Land & Water 
July 4, 1918 
LAND & WATER 
5 CHANCERY LANE, LONDON, W.C.2 
Telephsne ; HOLBORN z8it. 
THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1918. 
Contents 
PAGE 
The Fourth of July. (Cartoon.) By Raemaekers i 
The Outlook 2 
Hungarian Disclosures. By^H. Belloc 3 
Strategical Problems. By Henri Bidou 7 
Turkish Conspiracy — VHI. By Henry Alorgenthau 9 
May Losses. By Arthur Pollen 12 
Germany in Asia. (With map.) By Sir Mortimer Durand 13 
A Man of .Action. By J. C. Squire 15 
The Land. By .Agricola. 16 
Controlling National Finance. Bv 1*". .\ldridge 17 
Whales in War. By Alfred Bigland, M.P. if^ 
The Outlook 
THF week has been marked by a number of local 
actions, French, linglish, and Italian, of which 
the latter are the more important. In combina- 
tion they have succeeded in the course of three 
days — Saturday, Sunday, and Monday — in taking 
all the heights which dominate the Frenzela valley, and 
therefore the eastern approach from the Asiago plateau to 
the great Brenta avenue of comnjunication, with its railway 
and roads. The feat is remarkable as proof of the spirit of 
the renewed Italian forces and of the moral effect produced 
by the Austrian retreat after the abortive offensive of 
June 15th. 
All these actions on the part of the Allies are, of course, 
quite minor things compared with the great struggle which 
has only been postponed so long through the severity of the 
German losses in the last great battks in France, but they 
show. the continued activity of the defence, and they are 
always locally valuable. Thus it is probable that the attacl s 
on N'ieppe Forest by the British, and outside the Villers- 
Cotterets Forest by the French, were both undertaken to 
forestall enemy movements, the preparation for which 
had been observed,. or news of which had reached us through 
prisoners. The constant raids on the enemy have resulted 
in much valuable information, and orders have now been 
issued by Ludendorf with the object of muzzUng captured 
Huns. 
The debate in the House of Commons last Monday witli 
regard to the sunjmoning of men to the Army from agricul- 
ture was at once more interesting and more straightforward 
than most Parliamentary discussions. Mr. Prothero frankly 
stated that the demand for men might imperil the harvest. 
It is a demand for only 30,000 men ; but these are young 
men and skilled. Few people not connected with agricul- 
tural work appreciate the high-grade skill and training Which 
is required and its great complexity, and it is this lack of 
understanding which has greatly cornplicated the problem. 
Though Mr. Prothero spoke of the extreme need for men 
which the Army now has, and alluded to the decision of the 
Government as one which has been come to in common by 
all its members, he clearly showed from his tone that he 
thought the experiment perilous. It is probable that no 
one who really had to make the decision has anv experience 
of work upon the land or any idea of its character. The 
country has become so industrial that less than one family 
in ten is occupied in agriculture, as even in the heart of the 
country you have great numbers whose interests lie in other 
departments of activity, and will remain all their hves quite 
ignorant of the work of the fields. If we had a large number 
ot women tramed to field work and experienced in it, as 
have the French and the Irish, for instance, it would be 
another matter, but neither the necessary training nor 
experience can be gathered in the course of this war, snd 
this great auxiliary does not exist. 
* • * 
From Adiuiralty and Berlin commiiniquh we learned, at 
the end oi last week, that on Thursday evening there had 
been an encounter between a British destroyer leader and 
three destroyers and, first, eight, and then eleven, German 
destroyers. It seems to ha\e been a long-range, high-speed 
affair, to have lasted about a quarter of an hour, and to 
iiave ended without d image to either side. That the British, 
being in an inferiority of four to eleven, should, in the language 
of the ofticial report, "have fallen back on their supports," 
or in the phraseology of the enemy, "should have withdrawn 
at high speed, escaping out of sight by developing a fog," 
was, of course, the correct tactics to follow. What is signifi- 
cant is that the force, which was nearly three times as strongs 
did not attempt to pursue. It is possible that the use of a 
smoke screen may partly explain this reluctance. It was 
evening, and the light presumably not very good. Perhaps 
a trap was suspected. The fact that eleven boats did not 
pursue four teaches one something of Geriiian caution. 
