8 
La^d & Water 
March 14, 191 8 
\oM have here a popiUatiorTyery nearly as larL;c «,■. tlial of tlie 
wholt German Empire at the least, and larger than that of the 
-.fhoU German Empire at the most. In mere extent, you 
have an additional band of highly exploitable terntory 
ilet alone the vast prey formed by the mass of Russia behmd), 
which is no less than > thousand miles from north to south, 
and from 700 to 800 miles in maximum breadth. 
The interest of the operation does not lie in the fact that 
! IS the death of what we once knew as Russia— that one 
[.ikes for granted ; it lies rather in the enorrtiity of the opera- 
tion, in the vastness of tiie territories and populations that 
will now be carved out by the victor— if we leave him 
\ictor — for his profit and increase. 
More than that, and dominating the whole economic 
situation, i,s the fact thatj(iermany also cuts off all that lies 
t. the east of these States from traffic by sea. The nearest 
thing to a warm water port which the old Russian Empire 
possessed in the north was Riga, accessible for most months 
of the year, and Libau for nearly all the year. In the south, 
Russia had many ports on the opeh 131ack Sea, but her great 
stand-by was, of course. Odessa. The Ukraine, which will 
be economically only a province of fhe Central European 
Sfote under Prussia— if Prussia has her way— possesses 
Odessa, and, what is more, although the Ukraine Govern- 
ment will probably not directly administer the Crimean 
Peninsula, the territory of the Ukraine cuts off the mass of 
Russia behind and of Asia from the Black Sea. Even when 
the Northern Baltic is open, the entries to Petrograd by sea 
are blocked by whoever holds Esthonia and Reval. In 
other words, with this scheme matured, all that lies beyond 
the frontiers of the new States is economically at Germany's 
mercy. It is shut up in a cage. 
The supply of wheat for Western Europe, all the wealth 
to be developed in the basin of the Volga and in the Urals, 
will follow the commercial routes chosen by Prussia, and will 
cease its journey for the purposes of consumption where 
Prussia chooses. 
.(jThere are still left a certain number of people who talk 
about commercial routes and exchanges as though they were 
governed by blind laws of nature and had about them some- 
thing inevitable. Even this remnant will be convinced, 
I think, when the transformation in direction of the Russian 
exchanges begins to take place, if we allow a German 
victory. H. Belloc. 
The Navar Estimates : By Arthur Pollen 
IN introducing the estimates the First Lord dealt witli 
the naval situation with exceptional ' candour and 
lucidity, and he cante very near to achieving what 
is very likely the last thing he has ever wanted, 
namely, a great Parliamentary success. It 'was an 
odd error of judgment that robbed him of it. His first state- 
ment was everything a statement s(iould be — except that 
it ignored the only burning topic of the day. For months 
lu-aple have been asking why Lord Jellicoe was dismissed, 
and there have been plenty who have offered the explanation 
that it was either to please some vindictive soul in the Cabinet 
or to pacify the powerful author of a newspaper vendetta. 
It was idle to expect the passions aroused by the " Government 
Press" agitation to go without expression in a naval debate, 
when the instance of Lord Jellicoe had so often been put 
forward as exactly parallel to that of Sir William Robertson. 
It was no surprise, therefore, that Mr. Lambert. should lead 
the attack and draw Sir Edward Carson into supporting 
him, or that ^ir Hedworth Meux, Mr. Pringle and Mr. Robert 
McNeil should join in the cry. After all the harm had been 
done, the First Lord stated quite explicitly that he had 
acted, not on pressure — personal or journalistic — ^but solely 
on his own judgment and in the interests of the nation. 
But unfortunately this .statement was forced from him and 
not volunteered. It followed the debate instead of preceding 
it. And while on reflection the House will accept it literally, 
because whatever the First Lord's other qualities may be 
his integrity is obvious, it did not at the moment have the 
full effect to which it was entitled. It did not come, that 
is to say, until a great many rather painful things had been 
said; and in the discussion that followed it, something of 
the tone made inevitable by the earlier discussion continued. 
