June 14, 1Q17 
TAND & WATER 
13 
and the old idea, sanctified by generations of gunnery officers, 
that a ship is a floating gun-platform and nothing else, lias 
long given place to the fact tliat a modern battleship from 
stem to stern is just an affair of machinery. 
And so, too, is a modern naval battle. The guns may he 
the decisive and final factor, but it is as well to keep in mind 
that you must " First catch your Herr, then cook him." 
and the very necessary part of tir.st catching him devolves 
entirely upon the — well, there are better words than mine to , 
expr§s.s my meaning : 
It must never ba forgotten, however, that the prehide to 
action is the work of the engine-room department, and that during 
action the officers and men of that department perform their 
most important duties without the incentive which a knowledge of 
the course of action gives to them on declc. . . , 
Or again. 
As usual — (note that ax iisuai) —ihn engine-room departments 
of all ships displayed the highest qualities of technical skill; 
tliseipline, and endurance. Jligh speed is a primary factor in the 
tactics of the squadrons under my command, and the I'.ngine- 
Koom departments never fail. 
You may recognise tlie quotations. The first is from 
Admiral Jellicoe's despatch ; the second that of Admiral 
Beatty. ' 
They show, I venture to say, that the affair generally 
referred to by the affectionate name of " The Jutland Scrap "" 
was very largely, like most things cj»nnected "witli the Navy 
of to-day, an Affair of Machinery.'"- • '' ' 
Success of Mr. Balfour's Mission 
By An Onlooker in America 
Washington, May i8th, 1917. 
BEFORE this can appear in print Mr. Balfour will 
have returned to London. From many points of 
view the mission has been wonderfully successful. 
It has been a real personal triumph for its leader. 
Thanks to Mr. Balfour's tacthd ehxpience and power of 
exposition, whether in public or private, it has immensely 
developed the Transatlantic understanding of the war. It 
lias shown Americans as nothing before had shown them, 
how important the objects for wliich we are fighting are for 
the whole world. It has exploded the idea that it is simply 
a case of the iuiropean nations bickering blindly and bloodily 
over the readjustment of the European Balance of Power. 
It has shown that the real tie between the United .States and 
the Empire is not the tie of blood, but the infinitely more real 
tie of a kinship of ideals. By doing so it has made it easier 
for the President to marshal behind him his racially compli- 
cated country. ' 
Too much must not, however, be expected in the wav of 
immediate practical results. Eventually, the United States, 
partly thanks to the influence of Mr. Balfour and his French 
colleagues, may be expected to play a \ery important part 
in the war. But it will be some time before she makes her 
weight felt save in the psychological sense. The naval 
assistance she has seiit ns is useful, but not decisive. It may 
be a year or more before she really begins to turn out the 
huge number of small craft which might really smash the 
submarines. It has virtually been decided that troops 
shall be .sent to France as sooii as possible ; but it will again 
be a year before they can arrive in numbers of real military 
sigpificance. Washington is most anxious to do her share 
in soh'ing the food j)roblem. She is preparing to build ships, 
to reorganise her land transportation, and increase her tilled 
acreage. But here again her activities Will not bear real 
fruit until 1918. The American people are showing their 
desire to help us out of the abundance of their riches. All 
the Allies need money ! But even without the United States 
they could have carried on for another twelvemonth. 
Paradoxical as it may seem for a Mission that was rightly 
idvertised to be purely practical, the first fruits of its work 
;vill thus be political rather than practical. It has cleared the 
way for great things rather than brought great things about. 
It will obviate disappointment if this fact and the reasons for 
It can be firmly grasped in England. They should not be 
difficult to grasp unless the British people are quite oblivious 
tif their own experiences. The United States, not to put too 
hne a point upon it, is in precisely the same position as the 
Lnited Kingdom was in 1914 and indeed 1915. , Neither 
the Government nor the country are' prepared for war. 
The situation has been aggravated by a factor which, in 
fairness to the United States, deserves particular attention. 
Washington and thoughtful opinion outside Washington 
realised at once that the contest, especially for the United 
States, IS at least as much an economic as a military venture. 
