14 
Land & Water 
March 28, 1 9 i 8 
is taken against the submarine. But the initiative is really 
left with the submarine. If, when it comes to the point, the 
Hun pirate does not like the look of things, he will have to 
kt the convoy go by rather than risk an encounter with its 
protecting ships. The destruction of the enemy's submarines 
— v/hich we gather from official statements to be at the rate 
•f about twelve a month — is, then, only incidental to the 
general course of our campaign. 
We have not, in the period under review, been able to 
carry, our direct offensive against the submarines very far. 
The White Paper makes this clear : the reduction in the 
sinkings "has been achieved in spite of imperfect knowledge 
•f a new and barbarous method of warfare, and of a scarcity 
•f suitable material. Our material resources for this warfare 
are already improved, and are being rapidly augmented, 
while science is placing at our disposal means of offence and 
defence of which we have been in need." The progress made 
since April, in other words, is not due to any sudden accession 
•f material — always accepting the very welcome assistance 
that Admiral Sims's destroyers brought at this critical 
moment — but to the adoption of sound methods of using 
the material available ; to the reorganisation of the higher 
command brought about last May; to the consequential 
adoption of the convoy system ; to a more scientific adapta- 
tion of available means to the end in view ; to a wiser selec- 
tion of men ; and, generally, to a closer co-operation between 
all the agencies that could contribute to the desired result. 
But on the direct offensive against the submarine only the 
beginnings could be made. How these have progressed 
since we have to gather from faint indications. I shall 
touch on these in dealing with the Dunkirk argument. 
For the moment, let us note that the Navy's strongest card 
has not yet been played. 
The second reason for expecting improved naval results 
is that the defensive organisation that has revolutionised the 
situation since last spring has not yet been applied in the 
Mediterranean where, the First Lord told us, a third of our 
losses are being incurred. It has been stated by some who 
claim to know that our tonnage losses in the Mediterranean 
are relatively heavier than elsewhere. If Admiral Calthorpe 
can get his forces to work as satisfactorily as the British 
and American forces in the Atlantic there should soon be a 
very material improvement in this very important field. 
Lastly, we surely cannot be deceiving ourselves in sup- 
posing that the pirates themselves must now be going at 
their work with greatly diminished belief in its efficacy. 
Their losses are heavy ; their condemnation by the whole 
world is known to them ; their victims are a diminishing 
number ; they must be conscious that this combination of 
guilt, suffering and failure has not gained, and now has no 
prospect of gaining, that result for their country that would 
have led to their being forgotten. 
Now, if we put these elements together : (i) the admitted 
capacity of British, American, and the allied and neutral 
shipbuilding yards to reach a production of six million tons 
in the course of this year ; and (2) the high probabiUty of 
the naval effort continuing increasingly successful on its 
present lines ; and {3) having in reserve a stroke which may 
be far more successful than anything it has yet done — we 
must, it seems to me, be blind indeed if we do not perceive 
that the whole position has been reversed since April of last 
year. It is a result which justifies those who insisted upon 
the reorganisation of our chief command- long before things 
reached their worst. And it is one that reflects infinite 
credit upon all who, at the Admiralty and at sea, have 
contributed to making the reforms of last May a reality. 
And special credit must be given to the present First Lord 
who, coming to the Admiralty when things were at their 
worst — when, as Sir Edward Carson told us, the situation 
seemed perfectly hopeless — has patiently and with infinite 
labour first simplified and quickened the supply of material 
to the Navy and — a far greater achievement — has now not 
•nly reorganised the fighting side of the Admiralty to fit 
it to direct the Navy's main work, but has gone so far. in 
finding the right men to work the machine that he has created. 
The Channel Raid 
At five o'clock on Thursday morning last week, a flotilla 
of German destroyers, taking advantage of a haze, stole 
across to Dunkirk from Zeebrugge and bombarded the 
place for some ten minutes. They were, however, inter- 
cepted by some French and English destroyers and a runaway 
action ensued. At the time of writing, no further details 
are known except that no French or British boat was sunk, 
and only one British boat injured ; that prisoners have 
been brought in ; that it was believed that four of the enemy 
had been sent to the bottom ; and that its navy admits 
the loss of two. No doubt much fuller details will be in the 
hands of my readers by the time this paper is printed. In 
the meantime,, it is clear that a very welcome success has 
been won by the forces under Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes' 
command. A score, standing for the last month against 
the enemy, has been wiped out. But the incident means 
more than an agreeable reversal of fortune. 
