March 7, igi8 
Land & Water 
LAND & WATER 
5 CHANCERY LANE, LONDON, W.C.2 
Telephone : HOLBORN 2828. 
v 
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 19 18. 
Contents 
Survivors at Arras. By C. K. W. Xevinson 
On the Aisne. (Illustrations) 
The Outlook 
The German Offer. By Hilaire Belloc 
A Battleship at Sea. By Lewis R. Freeman, R.N.V. 
Food for Thought. By Charles .Mercier 
The " Glenart Castle " (Cartoon). Bj' Raemaekers 12 
Leaves from a German Note Book 
Rural Housing Question. By H. 
Moscow's Stolen Treasures. By G. C. Williamson 
Masterpieces. By J. C. Squire 
.Modem Novels and Critics. By Hugh Walpole 
The Return. By Stacy Aumonier 
Domestic Economy 
Notes on Kit 
P.^GE 
I 
R. 
and 
3 
5 
7 
II 
13 
14 
15 
17 
19 
20 
2Z 
26 
xiii 
The Outlook 
AT 4 of the morning of Tuesday, February 26th, 
His Majesty's hospital ship " Glenart Castle," 
of about 6,000 tons, was sunk, probably by 
submarine, in the Bristol Channel, off Hartland 
Point, on the North Devon coast. The vessel 
was fully lighted as a hospital ship at the time and was 
outward bound — happily (though the enemy would not know 
it) with no wounded on board. She sank very rapidly by 
the stern in less than ten minutes, and a heavy loss of life has 
been involved. A matron and seven nursing sisters, 5 
doctors and 42 men of the R.A.M.C, two chaplains, and 
124 officers and crew were the t«tal on board. 
There is no positive proof of this outrage being the work 
of a submarine, but the probabihties are in favour of that 
supposition, for the explosion took place nearly amidships 
from the side towards the open sea, and lights very low down 
on the water had been seen on this same starboard side 
shortly before the blow was struck. The hour was one 
which would increase the list of those who have gone down 
with the ship, while the weather was so bitter and the 
sea so rough that any long exposure suffered by the survivors 
must have proved fatal. The single boat saved was found 
by a- French vessel seven hours after the tragedy and v\as 
only kept afloat by continual baling out of icy water. The 
,fengine-room suffered less in proportion to the rest of the 
crew because the explosion happened as shifts were changing. 
♦ ♦ * 
Custom has rendered familiar incidents such as the 
destruction of this hospital ship, and has unfortunately dulled 
the indignation with which they were received when the 
enemy first began to perpetrate these crimes. All the more 
ought we to insist upon them and to keep them vividly before- 
the public mind. We should never be tired of repeating 
the plain truth that abominations of this kind were unknown 
to Europe until the modern Germans made themselves respon- 
sible for them. They are not " the product of modern war." 
There is nothing about them of a " development." They 
have not even come by some slow and therefore facile degrad- 
ation of our moral standard. They do not lie upon the 
conscience of Europe at all, for such things have never before 
been done in Eurojx; or by Europeans. 
They are the novel and characteristic acts of the German 
people at war. They are committed by Germans at sea 
with the approval and support of the German people at home, 
and they are committed under the influence of a pride in 
themselves and a contempt for our civilisation which ma\- 
indeed be insane but which must none the less be destroyed 
if Europe is to survive. They are not the work of individuals 
or of a special system or of a military caste, but of the German 
people as a whole, who thoroughly applaud them and con- 
sistently demand their pursuit. Such a state of mind is, 
of course, a moral anarchy, and the only fruit of it; if it remained 
unpunished or rather undestroyed, would be the dissolution 
«f that high European civilisation which the Germans have 
onlypartiallyacquired, and which their barbarism now menaces 
with extinction. This point of view Raemaekers emphasises 
in his cartoon in this issue. 
