10 
LAND & WATER 
June cS, 1917 
no answors to this demand. If there ever was any evolu- 
ticniiry or ethnical excuse for the Teutonic tribes making 
this movnient there will be the same excuse for their 
making another movement. In short, the most practical 
reason for saying that a peace of the status quo must not sat- 
isfy us is the fact that, on their own showing, it cannot pos- 
sibly satisfy the GcrTnans. ■ The Germans at any rate have 
been tau{<ht to make this material claim : and the Gerinans 
Jiappcn to live under a power which has simply blazoned it • 
as a motto that he who has a material claim has no need 
of a moral claim. These rulers arc sincerely convinced that 
there is no international morality. We do not accuse Prus- 
sians of saying this, any more than we accuse them of living 
in Prussia. It is simply the fact that they do say it. Then- 
lias never been a great political spokesman of Prussia from 
i-roderick the Great to Bismarck who did not say it, 
and who was not praised by the Pnissians for saying it. For 
the Prussians to deny it now, in the attempt to dodge 
defeat, is exactly as if Englisiimen professed to hnd 
a painful subject in the saying that they are the masters of 
the sea. Annexation is not a Prussian conspiracy, it is a 
Prussian glory. The jjroblem is, therefore, what happens 
when a huge population, taught that it has a natural right 
to new territories, is ruled by captains who are particularly 
proud of having achieved every tme of their successes by 
aggressive war. It does not seem very difficult to imagine what 
would happen — especially when it has happened already. 
At this third stage of the debate the friend of a cosmopolitan 
compromist' intervenes and says in substance " But will 
<iennany not have learnt a lesson?" Yes; Germany will 
certainly have learnt a les.son. If the war ends in any such 
compromise, Germany will have learnt a most memorable 
and historic lesson. She will have learnt her strength. She 
will have learnt that she is at least as strong as the largest 
combination that can be brought against her ; and tiiat 
civilisation is either unable or unwilling to refuse any innovation 
she may afterwards introduce . into international ethics. 
At some favourable occasion in the future, let us say, Berlin 
may ccmsider it a sufficient substitute for the old-fashioned 
declaration of war to seize the British Ambassador and tor- 
ture him to extract British diplomatic secrets. She may 
at the same time invade Switzerland, not only kill the 
Swiss, but cook and eat them— from motives of economy 
and efficiency. There would be an outcry at the offence ; 
but not a greater outcry than there was against the Belgian 
massacres or the Atlantic piracy ; there might be a com- 
bination against the offender, but not a greater combination 
than that which now Unks up the continents of Europe and 
America. And the Germans would know by that time that 
such an outcry always dies down to a diplomatic chat, and 
such a combination alwavs falls to pieces before it can effect 
anything but the huriied payment of blackmail to the black- 
guard That is the weakness in the invocation of a European 
Tribunal and a League of Nations. They e.xist in this case 
as completely as they could exist — if any revolt against them 
were large enough to require their services. And the very 
people who invoke them for the future dare not use them in 
the present. If the rest of civilization cannot punish the 
immoralist mutiny of the Germanies, it will never be abl<^ 
to punish any mutiny large enough to be worth punishing. 
In the present case, as I say, the result will be simple enough ; 
the Germanics will have discovered that they are too big to 
l>e punished. If the the war ends now with any mere " terms " 
the moral for all Germans must be and can onlv be that the 
world cannot conquer (jt-rmany From that, by every possible 
liistorical analogy, there can be but one step to the position 
that Germany, with better luck or care, can conquer the 
world, The Germans would be more than human, instead 
of being if anything rather less, if they did not make thes<' ~ 
deductions from our dropping of the sword, suddenly and in 
silence. 
We have therefore three plain facts ; a people taught that it 
must expand in the futun- ; a ruling ])ower te-aching that'allits 
expansions have been iiy the higher morality of aggression ; 
and the failure (or apparent failure) of the whole world to 
prove itself stronger than that power. What will liappen 
next I should have thought a babj' could see — especially as 
its faculties might well be sharpened by the anticipation 
of being crucihed on a door. 
It is true that tliis Prussian Mctory is a delusion, which a 
few more blows will dissolve for ever. Are we therefore to 
refuse to dissolve it ; are we deliberately to let the delusion 
harden into a idee fixe for ever ? It is true that this uncon- 
<pierable Germany is a dream : for them a day-dream and 
for us a nightmare. Are we therefore, to go out of our way 
to make the dream come true ? I fear I must fail back inti) 
that mystical \ein in wliich I began, but if there be I)eyon(l 
events a purgation to which all our punishments are approxi- 
mate, it may well be the riviliz.-d .Miles, and not the half-savage 
Germans, who will theil answer to (ind for having ordered , 
the return o f slavery and savaKery and prehistoric night. 
