LAND & WATER 
January 3. 19^8 
further or defensive side of any line organised you would lia\e 
in the north nothing- for Kiissia as an armed Power would 
have ceased to be. In the south any Western Power <)r 
Powers would be working, with very distant bases and with 
their eoniniunications maritime— and therefore costly, slow, 
and highly vulnerable, .\gainst them you would have, with 
direct land communications (which time would indefinitely 
improve) a large population, great potential economic re- 
sources, the whole organised under the domination of .Middle 
Europe, that is. of the Prussian s>'stem and capable of an 
indefinite accretion in wealth and ann-^. The issue would 
not be doubtful for long : and remember that it includes the 
isthmus of Suez. 
There seems to be floating through the minds of those who 
still think in terms of the old Europe, a map of the Near East 
in which provinces could be carved out from what was formerly 
a decadent Turkish Empire and held, as they were held in 
the past, by tlie material superiority of Western civilisnUon. 
There seems to be a still rooted conception of Britain still 
in Eg\pt and now also in Mesopotamia ; France, perhaps, in 
Syria," Hea\en knows what in Palestine (a buffer Stat e for 
Eg>-pt perhaps) continuing a calm and arderlv rule with nothing 
before them to fear. The conception is wildly tmreal ! 
Whatever nominal frontiers were drawn up by such a Treaty 
they would ni)t Ix' frontiers marching \;'ith what we ha\e so 
long thought of as the moribund Turkish Power ; they woukl 
be frontiers marching with an outlier of the Mid-European 
State. Who surrenders in this matter to the conception of 
a new artificial frontier is surrendering not only the Levant, 
but the Isthmus of Suez and the gate to the Asian seas. 
It is here, as everywhere, in this enormous field. Rival 
forces are at work which will not tolerate each other and 
one of which must control the future. 
. The Adriatic 
There remain two points of different interest, the Baltic 
and the .\driatic. Victory will open the Baltic and place 
upon it a Polish Port ; will take guarantees for its remaining 
open and will prevent the alternative — a complete control by 
.Alid-Europe of that sea and of its trade. But that alternative 
of a Prussian Baltic, weakening though it would be to the 
Western Powers, is not so serious as the corresponding effect to 
the south upon the Adriatic and the iEgean. A negotiated 
peace creates a Balkan Peninsula which is a part of Mid-Europe, 
a dependency of it, and a political and' military way for it 
to the Mediterranean. It puts Mid-Europe upon the Adriatic 
and the .^gcan for good. No paper can save that situation. 
An imdefeatcd Prussia ordering and moderating its great 
Central State has immediate access to the Balkanr States : 
the Western Powers ha\e nothing but long, round-about, 
expensive, tedious, and peiilous comnuinications by sea. 
.'\t the first threat of rupture — even if there were no open 
control already exercised — the shores and the ports from 
I stria all the way round to the Dardenelles would be theirs. 
Victory would make the Adriatic an Italian Sea, and would 
retain its place in the civilisation of Western Europe. It 
would leave the Mediterranean much what it is to-day ; but 
with an added security— for Valona, and the islands at least 
of the Eastern Adriatic coast, would be under Italian control. 
The opposite of victory — whatever you like to call it — 
(some call it a reasonable peace, others surrender, others 
treason, others common sense, and so forth) treaty negotiated ' 
in the present state of affairs, an instrum.'nt of whatever 
kind, e\en supposed to be final, which would leave Prussia 
as she still is, erect and strong, would also necessarily leave the 
ports of the Adriatic mid-European. Strategically that sea 
depends upon its eastern shore. The western one has no 
harbours and no security. The eastern is a mass of deep 
water channels, covered islands, hiding places of security 
for submarine work, and for large fleets as well. 