I hey are trying to do offhand what it took us years "to accom- 
plish. They are trying simnltaneousH' to expand a weak 
fighting machine into something that will be worthy of the 
country and the cause, and to turn the industrial and business 
organisations of the nation into a source of supplies, not only 
for that machine, but for the Allied nations as well. It 
would be a gigantic task of co-ordination and co-operation 
even m a community which was not intensely individualistic 
and whose Government was not handicapped by the checks 
and balances of a Federal Constitution. 
The original constitutional war machinery of Washington 
IS very simple. The President is titular Commander-in-Chief 
of both Army and Navy. Beneath iiim are the Secretaries of 
War and of the Navy, alwaVs civilian politicians, to run the 
wneral organisation of tlie two branches which, for fightinj; 
purposes, are controlled by the General Staff of the Army and 
the General Board of the Navy. Beneath these heads the 
two Departments function on orthodox bureaucratic prin- 
ciples. But a system which might have been all very well 
in the Napoleonic days has clearly to be profoundly modified 
and amplified to meet the standard of comprehensive warfare 
which the most responsible American opinion has set 
for itself. Nor is it possible to expand an army which has 
been kept in miniature in times of peace and a navy 
whose organisation has not yet been affected by the lessons of 
tiie war, or to improvise the necessary machinerj' for economic 
warfare without copious reference to Congress, whose digestion 
of new ideas is always bad, and which is traditionally jealous 
of that kind of executive " usurpation " without which success- 
ful warfare is impossible. 
Such are the main rocks in the reef against which the great 
desire of Washington to help the Allies is now breaking. 
Immediately after the declaration of war, new parts began to 
be added to the war machine, either from the existing Govern- 
ment or out of the air. When the possibility of war was first 
reluctantly envisaged, a body called the Council of National 
Defence was improvised. It consists of six Cabinet Ministers 
and an Advisf)ry Board of seven business men. When 
war was declared, the Board went into permanent session. 
But it does not pull together either with itself or the rest ol 
the (iovernment, and is suspected by Congress. Its members 
of the Cabinet have their own departments to attend to. 
Also they do not by some strange oversight number the 
Secretary of the Treasury among them. Hence it has fallen 
more and more into the hands of its non-political members. 
Being strong and far-seeing men, they have gone ahead 
with their own plans. One of them is deaUng with trans- 
portation ; another with raw materials ; another with muni- 
tions ; another with food, and so on. They are being helped 
in their rapidly expanding offices by volunteers from among 
the best of the business world, but they are not yet properly 
co-ordinating their activities with those of the Government 
and its various departments and boards. 
One example of what this means will suffice. From the 
point of view both of the United States and the AUies, food 
is one of the most pressing problems. The growing of food- 
stuffs is important. But their transportation is more im- 
portant still. To arrange for it and for the moving of other 
supplies has been one of the primary tasks of Mr. Balfour's 
mission. Yet it has not so far been able to get much done 
because of the division of authority here. Railway transpor- 
tation is in the hands partly of the Interstate Commerce 
Commission, a permanent Federal body, an4 partly of the 
Council of National Defence under the directorship of Daniel 
Willard, head of the Baltimore and Ohio Company. The 
question of ocean tonnage, though patt of the same problem, 
is dealt with by the Federal Shipping Board, and also by the 
Council of Natibnal Defence, which has entrusted to Colonel 
Goethals, the brilliant and forceful engineer of the Panama 
Canal, the problem of shipbuilding. Much preliminary 
confusion has resulted from this arrangement. But 
already there are signs of improvement. Mr. Hoover, as 
Food Controller, ought to be able to pull the all-important food 
and transport problem together. 
Nor does it matter that Mr. Balfour has returned before 
the process of readjustment has been finished. He has 
left behind him various experts in trade, military', and naval 
matters, from the drilling of troops to the arrangement of 
hospital units. That he should have done so is the best 
possible earnest that it is only the organisation of Washington 
that is weak, for it was the policy of Mr. Balfour, when he 
arrived here, not to suggest any form of co-operation or help, 
but to leave everything to the initiative of his hosts. 