Tlie whole thing is much to be regrdtted, not only because 
no good can come by any canvassing of the merits of naval 
officers in the House of Commons, but because so much time 
and ability were diverted from the discussion of other and 
far more important topics. And such discussions are never 
worthy of their subject. The incident, one hopes, is now 
finally closed. It should never have been opened. 
The First Lord's speech dealt first with the work of the 
Admiralty, and included such topics as the First Lord's 
own visit to the Mediterranean, the latest developments 
of the redistribution of the functions of the Admiralty and 
their success, and various lesser matters connected with the 
Higher Command ; next, the general character of the sea 
war — which has not changed materially in the last twelve 
months; thirdly, the present state of the submarine war 
and the progress of our defensive and the development of 
our offensive ; fourthly, the difficulties connected with the re- 
placement of the lost shipping ; and finally, witb various 
matters connected with general administration, the most 
important of which perhaps are the circumstances which 
have made the promotion of Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt desirable. 
and the questions to which such promotions naturally give 
rise. 
The naval position as a whole was presented to the country 
as being substantially what it was a year ago. Germany, 
that is, is still completely besieged by the sea ; and the First 
Lord might have added that the belligerency of America 
has made that siege far stricter and more complete than 
it was last February. The enemy is, therefore, under a 
greater and greater necessity to use his sea force, either 
to mitigate the siege or to inflict upon the Allies some injury 
proportionate to that from which he himself is suffering. 
The sea forces he can employ are indirectly his battle fleet — 
to secure the safe exit and return of his submarines— and, 
directly, the submarines themselves to do the work of attack- 
ing and sinking our shipping. It is no use lamenting the 
fact that we either have not had the opportunity — or, alter- 
natively, not been able to turn it to account — of destroying the 
enemy's fleet and thereby attaining the possibility of a closer 
investment of his harbours. It remains, therefore, that our 
main business is, as it has been for some time, first, to make 
the attack on our shipping as difficult and dangerous as 
possible, by attacking the submarines by every conceivable 
method, so as, if possibje, to drive them off the seas altogether ; 
secondly, failing complete success in this, to defend our 
shipping from the attack of such submarines as get through ; 
and, lastly, to replace as rapidly as possible such shipping 
as the enemy has succeeded or may still succeed in destroying. 
The first part of the programme — the offensive against the 
submarine — while still only in its tentative stages, is shown, 
by the First Lord's statement, to have achieved some quite 
important results already. Real progress is being made in 
blocking the English Channel, and our offensive, whether 
independent of, or part of, the defence of shipping, is seem- 
ingly already so effective to enable us to sink submarines 
as fast as they can be built, and to make it reasonably sure 
that out of every four or five submarines that go out, only 
three or four return. The campaign, then, is being persisted 
in at a great cost of life and material to the enemy, a fact 
which is having an illimitable effect upon his moral. What 
is not less satisfactory is that there is a continuing decline 
in the loss of the world's tonnage. February was a good 
month for the Germans, but if March is equally good, the 
first quarter of igi8 will still show the same rate of diminish- 
ing success as was shown by the last quarter of last year. 
Whichever way, then, we look at the naval effort against 
the submarine — whether we measure, that is, by the rising 
price that the enemy must pay or the falling cost to ourselves 
— there is equally a satisfactory progress. 
But in spite of the falling rate of destruction, that rate 
is still far ahead of replacement ; and in replacement, the 
rate is not rising, but falling more heavily than the other. 
The civilian effort then compares very poorly with the naval. 
It is almost a summary of the shipbuilding situation to say 
that whereas the expert estimate is that we have a national 
capacity to produce three million -tons a year, in January 
and February we were producing at the rate of between a 
fifth and a quarter of this. The First Lord suggested several 
elements which, in combination, explain this appallingly wrong 
state of things. January includes an exceptional proportion 
of hoHdays, and all the month we had weather of the worst 
and most unfavourable kind. Great numbers of the men are 
overworked, tired, and incapable of the scale of effort they 
made before. Worse than all, there is much serious labour 
unrest in shipbuilding centres, and a section of the men are 
discontented. There was war-weariness, too, amongst the 
