussions on this subject, and 
the majority have given support to the proposals for reform 
first made in these columns. Moreover, their correctness is 
justified by the fact that the Govcrnvnent have in the main 
udopted ihini. T^V-on the enem\- shows nervousnes'; of a 
more active spirit being evinced in tlio naval strategy of the 
near future. The Dusseldorf General Anzeiger, in a long 
article %vritten in a very triumphant tone about the success 
of the (/-boats in reducing the British mercantile fleet, con- 
cludes : " Are hopes set upon American help ? Or is it expected 
that the British Navy will adopt the offensive and destroy the 
bases of our submarines? For thV latter purpose the whole 
German High Seas Fleet must be xvipcd out." 
Mr. Pollen to-day summarises the arguments for the 
reorganisation of the Admiralty, and for this purpose omits 
his personal opinions, turning to other journals. We 
also publish letters from Admiral W. H. Henderson and from 
Mr. Spenser Wilkinson, Chichele Professor of Military History 
at Oxford, .\lready one object for which we have striven 
has been won. This was defined briefly in the letter of " A 
Flag Officer " to which we have '■already referred, in 
which he asserted that it was hopeless to expect the fighting 
instinct of the navy to be given full scope unless and until 
we distinguished between the authority responsible for the 
military handhng of the navy and the authority responsible 
for its material supply. Truth, who in it's current issue 
protests strongly against the suppression of Mr. Pollen's 
article, pointing out that it only differed from other criticism 
in that it displayed greater exactitude and insight, last week 
itself dealt with the same subject and in course oi an article 
on " the weak spot at the Admiralty," wrote : 
The constitution of the War Staff Group (at the .Admiralty) 
is saturated with office routine and book-knowledge, but it 
knows relatively nothing by e.xperience of the actual con- 
ditions of modern warfare, and although the I'irst Sea Lord 
is an exception, his only action, and his own subsequent 
comments upon it, prove that it may not be advisable to have 
at the supreme head of a fighting service an officer who, 
through past experience, is necessarily imbued above all 
things with the supreme care of materiel born of years of work 
as an officer of supply — work which in itself militates against 
the study of war and a realisation and acceptance of the risks 
that must be run if victory is to be achieved. 
This view has now in part been accepted by the Govenment. 
A new era of administration has been inaugurated at 
the Admiralty which must make its influence felt, though 
at the same time it is essential that the axiom should be 
unreservedly accepted that fighting is the" first duty of the 
Navy and that all theories of excessive caution of which we 
have heard so much, should be jettisoned once and for all. 
Admiral Sir Reginald Custance in the course of a letter to 
the Times last week observed that " the submarine policy 
is essentially military and not mechanical. Its solution de- 
pends on the correct military use of naval armed force." 
.\nd he asked : " Is the Prime Minister quite sure that the 
great naval preponderance of the AUies has been and is being 
used to the best advantage ? " This question had been 
answered to all intents and purposes in the negative even 
before it appeared in print by the presence of Mr. Lloyd 
George at the Admiralty. The nation is desirous to know, 
in so far as it is permissible to make the facts public, what 
steps have been taken to render our naval preponderance 
more effective. The submarine depredations have been 
increasing during the last few weeks. The jiroblem is ad- 
mittedly a difficult one, but are not all naval ])robIems 
difficult, until they are solved ? 
Never once in this journal nor in any other publica- 
tion, so far as we are aware, has the faintest doubt or 
reflection been cast on the fighting capacity of the navy. 
Popular confidence in the fleet has ne\'er stood higher. .\nd 
in this campaign the King's Navy has been reinforced by 
the British mercantile marine and our fisher-folk from Land's 
End to John o' Groats. .Ml are equally engaged in defeating 
the U-boats, and we know well that the only fault to be found 
with British seamen is that once they are freed from higher 
authority and left to their own devices, they are daring even 
to recklessness. One of the glories of the war is that it has 
proved conclusively that the fighting qualities of the British 
blood are as fine as at any hour in its history. This truth, 
ns we learn from the writings of war coiTespondents, is 
exemplified daily in Artois and Picardy, but though a great 
silence hangs over the sea, broken only now and again by 
whispers of daring deeds, we aj-e well assured tliat grander 
dash and courage have never marked the annals of -Ad- 
miralty than in this tireless rnmpaign against German pimcy. 