British Salmon Fisheries 
To the Editor of L.^M) & Water. 
Sir, — In his article " Salmon and Food Supply " Mr. W. 
Baden Powell, K.C., made the suggestion that one of the 
main causes of the decline of Britisli salmon fisheries is the 
protection afforded to " fish-destroying birds." Most of 
those who have had experience of the rapid deterioration of 
salmon fisheries during the past 40 years might have inclined 
to place the pollution of rivers and excessive netting in the 
fore-front of the contributing causes, and the suggestion 
that the Wild Birds Protection Act has been the "main cause" 
deserves a little more examination than the writer of the 
article accorded to it. What are these "fish destroying birds" ? 
Gulls "and divers (unspecified) are alone referred to. 
By ■• divers," cormorants, gooseanders and mergansers are 
presumably referred to, for none of the other "divers" habitu- 
ally enter in any numbers the waters in which young salmon 
live. The " divers" are therefore reduced to three, the two last 
though no doubt very destructive, are not common birds, 
and very uncommon in the spring and summer months. The 
cormorants and gulls must therefore be the "vermin" to which 
the Wild Birds Protection Act is said to afford protection. 
On enquiry- Mr. Baden Powell will find that localities, if 
such exist, in the British Isles where connorants are protected 
are a very great exception to tJie rule, and that the eggs of 
gulls, so far from being protected as he suggests, are at many 
uf the great breeding stations (e.g. Fame Islands) on the 
British coast, annually collected by thousands for human 
consumption. There has been much controversy about the 
damage done by gulls, and the evidence by no means points 
all one way, nor are all gulls equally destructive. 
.'Assuming that a good case can be made by withdrawing 
protection from all the gulls, the removal of the Wild Birds Act 
land with it protection for all wild birds) is indeed a sur- 
prising suggestion as a means of carrying out that which has 
been done in many parts of England by the simple process of 
excluding gulls from the scliedule of protected birds. 
The damage done to salmon fisheries by the natural enemies 
of the salmon is not to be compared with the ill-effects of the 
artificial condition of the rivers, and the destruction caused 
by mail. A hundred years ago, apart from the birds already 
mentioned, the chief natural enemies of the salmon were the 
seal, otter, osprcy, and heron. No one will be found to 
assert that any of these exist to-day in numbers in any way 
comparable to those of a century ago. The seal has been 
totally banished from many of its former resorts and is no- 
where as abundant as fonnerly. The same may be said of the 
otter and the heron, while the osprey has become almost, if 
not completely, non existent. Moreover it must be remembered 
that all these were destroyers of grown fish, and as such were 
far more destructive than destroyers of spawn or fry. 
The decrease in the natural enemies of the salmon is as 
marked as the decrease in the salmon themselves, and an 
attempt to ascribe the present deplorably rapid deterioration 
of British salmon fisheries to the increase of "fish destroying 
birds" will hardly carry conviction to any student of natural 
history. 
The great "fish destroyer" has been man. His devices 
and notably the obstruction, pollution and netting cf rivers 
and estuaries — have in a few decades reduced (in the ca.se of 
some rivers to vanishing point) the salmon upon whose vast 
numbers centuries cf unceasing competition with their natural 
enemies had mad'' no impression whatever. 
In Palestine. M.MIRICE PoRT.vi.. 
June 6, 1917. 
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THE 
HIB&ERT JOURNAL 
riiixciPAT, c<)XTi:NT,s-.ur,v 
Reconstruction: - 
(1.) Peiwmality the Fin,il Aim of Social Eugenict. 
lu Profe-isor .lAJXF.S W.\I!n. 
(II.) Reconstruction -Of Wl<at? " Hv HBLKX BOS.WQUKT. 
(III.) Educational ReoonEtriictlon. llv 3. A. It. MARKIOTT. .VI. 1'. 
(IV.) The Now Religion. Hv tlif! Coiiutws of WAIlWK'K. 
(V.) Practical Religion. liy JOHN HRATTIK CKOZIRR. IX.D. 
(VI j Towns to Live In. liy W. li. l.l.THAin. 
Survival and Immortality. liy the DKAN nf ST. PAULS. 
Sir Oliver Lodge and the Scientific World. Ii\ CUARLliS Air.KClKK, MJ). 
The Theory ot Survival in the Light of its Context. Il.v I.. P_. JACKS. 
Toler.incc from a Russian Point ol View. liy Huron A. HKYKfNO. Ph.D. 
The Englishman and his Law. By EDWAKl) JKNK.s. 
Juvenile Delinquency : The Facts and its Cause. „ 
llv tiie R.'v. Cnnnn RAWNRtEV. 
The Pulpit and Its Oiiportunitles. Hy 1'. H. OUTCMITK. 
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