It is obvious from these announcements that the shifting 
of Vindictive, of which we were told some time ago, has 
enabled the enemy to make some, though not a verj' exten- 
sive, use of Ostend as a port. There is no suggestion yet 
that he can use Zeebiiigge, and until he is able to, the full 
value of the docks at Bruges cannot be available to him. 
So that the enemy's naval activities must for some time to 
come be very greatly curtailed. 
The Select Committee on National Expenditure has issued 
its fourth report. It is an unpleasant document from a 
public point of view, for it a.gain demonstrates the ease and 
deliberation with which Government Departments are able 
to squander millions. This time it is national shipyards; 
what will it be next ? On the supreme folly of these shipyards 
we wrote strongly last year, and in Parhament Mr. George 
Lambert and others vigorously opposed them, but it was 
of no avail. Government had committed itself to "the 
entirely novel scheme for the national construction of mer- 
chant ships without consultation with private shipbuilders 
and without anv estimate of the cost being prepared," to 
quote the Committee's report, with the not surprising result 
that a dead loss of close on four millions sterling has resulted. 
Worse than this, by taking over the Chepstow Shipyard 
from private enterprise, the Government put a stop to the 
work that was then proceeding, and the keels of ships have 
not yet been laid which should by now have been almost 
ready for launching had only the Government been better 
advised. We suppose nobody is to blame, and we have 
little doubt, if we only knew it, that the same waste and 
extravagance is continuing at the present moment in half a 
dozen different directions. Can nothing he done to anticipate 
this utter lack of ordinary business prudence and straight- 
forward intelligence. Must we always wait until — to use 
the Prime Minister's pathetic cry— it is tf)o late ? 
.At the end of the Labour Conference, last week, a meeting 
of delegates from trade unions was held at which a new party 
was formed. If this new party desires to win the sympathy 
of the country, its first act should be the preparation of a 
concise and accurate guide to Labour politics. Excepit those 
of the inner circle, no one seems to understand the exact 
drift even of Labour resolutions. To give an instance, the 
Labour Conference last week carried a resolution to terminate 
the party truce, the effect of which would be, so the public 
was told, that all Labour M.Ps. would have to resign from 
Government. Then comes the voting for the new Executive 
Committee, and .Mr. Clynes, M.P., who spoke strongly against 
the resolution, and is in the administrati9n> heads the list 
by a large majority. The one thing is an apparent contra- 
diction of the other. What is the true meaning of it ? 
The system of voting is also understood b\' very few. Labour 
has never enjoyed a better opportunity of having its rights 
and claims accepted by the people ; but it must rid itself 
of the obscurantism which it has borrowed from party 
politics. 
* * * 
There was a flower f^te held in Trafalgar Square last week, 
and the prettiness of the scene will, we trust, animate a new 
effort to do away with that drearj- flag-paved space. Trafalgar 
Stju^are is a blot on London ; even before the war its famed 
fountains were too often quiescent ; in fact, ever since the 
closing of the St. JIartin's Public Baths. It was the soapy 
waste of these baths, resorted to by the more cleanly in- 
habitants of Soho and Seven Dials, that pro\dded the Vic- 
torian rainbows round Nelson's Column. It is to be hoped 
that amid the many memorials and peace offerings that will 
ensue after the war some wealthy committee or millionaire 
may be inspired to plant a rosary and to set out herbaceous 
borders in Trafalgar Square. \Ve can see for ourselves in 
half a dozen different spots how well, with the exercise of a 
wise choice, flowers thrive in the very heart of London. 
