August I, 19 1 8 
Land & Water 
The loss of life was not very great. The loss of the ship, we 
also heard, had occasioned more joy in Germany than would 
the saving of ninety-nine ships here. The Germans, I 
imagine, supposed that she was their liner Vaterland, now 
traitorously bringing ten battalions at a trip to fight the 
•nation that produced her. She had, the telegrams told us, 
been marked down by the U-boats for a long time, but had 
thwarted their efforts by her net defences. To most people 
it was news that the net had been revived. 
But this was not the only novelty of the story. It was 
new that the submarines were hunting, not singly, nor even 
in couples, but in fleets. New it was too, that the J iisHcia' s 
gunners picked off the torpedoes as they eame towards the 
ship, and either blew therti up or deflected them from their 
course. As the public read these tales, regret for the loss 
of so fine a ship was superseded by the comfort derived from 
a proof that the sinking of a ship had been made so difficult 
a matter. If nets have thwarted torpedoes so often, if the 
weapons themselves could be neutralised by marksmanship, 
were we not, it was asked, getting to a point when the sub- 
marine would soon be no threat at all ? 
A day after these sensational stories had flooded our papers, 
the Admiralty issued a somewhat sobtrer version of the 
incident. From this it was clear that Justicia had been 
attacked by more than one submarine — for it was one of 
those manoeuvring into position to torpedo this vessel that 
Marne had destroyed. But there was nothing in the com- 
munique to justify the supposition that several submarines 
had engaged in a combined attack'. Had they done so, had 
the Germans shown a capacity to employ several submarines 
in support of each other, a new phase of submarine war 
would have been indicated. It has hitherto always been 
assumed that one of the chief weaknesses of the submarine 
is that it is incapable of squad ronal combination. There is 
nothing in the official story to show that this theory is mis- 
taken. And until it is proved so, I should prefer to think 
that the Justicia, first torpedoed in an area where a single 
submarine was operating, had been compelled to go at very 
low speed in the direction of some Irish port, and on the way 
there had traversed other areas each similarly the sphere 
of a single submarine's activities. We are told that the 
Justicia, with other ships, was being escorted by torpedo boat 
destroyers and other craft. She was, probably, then one of 
a convoy and, when her speed was reduced by injury and, 
when afterwards in tow, a ship of these vast dimensions, 
surrounded by destroyers, sloops, etc., would be a mark 
easily picked up even at the most considerable range. That 
she should be attacked first by one and then by a second, and 
then even by a third and a fourth submarine would riot be 
surprising, if she had to traverse at right angles a series of 
routes, on each of which a submarine was watching for its 
prey. So much for the theory of a continuous battle with 
a group of submarines. Next, I find it rather difficult to 
believe that torpedoes were exploded by gunfire, though it 
is far from impossible that they may have been deflected. 
Still, even this must have been a most exceptional occurrence, 
little likely to be repeated. No previous instance of such a 
thing happening has been reported, and the chances of such 
a thing occurring must be infinitesimal. We ought to have 
been told that this incident was unusual. 
A Plea for Facts 
It is little difficult to understand how the first stories got 
into print. The censorship exists, one is told, primarily to 
prevent infonriation of value reaching the enemy. Its 
secondary purpose is to stop the dissemination of news and 
views that might imperil moral at home. It does not seem 
to be contemplated that it should protect the public from 
misleading narratives. Yet it is a pity it should not. The 
public is very easily fooled, and there must be some elements 
of danger when altogether wrong impressions become pre- 
valent. If a policy of complete secrecy could be preserved, 
it would, no doubt, be ,the best policy of all. But that is 
impossible, and we have in its place, not a consistent and 
reasoned effort to make the public understand the character, 
course, and proportion of this or that phase of the war, but 
a constant flow of partial information, with now and then 
a sensational confidence, and all the time an almost un- 
restricted liberty in the circulation of such cock and bull 
stories as the Justicia' s battle with the ten submarines. These 
things leave the average reader in a state of utter confusion. 