When, two months ago, the change at Dover was an- 
nounced, it was suggested in these columns that if our forces 
at this the main point of the Narrow Seas were rightly 
handled, it would prove a very serious matter for the enemy. 
In introducing the estimates, the First Lord gave us a more 
precise indication of the form this pressure would take. 
For a very considerable period the Germans have been 
using the Channel freely as a thoroughfare by which to get 
their submarines to their hunting grounds. But the new 
tactics at Dover have included the extraordinarily bold 
proceeding of illuminating the entire fairway, so as to make 
an undetected surface passage impossible. The raid «f a 
month ago was carried out to drive off the trawlers and 
drifters that carried the flares necessary for the illumination. 
By some oversight they were able to carry out this raid with 
impunity. But it may be observed that the action of 
Tlmrsday morning has not arisen out of any attempt t© 
repeat it. The real interest, then, of this incident lies in 
this : that once the enemy is cut off from one form of sea 
activity — viz., by a denial of the shortest road to his sub- 
marines — he is at once driven to some other, in this case a 
repetition off Dunkirk of one of the fugitive raids which 
he has so often attempted before. 
If the Channel is effectively closed, the enemy, to get to 
his hunting grounds, must go north about ; and from Heligo- 
land to the western end of the Atlantic lanes by this route 
is between 700 and 800 miles longer than by the Channel. 
Double this difference — for the submarine always leaves in 
hopes of coming home again — and you have the pirate's 
cruising radius, once he is at work, reduced by no less than 
1,500 miles. More than this, he has 1,500 miles more not 
only of destroyer and patrol peril, but a marine risk as well. 
A second reflection that this last engagement off Dunkirk 
suggests is this : 
From Dover to Zeebrugge is just over 70 miles ; and 
Dunkirk is just over 35 from each point. Seventy miles 
is, if I remember right, almost exactly the distance from 
Port Arthur to the Elliot Islands, which the Japanese seized 
and used as a base for operations against the Russian Fleet 
in that harbour. These new activities at Dover tempt one 
to speculate on the course the naval war might have taken 
had it been possible for us to have seized and defended a 
considerable anchorage within, say, a hundred miles of the 
mouth of the Elbe. The Germans have often complained 
of the disadvantage their Navy was at owing to their geo- 
graphical position. But it is not at all certain that the dis- 
advantage has been all on one side. Unquestionably, that 
our main sea bases were five or six hundred miles from the 
main German base has given a character to the war that it 
could not possibly have possessed had we been situated as 
were the Japanese in their war with Russia. And it is a 
character entirely unfavourable to the stronger and more 
enterprising side. The topic is a large one, and I do BOt 
propose to pursue it at length now. I mention it only to 
draw attention to the fact that we shall probably witness in 
the case of Dover and Zeebrugge the development of a 
campaign from wliich perhaps a "might-have-been" may 
be reconstructed by the ingenious. In the meantime, we 
have heard nothing more of the inquiry into the loss of the 
drifters a month ago. But it is evident that the lessons of 
that event have not been ignored. Arthur Pollen, 
By the death of Mr. Edward Stott, A.R.A., British art 
loses a painter of peculiarly native sentiment. Intensely 
subjective in character, his work was religious in a deeper 
sense than merely that of employing the traditionally sacred 
themes that he so often painted. "The Holy Family," the 
ostensible subject of his most important picture in last 
year's Academy exhibition, was in a less obvious way the 
subject of a great many more ; and if it were possible to 
sum up the general inspiration of his art in a phrase, "the 
sanctity of domestic life" would do as well as any other. 
His imagination was constantly haunted with the idea 
' expressed in the words of Mr. Edward Carpenter : "The trio 
perfect : the man, the woman, and the babe, and herein all 
Creation" ; and it was the humanistic rather than the 
naturalistic side of pastoral life that attracted him. The 
brooding quality of his painting was thoroughly in sympathy • 
with its emotional pretext, and his pictures are to be felt by- 
degrees rather than taken in at a glance. 
