February 28, 191 8 
Land & Water 
LAND & WATER 
5 CHANCERY LANE, LONDON, W.C.2 
Telephone : HOLBORN zSzg. 
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1918 
Contents 
pagp: 
1 
2 
Socialism in Germany. By Louis Raemaekers 
An Observation Balloon. By C. R. W. ^'evinson 
The Outlook 3 
The Public Mood. By Hilaire Belloc 5 
Russia's Fleet. By Arthur Pollen 7 
Hunting the U-Boat. By Herman Whitaker 9 
America's Part. By J. D. Whelpley 12 
A Prevalent Inconsistency. By L. P. Jacks ij 
Ztjal. By Etienne 14 
Tht; Sense of London. (Illustrated). By Charles Marriott 16 
A Comer of Old England. By J. C. Squire 18 
Foot Sloggers. (Poem). By Ford Madox Haeffer 19 
Books of the Week 21 
The Cradle of Polo. By Lewis R. Freeman. R.N.V.R. 22 
Domestic Economy ^ 24 
Notes on Kit ix 
The Outlook 
IN the early part of last week] it was officially announced 
that Sir Henry Wilson had taken the chief command, 
vacated by the dismissal of Sir William Robertson. 
Other changes in the commands of the Army were 
expected by the public but have not taken place at 
the time of writing. Meanwhile the prosecution of Colonel 
Repington and the Editor of the Morning Post for the publica- 
tion of an article dealing with the reserve arniy in a fashion 
which the censorship regarded as a breach of its direction 
was undertaken. Both defendants were fined the nominal 
sum of £100, and the incident was thus closed. It came out 
during the hearing of the case that the reserve army, the 
existence of which the British censorship desired should not 
be mentioned, had already been amply discussed in the 
German Press. 
Certain questions were asked in the House of Commons 
during the course of last week concerning the attitude 
of the Government towards other papers, notably towards 
the one-man group of numerous and varied organs. To 
these questions various answers were returned. Some 
repeated the old formula that " the law officers of the Crown 
haul advised an action would not lie." Other answers were 
that " the matter was under consideration." The educated 
public is not concerned, of course, with fictions of parlia- 
mentary procedure. The interest of the incidents lies en- 
_tirely in the questions and the state of mind which they 
indicate. 
Unfortunately, though these questions (put down by in- 
dividuals more daring than most of their fellows) accurately 
represent the mass of opinion outside the House of Commons, 
they have had no sequel in the shape of parliamentary action, 
The House shirked such action. In other words, the individual 
members composing it each thought it to his private a.dvantagi' 
to do nothing, and the practical result was a final abdication 
if authority <m this l?.st and critical test to which that assembly 
has been submitted. 
* * * 
The most curious commentary on this affair is the criticism 
directed towards it by most of our contemporaries. They 
sjjeak of " collusion " between one section of the Press and 
the politicians. They darkly hint that particular newspapers, 
especially those of popular circulations, are " inspired " by 
individual members of the Government. They talk of the 
" Government Press " and so forth. All that is putting the 
cart before the horse. It is of common knowledge that the 
)rder in which thesi> things stands is exactly the other way. 
!t is not the politician who makes the newspaper. It is the 
newspaper wlio ma'ccs the jxilitician. 
A polic\- is not first decided on in Downing Street, and 
then communicated to Printing House Square. It is decided 
in Printing House Square and there is no necessity of com- 
municating with Downing Street at all. The newspaper 
.nan stands in no dread of any politician, but every pxilitician 
stands in terror of the newspi'.per man. If wb ask ourselves 
why the thing has been put in a topsy-turvy way. and why 
the Press is treated as the servant when it is really the mastn , 
the answer would not be easy to furnish. 
Probably the nearest to the truth of the many answers 
that might be gi\en is the natural conservatism of the jour- 
nalistic profession. For so long a time past ha\;p men been 
writing of this or that newspaper as the ' supporter " of such 
and such a politician or policy that they have not yet framed 
a new set of phrases to express the new state of affairs. 