* * * 
On Monday, February 25th, Count Herthng, the Chancellor 
of the German Empire, delivered a speech upon the attitude 
of the German Government towards the war and the terms 
upon which it would accept peace. He ojx;ned by a state- 
ment that public speeches of this sort were not of very great 
utility; next quoted his agreement with Mr. Runciman's 
speech in the House of Commons earlier in the month, when 
that gentleman said that we should be nearer peace if a 
meeting could be agreed upon for discussion, and proceeded 
to define the attitude of his Government towards the question 
of Belgium. With regard to this he affirmed the disinterestedness 
of that Government, their desire to avoid the annexation of 
Belgian territory, but the necessity of preventing it from 
being used as a basis of attack against Germany. He added 
that he would welcome a separate discussion with the Belgian 
(Government at Havre. 
He next dealt with President Wilson's message of February 
nth (which he criticised as being excessively long). He 
summarised its proposals under four heads, all quite abstract, 
and reducible to the excellent principle that the inhabitants 
of each territory should decide their own fate in the settlement. 
With this abstract principle the Chancellor also declared 
himself in agreement. He required it, however, to be affirmed 
by all the belhgerent nations, not bv the head magistrate of 
one alone, and asserted that the chief obstacle to such a 
settlement was the EngHsh desire for conquest. The speech 
contained no concrete propositions and was of little value 
either to the speaker or to his opponents. 
* * * 
A reply to this speech was delivered upon the following 
Wednesday in the House of Commons by Mr. Balfour. Mr. 
Balfour in his reply had little to deal with save the obvious, 
but he dealt with that effectively. He pointed out that there 
never had been any question of using Belgium as a base of 
aggression against Germany, and he might have added that 
the Belgian plain has never been used as a base of aggression 
by any Western Power against any German State in the past, 
and in the nature of things could hardly be so used. He 
pointed out that the German Chancellor had said nothing 
about restoration or reparation, and further that the account 
which would have to be settled with Prussia was something 
very much larger than this one Belgian item, elTective though 
it niight be as a touchstone. 
Mr. Balfour further remarked, with great justice, that 
whenever modern Germans talk of " security of frontiers," 
they mean, in effect, the annexation and domination against 
their will of populations to whom Prussia was repugnant. 
He alluded to the shameless partition of Poland in favour 
of the new artificial Ukraine State, but went too far in saying 
that a concession had been made, and that " the new frontier 
was apparently going to be modified." All that has hap- 
pened is that the Austrians have promised to talk about the 
affair some other time, and the new frontier wilj be decided 
according to the success or ill-success of the enemy in arms. 
Mr. Balfour concluded by pointing out that Turkey had 
entered the war with the object of recovering Egypt, 
that is, for conquest ; and contrasted the foolish claim of 
humanity made for the German interference in Russia with 
the notorious German cruelties in Belgium and France. 
* * * 
• In the same debate, which was upon the Vote on Account, 
Sir Herbert Samuel spoke in support of Mr. Austen Chamber- 
Iain's recent remarks upon the relations between politicians 
and certain sections of the Press. He asked what the 
Government intended to do in the matter, but received no 
reply, Mr. Bonar Law's following speech dealing only with 
the general ground of confidence in the Government. ' Upon 
this point Mr. Bonar Law made in great detail an extensive 
defence of the present small War Cabinet, atid contrasted its 
efficiency in Government with that of the larger Cabinet 
which had preceded it, and of which he was also a member. 
This portion of the debate was of no great interest. 
Indeed, far more attaches to the remarks made by the 
same Minister, Mr. Bonar Law, at a meeting of the Aldwych 
Club the day before, when he urged the great business firms 
represented in his audience to make a special effort for a 
renewed increase in the sale of War Bonds. The appeal 
appears to have had a great success, and to confirm the 
present policy of day-to-day borrowing involving the post- 
ponement of anv great loan. 
* * * 
In the House last Thursday, Mr. Samuel contrasted tin- 
First Lord's statement of the 2nd ultimo— that merchant 