Let me give an example of- the result. Some time last 
November, I think it was, the Premier, in a well-meant 
endeavour to make the nation realise the submarine menace 
was well in hand, clinched his argument by announcing that 
on the day before his speech, five submarines had been caught 
and destroyed by His Majesty's forces. Soon after, or it 
may have been about the same time, it was officially stated 
that we were actually sinking submarines as fast, if not faster, 
than the enemy could build them. These two things together 
gave many people the impression that the Germans must be 
building fifty or sixty submarines a month, and that we were 
destroying them at the rate of ninety or a hundred. A little 
reflection on the known facts of the case would show that the 
Germans began the war with twenty-eight submarines, 
were perhaps able to build as many more before January, 
igi6, and something less than three a week in the succeeding 
years. Thus we should have : 
In hand August, 1914 . . . . . . . . 28 
Constructed before January ist, 1916 . . . . 28 
1st, 1917 . . . . 140 
1918 . . . . 140 
,, July, 1918 . . . . . . 70 
Total . . 
406 
Four hundred submarines is, then, the outside figure that 
Germany ever can have built or possessed. If our destruc- 
tion caught up their production in October, 1917, i.e., nine 
months ago, and if the first process has been progressive and 
the second stationary, we may perhaps assume that we have 
now brought back the enemy's stock of submarines to what 
they were eighteen months ago. His present total, then, 
would be, at most, about 200, less such losses as were incurred 
in the first two and a half years of the war. These would 
hardly have been less than 50 or 60, so that it is quite pro- 
bable that the enemy has not to-day more than 150 in all. 
Some of these must be kept for training officers and crews, 
some will be fitting out for their first commissions, others 
will be in dockyard hands, or simply lying in port while the 
crews rest. The total number actually at sea at any one 
moment can never be very large. 
I cannot pretend that these figures are accurate, but I am 
sure that they are not wildly wrong, and I have given them 
because I want to ask this question. Is there any good 
reason why the ■ public should be mystified in this matter 
any longer ? It is quite certain that at this stage very 
little that is useful can be done in the way of mystify- 
ing the enemy. I submit that the public would be in 
a far better position to form a well-balanced view of 
the campaign if approximately complete figures of sub- 
marines built and sunk and of the numbers usually operat- 
ing were given. For that matter, I should like again to put 
in a plea for our being supplied with absolutely full informa- 
tion about the campaign, once it is six months old. We 
know the tonnage lost, we used to be told the numbers of 
ships. Why not give us full charts of all the attacks and 
sinkings month by month. They would be most instructive 
and interesting. There are two reasons for pressing for all 
the publicity that is permissible at this moment. We are 
for the first time realising the incredible scale and value of 
the American effort. It is fresh in our minds that no sooner 
was the attack of March 21st delivered than America leapt 
to the rescue, and took to sending us a quarter of a million 
men a month instead of 40,000. One startling fact galvanised 
the whole nation into life. Now, when America came in, 
I pointed out in these columns that our real ally was not 
the American Government, but the American people. It is 
the American people we should educate, and news— and not 
eloquence — is their best educator. In April, 1917, I wrote 
that in taking the American people into our confidence we 
should no doubt give the enemy a great deal of information 
that he would find exceedingly useful, but if the American 
people acted on that information the publicity w^ould be far 
more useful to us. This still remains true, and it seems to 
me there is a special reason for frankness at this moment. 
The German Army has just received a blow from which it is 
still reeling. The German morale will react on this, and 
react very shortly. The enemy's higher command has 
probably anticipated this, and has already prepared for some 
kind of counter-stroke. That counter-stroke may very 
probably be a stroke at sea— a fresh effort, that is to say, 
to obtain submarine results of a striking character may 
certainly be made. We should not be surprised, then, if 
the sinkings for the latter half of July, for August and Septem- 
ber showed a marked increase. Observe that the unwelcome 
presence of American soldiers in France has already brought 
submarines to operate off the American coast. The loss of 
a U.S. cruiser by mine near New York Harbour is only one 
evidence of this new activity. If a new and large effort is 
made there is everything to be said in favour of the public 
of both hemispheres being prepared for it and being put in 
a position to understand it. The stories about the Justicia 
are final proof that the old methods are worn out. Let us 
have the truth ; and, if not all the truth, at least nearly all. 
