August 2, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
3 
LAND & WATER 
OLD SERJEANTS' INN. LONDON, W.C. 
Telephone HOLBORN 2828. 
THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 1917 
CONTENTS 
PAGE 
After Three Years. By Louis Raemaekers i 
Three Years of War. (Leader) 3 
Field-Marshal Douglas Haig (Photograph) 4 
Review of the Third Year. By Hilaire Belloc 5 
Letters from a Legation. By Hugh Ciibson 9 
Military Events of the Week. By Hilaire Belloc 13 
Growth of Democracy. By L. P. Jacks 15 
The Creation of Polajid. By I. N. 17 
August Moon (Poem) . By J. C. Squire 18 
Progress of Agriculture. (Illustrated). By Sir Herbert 
Matthews 19 
An Industrial Retrospect. By Jason 20 
Meeting of the Navies. (Special Picture). By Charles 
Pears 2 1 
The Rise of the R.F.C. By B. C. Fellows 24 
Swooping on a Taube. (Picture) . By C. R. W. Nevinson 25 
The Battle of Jutland. From a drawing by Commander 
Boyle, R.N. 26 
The Mark of the Beast : German Proclamations. 
(Original Text w'th Translations) ?7-34 
War and Art. (Illustrated). By Ciarles Marriott 37 
Russia in Revolution. By Sir Paul Vinagradoff 43 
A Farm in Flanders. By Centurion 44 
Domestic Economy 52 
Kit and Equipment 57 
THREE YEARS OF WAR 
THREE years of war — six and thirty months of un- 
anticipated death and sorrow, agony and distress 
on ev6ry continent of this planet — it is an immeasur- 
able period if gauged by the heart -pangs it has created, 
but if regarded from a higher standpoint and contrasted 
with other periods of warfare when the same weights were 
in the scales, barbarism and slavery on one side, freedom 
and civilisation on the other, then there is no need for 
despondency, not even if a full year or more has yet to be 
added to the tale. No one to-day dares to predict when 
the finish will happen ; even that most reckless of prophets, 
the Kaiser, is silent ; but the AlUes are fully assured the 
end can only come when victory is complete. 
The present German Chancellor, Herr Michaelis, boasted 
in' his first speech to the Reichstag, that the territory of the 
Fatherland is inviolable. " If we make peace," he added, 
" we must make sure as the first condition that the frontiers 
of the German Empire are made secure for all time." Bel- 
gium may be overrun if necessity seems to demand it ; 
France and Russia may be invaded by land and provinces 
snatched from them ; England may be invaded by air and 
her civil population slaughtered, but the German Empire is 
to be inviolable for all time ! These boastful sentences 
make it only too plain that there can be no hope of peace, 
of permanent peace with Germany — any sort of Germany, 
call it autocratic or democratic as they will — until her national 
conscience is convinced that she is no stronger than- the other 
Powers, and that offences against international rights and 
common humanity will be punished, no matter how long it 
may take, by nations more powerful than herself. The 
Allies are fighting for a permanent peace ; the reasons for 
Great Britain's entry into the war hold as good to-day as they 
did three years ago, and whatever the cost we shall not 
desist until the cause of right and justice has been won, and 
such heavy punishment inflicted upon the Bully of EiU'ope 
that it will act as a deterrent for all time. 
War is the Grand Assize to which nations are summoned. 
Germany, to do her justice, recognised this truth from the 
first, but with that overweening egoism which is to be one 
of the causes of her downfall, she counted confidently on the 
other nations failing to justify their existence. The British 
Empire three years ago was deemed an old overgrown giant, 
too lazy to move unless its own comfort or purse was in 
peril ; now she is seen to be a young giant of inexhaustible 
vigour and resolution, who, while set on winning the war. has 
yet the time and energy to give thought to the problems of 
progress which are recognised to lie ahead. A brilliant series of 
articles from the pen of "Jason," have been appearing for 
some weeks in these columns, dealing with many of the more 
urgent industrial questions, and to-day this talented writer 
in a final article, makes a rapid survey of the advance which 
has been made in the industries and manufactures of these 
islands. He does well to remind us that three years ago — 
in the first months of the war — the internal danger we stood 
chiefly in fear of were the consequences of unemplo3Tnent. 
Nobody did or could have foreseen the insatiable effects of , 
modern war, and he does only justice to the ordinary citizen 
when he attributes to him and to her the extraordinary reserve 
of power and resourcefulness of which this nation has shown 
herself possessed. Mistakes have been made and will con- ' 
tinue to be made in that most difficult of all modem problems ,' 
— the management and control of free peoples. But here 
real progress has also taken place, and we ourselves firmly 
believe that with tact and good sense on both sides, to say 
nothing of patriotism and discipUne, all the outstanding 
difficulties can be overcome. 
The danger that seems to beset the nation at home at the 
present time is a too easy contentment with our achieve- 
m.ents hitherto. This spirit does not affect the armies in the 
field ; they recognise clearly the immensity of the task that 
still lies ahead of them, and their courage is as serene as ever. 
There is no question that it will be a great stimulus both at 
home and in the field for profiteering to be dealt with in an 
honest and straightforward manner; that is to say, in the way 
Lord Rhondda is handling it. Weeks ago the then Food 
Controller, Lord Devonport, admitted in Parliament that 
profiteering did exist, and gave one notorious instance. But 
there he stopped ; the culprits were not named, nor was any 
action taken. This incident created a very bad impression 
throughout the coimtry, which has been increased by subse- 
quent events. At the same time, there has been an extra- 
ordinary response to the Government's call for increased 
production. Never have our wide acres and garden roods 
been more extensively cultivated ; this joy of production, 
certainly on the part of allotment holders, promises to con- 
tinue. It may be remembered that the yejirs immediately 
preceding the war witnessed exceptional activity in 
gardening all over the countries, but energitis were devoted 
more to flowers than to foodstuffs. Now that the true 
value of the latter cultivation has been comprehended, this 
increase of garden cultivation is likely to continue. And 
that most conservative of all men, the Britisl* agriculturist, 
has at last awakened to the significance osf mechanical 
appliances, and is making much more use ol' them as Sir 
Herbert Matthews points out on another page. 
Land & Water has taken this opportunity to place before 
its readers a record of the official crime and villainy of Ger- 
mJCny's rulers. The proclamations of which we give to-day 
photographic reproductions, are in themselves overwhelming 
testimony of the callous and carefully premeditated biutality 
of the Teuton nature. Were it humanly possible for war 
ever to be discredited, then it will be admitted that Gei many 
has done her best to accomphsh it. After glancing thiough 
these Proclamations, read the letters from, the Amerkan 
Legation at Brussels written home by Mr. Hugh Gibson, the 
First Secretary. Here will be seen what thoughts were in 
German minds before the invasion of Belgium had actually 
begun. If there remains the faintest doubt that this 
invasion was forced on Germany, these letters will sweep the 
last shred of it away. And other overwhelming evidence also 
exists. The Potsdam conspiracy, for particulars of which the 
country is indebted to the Times, sheds a new and baneful 
light on this subject. Itisnowmadeknownthat on July 5th, 
1914, a meeting of the Kaiser and his principal supporters, 
both in Germany and Austro-Hungary, took place in the 
Palace of Potsdam, and there is circumstantial evidence that 
at tliis meeting it was decided to force a war on Europe. 
