Land & Water 
August 2 2, 19 18 
LAND&WATER 
5 Chancery Lane, London, fV.C.2. TeL Holborm%z% 
THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1918 
Contents 
Raeinaekers 
PAGE 
r 
The Rising Sun (Cartoon.) 
Current Events ...... 2 
The \\ ar . . . . . . . . Hilaire Belloc .J 
The Dardanelles Bombardment Henry Morgentliau 7 
The Enemy's Dilemma . . . . v^rtlmr Pollen m 
"Old Hickory" .. .. .. Cecil Chesterton 12 
A Caprice of DOR. A. .. J. Coudurier 
de Chassaigne 13 
Dining Out: A Naval Sketch.. Etienne 14 
, How Will They Rebuild ? .. H. Belloc 15 
Humane Education . . . . J. C. Squire 16 
The Reader's Diary . . . . Peter Bell iS 
Handmaids or Ceres . . . . J. D. Symon 20 
Household Notes .... 2z 
Notes o:7 Kit ...... ^ 24 
The Western Front 
THE past week has been marked by compara- 
tively small changes of ground upon the Western 
front, but By a very important addition to the 
process of exhausting the German reserves. The 
changes of ground include only two points, the 
first no more than a slight and very slow advance upon the 
eastern end of the I^assigny Hills, which advance though 
reaching the summit of that group at Attichy Far, and 
thereby putting all the heights into French hands, had not 
ye,t acquired full observation from the edge of the escarp- 
ment to the north over the Plains, and had not therefore 
produced any movement of retirement from the slight local 
sarlient of Lassigny. The second was the not unimportant 
though purely local advance upon Roye, a road junction which 
the enemy was still able to use at the beginning of the week, 
thotigh it was under fire at between 6,000 and 7,000 yards, 
but which, at the end of the week the French completely 
dominated ; their troops by the Sunday night having come 
to the high bare plateau called Caesar's Camp, which immedi- 
ately overlooks Roye, at a range of not more than one thousand 
yards. These operations, however, are no more than the 
last phases of the Somme Battle, which has now reached 
much the same situation as that of the Marne did a fort- 
night ago, when the enemy fell back to the Vesle. The 
enemy lines are straightened out without appreciable 
salient or re-entrant, save at Lassigny, and they have 
brought in very considerable forces to hold their present 
positions. We note at the same time the re-opening of 
those sharp local attacks on the Western line, which 
have been the ma,rk of every interval between the 
great battles since Marshal Foch was put in supreme com- 
mand of the Western forces, and which we now learn by 
experience to be the prelude of further action. As in 
the past, these local operations have e\'idently depended upon 
one combined plan. 
The Election Menace 
A General Election is promised — or threatened — for the 
autumn. The Sunday Times, which is understood to know 
Mr. Lloyd George's mind, authoritatively states that he is 
going to the country for a mandate. The Daily Express, 
which is owned by the Minister for Information, and usually 
knows Mr. Bonar Law's mind, says that the obstacle to an 
election is the fact that Mr. George's Unionist colleagues 
(who represent the majority of his followers) require from 
him definite assurances about .Tariff Reform, Preference, and 
Home Rule. They may get them ; they may strike a bargain 
without them ; the thing that disturbs us is that the question 
of whether or not Parliament should be dissolved at the 
prwcnt time should be determined by party intejests or 
party bargains. Two things, with the war' at its height, 
would necessitate an election. One would be an inabihty 
on the part of the Government to "carry on" in the existing 
House of Commons. The other would be the growth in 
the country of dissensions over the war so serious as to make 
an election desirable as a test, a relief, and an instruction. 
Neither of these conditions exists. The House of Commons 
may be "moribund," but it is certainly not too obstructive. 
The country is by uriiversal admission as united in its deter- 
mination to win the war as it ever was. But, suppose we 
ha\e an election, what will be the issue ? There is no clear- 
cut difference of opinion between Mr. Lloyd George's 
heterogeneous supporters and his heterogeneous " opponents." 
A General Election on the lines of war bye-elections would 
be a General Election without issues at all, except for those 
introduced by "freak" candidates. If the Government 
party recognises that Mr. Asquith and his followers (the 
same may be said of the bulk of the Labour Party) are sound 
about the need for victory and a clean peace, the natural 
consequence would be hundreds of uncontested elections 
and little change in the composition of the House. If, on 
the other hand, a fight, and a thoroughly new House, are 
desired, they can 'only be secured by manufacturing an 
issue. Only one fssue is possible, the issue suggested by 
the Sunday Times, which says that the electorate will be 
asked to vote "for or against the vigorous prosecution of 
the war, for or against Mr. Lloyd George as the protagonist 
of the Entente." We most profoundly hope that Mr. 
George's intentions are here misconstrued. To go to the 
country with such a cry, identifying the national cause 
with that of one person (whoever he might be) would be 
recklessly to invite the most terrible risks of disunion and 
strife. It may be most unhkely that Mr. Lloyd Gebrge 
would come an electoral cropper which would entail a belief 
on the part of our enemies and our allies that the country 
had given a mandate against the war. But the great and 
palpable danger is that, even if he won by a substantial 
majority, he would, by his frontal attack upon all who were 
not pledged to support himself personally, have cloven the 
country into cleanly divided halves, one of which would, 
and must, automatically tend (except for abnormally self- 
restrained individuals) to drift more and more into active 
and consistent opposition to the Government and to every- 
thing — including the war — for which the Government stands. 
An election under such conditions would lead to a polarisation 
of opinion far worse than the present confusion. And it is 
certain that the Navy and the Army will loathe it. 
The Tramwaywomcn 
Once more we have had a strike. Once more the first 
impulse of the journalists and the non-striking public has 
been to point out (with only too much truth) that no body 
of workers can strike now without adversely affecting the 
national cause. Once mate it is necessary to remind our- 
selves (i) that the strikers (in this case, partly consisting of 
soldiers' wives) are fully aware of this, (2) ,that they do not 
want to strike, impede production, and lose their wages, 
and (3) that no power on earth will prevent them from using, 
when they get irritated, the only weapon they possess with 
which they can assert what they consider their rights. We 
should do our best, if we want to be of practical service, to 
understand the causes of "unrest," and to set about removing 
tliem. The case of the tramway-workers is a remarkably 
clear one. Women were taken on to do precisely the same 
fatiguing work as men, for precisely the same hours, at whirt 
(it was promised) were to be the same wages. Then one 
day, prices having risen, the meiT were given a 5s. bonus 
and the women were not. Seeing no other means of getting 
a favourable hearing, the women "came out." The men, 
partly out of genuine (and admirable) solidarity and sym- 
pathy, and partly out of fear that female cheap labour would 
end in lowering the general le\-el of wages, came out also. 
A tramless day in the suburbs, a busless morning in the 
town, and the whole Press was denouncing the stupidity 
of the se.\ differentiation. 