* * * 
Not so many years ago the prestige and corporate power 
of the House of Commons would have sufficed to put an end 
to the whole business. The offence would have been insisted 
upon in debate. If the individual professional politicians 
whose duty it nominally was to undertake such prosecutioij 
proved impotent because they were themselves the servants 
and not masters of the people whose punishment they de- 
manded, a motion demanding prosecution would ha\'e been 
briefly discussed and passed by a large majority. To-day 
it is quite hopeless to expect any such virile action or indeed 
any action at all from the House of Commons. 
As an organ of Government the House of Commons is dead 
and it is very doubtful indeed whether it can be revived. Its 
moral authority had disappeared long before the present 
war, through its ovsti foolish toleration of financial scandals 
antl through the indecent haste of its most prominent members 
to guarantee themselves from punishment. But war, which 
is the great bringer out of realities, has put the final touch 
to the process of decay. The best evidence of the nullity 
into which the Hou.se of Commons has sunk is the new 
Reform Bill. This measure would, if the suffrage were 
a Uving reality, and the House of Commons, which proceeds 
from the suffrage, were still an organ of Government, 
be a revolution more thorough by far than any consti- 
tutional change of the past. It actually doubles the 
electorate, suddenly includes millions Of women, and even 
in its details involves a complete change. Yet none pays 
the slightest attention to it. No one is interested in its fate, 
and for a very simple reason : everyone knows that the 
electorate cannot do anything more than vote for Caucus 
candidates and the resulting House can have no representative 
authority. - 1 
It matters little or nothing which of the Caucus candidates 
happen to be thrown together to form a House of Commons. 
They will form nothing representative of the natjon. They 
will in any case be a b, dy of men each for the most part using 
their jxjsition to advance their private affairs, and enjoying 
the privilege of immunity when those private affairs are of a 
doubtful character. 
* ♦ ^ * 
The careful observer of public opinion during the last few 
months w'ill have discovered that the effect of newspapers 
upon public opinion is small. It is less than it used to be, 
and even at its height it neyer affected much of the population 
outside London. The real strength of this new kind of 
Government lies in its power of terrorising by threats of 
exposure and corrupting by promised advancement individual 
poUticians, coupled \vith its effect upon other organs of the 
press. The weapon of the boycott is also very strong. It 
is particularly true of the professional politicians that lack 
of advertisement is death. 
It is this grip, upon individuals not upon the public, which 
is the true mainspring of our latest constitutional change, 
and it is this contemptible character in it which makes it 
happily certain that this singular epoch in English public life 
will not be long-lived. Sooner or later there will be not only 
a protest but vigorous action. For the moment the culprits 
p.re immune from the law. but that cannot last. The weakness 
of the position is already apparent in the impossibility of in- 
flicting serious punishment upon those who are now beginning 
to attack this way of governing the country. A nominal fine 
is the worst they have to fear, and it is tantamount to an 
acquittal. Meanwhile, though the evil is 'a passing one, it 
happens to coincide with the gravest moment in the history 
of the country. That is the kernel of the whole affair. 
England will succeed or fail in the next few months. Her 
future will be decided in this year 1918, and though general 
disgust at our new form of rule will undermine it and perhaps 
destroy it before the end of the year, its incompetence may 
in the interval have decided the fate of the country. 
* * * • 
After the breaking off of the negotiations between the 
Solny Soviet (the body which has usurped authority in 
Northern Russia and reigns there by terror), the German 
Government ordered the advance of its armed forces beyond 
the lines of the Dvina on which the Baltic, or left, wing of those 
forces had reposed for more than two years — a repose broken 
only by the facile occupation of Riga a few months ago. No 
effective resistance could be offered, of course, by the 
h;Jf-amied mob to which what were once the Russian armies 
1 ,i\e now been reduced by the little group in the capital, and. 