Look at it how you will, every political problem you examine 
in this business, every inquiry you make into the effects of this 
or that geographical settlement turns upon the belt of 
<lebateable land in whicji there has been such vast movement 
up to t]uite the immediate past, which is, therefore, to this 
day so complicated a pattern of race, of religion and political 
affection: the belt which lies east of the line along which the 
German tongue ceases ; from the neighbourhood of. Dantzio 
lound the Bohemian Plain, down the mid-Danube and so to 
Istria. If the upshot of the war be th^t these marches fall 
under the general influence of what the enemy is creating— 
a great Prussianised State in Central Europe— ^and become 
the outliers of such a State, there follow consequences linked 
one to the other which stretch from the domination of the 
Russian Plains upon one side to the domination of the Eastern 
Mediterranean upon the other. Whether that influence be 
called economic or military matters little. No concession 
upon the West diminishes the character of this issue, and the 
only alternative is a State of affairs in which the Prussian 
military power shall no longer exist for the congeries of 
people to the east and the south to lean upon and to look 
up to or to seek as a model and a guide. In that alternative 
one great State would be the natural counter -weight— the 
Polish State ; and that is why the fate of Poland is necessarily 
the test of the whole affair. Such a conclusion would see 
the German nations lying within their own boundaries and 
the 'spirit which has driven them to this great crime against 
Europe exorcised. 
If we do not see that end, the Western defence of Europe has 
been in vain. For within a generation that which threatens 
it to-day would be far stronger than it was in the moment of 
our gravest peril three years ago. H. Belloc 
National Shipyards 
By Right Honourable George Lambert, M.P. 
Mr. Gcor(;c Lambert. M.P., was for ten years Civil Lord 
of the Admiralty and has been for some time past one of the 
severest critics of Government Naval policy. He therefore 
-writes with high authority. 
THE Germans are destroying our mercantile tonnage 
faster than we are building it ; they are building 
submarines faster than we are destroying them. 
Such IS the situation that confronts us in this year of 
grace 1918. Let us face the situation and resolutely set 
about righting it. 
Lessons for the future must be drawn from the experience 
—dearly lx)ught experience— of the past. Our magnificent 
mercantile marine, of vital moment in these davs of agony 
has been wasted, frittered, dissipated. Instead of conserving' 
we have squandered it. Why worry ? Look at its magnifi- 
cent array— built by private enterprise by the way— it seem-; 
inexhaustible. Wave a wand over the water and a ship 
appears. Galhpoh, Salonika, East Africa, Mesopotamia 
Jerusalem, all needed or need vast quantities of shipping, 
mostly too, in the dangerous submarine zones. As a conse- 
quence the British Navy, that superb fighting machine, 
was scattered and dispersed for the protection of shipping. 
There has been no concentration. The Eastern Mediterranean 
has value, but the Apapa. to instance only one example with 
Its precious cargo and still more precious lives, was submarined 
withm forty miles of Livoxpool. Even the British Navy can- 
not be in two places at once. 
,/!"<? *';*'*«^ ^"""'' patient, far-sighted nun who built the 
British Mercantile Service, the Empire owe^ a debt of undying 
eratitude. I hey have sa;.ed the British Empire They 
had no help from the Government ; where tlie Government 
interfered it hampered. We want tonnage, w(> must ha\-e it. 
Britain wants it. The Allies want it. Without ships the 
great resources of America cannot be massed against the 
common foe. Germany, too, realises that in the destruction 
of shipping hes the hope of victory, or at least a comiiromised 
peace. 
How should we set about replacing lost tonnage ? The 
obvious course would have been to aid, help, assist those 
great private yards that have built what was the envy of the 
world— the British Mercantile marine. We are not, liowever, 
with Alice in Wonderland ; we are waging war, so those great 
establishments were kept short of steel, short of material, 
short of men, and the Government in its wisdom decided to 
establish national shipyards. The fiat went forth from the 
seats of the mighty. Let there be national shipyards. And 
it was so. And the Government said that it was'good. Was 
this policy the result of mature thought ? Certainly not ! 
What Government has time to think in time of war ? An 
Advisory Committee of distinguished shipbuilders had been 
purposely formed for counsel in such affairs. They w-ere 
practical men, had been engaging in'shipbuilding, had emerged 
successful through the ordeal of a world's competition. But 
were they consulted ? Again, certainly not ! " The policy of 
establishing, the national shipyards was decided bf the War 
Cabinet. . . . The Advisory Committee was not con- 
sulted by the War Cabinet so far as I know before the de- 
cision." (Dr. Macnamara, House of Commons, December 
19th, 1917). " Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice ; but 
we had better get on. 
\\ ill the national shipyards increase the output of tonnage 
