LAND ^ WATER 
September 5, 19 18 
LAND&WATER 
5 Chancery Lane, London, fV.C.2. Tel. Holhom 28*8 
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 191 8 
Contents 
1' 
\GE 
Fkrdinand Leaving for a Rest 
Ci'RE (Cartoon) 
Raeniaekers 
I 
Current Events 
2 
The Paradox of Retreat 
Hilaire Belloc 
3 
The .American Spirit 
.\rthur Pollen 
7 
The Dardanelles Defences 
Henry Morgenthau 
8 
The Bernhardt of Commerce- II. 
Ralph W. Page 
II 
The Veteran: A Short Story ... 
Charles Hodson 
13 
Initials 
J. C. Squire 
14 
The Re.\der's Diarv 
Peter Bell 
1.5 
The Theatre : The Title 
W. J. Turner 
16 
Household Notes 
18 
Notes on Kit 
22 
The Advance 
DURING the past week the Allied advance has 
continued along a large part of the Western 
Front. Bapaume has fallen ; Peronne has 
fallen ; the French are eating their way in the 
south-west corner ; and in the north the Germans 
have evacuated Mount Kenimel and are being, as we write, 
steadily driven out of the Lys salient. We have recovered 
more than half the ground lost in the spring. We are 
occupying ground we have never occupied since 1914, and 
the " Switch Line " has been broken. Three points may be 
made. The first point is that the German retirement has 
been in part voluntary ; that, in fact, the newspapers are 
misleading when they represent every gain of ground as a 
gain wrested by sheer force from an enemy who bitterly 
contests every foot of ground. The second point is that 
the German retirement was anticipated. Since July i8th 
we have captured nearly 150,000 men, and nearly 1,500 
guns, and' the wiliest of German generals did not deliber- 
ately contemplate that. The third point is that to some 
e.xtent our old conceptions of the relative value of certain 
positions — Hindenburg line and so on — ^have been to a large 
extent invalidated. The primary instrument in our recent 
victories has been the tank, the small tank employed in large 
numbers. The weapon against which the Germans have, 
in the first instance, to be prepared is also the tank. The 
obstacle,- the great obstacle, to tanks is water : marshes, 
rivers, and canals have been given an increasing value. We 
must e.xpect the Germans, to determine their next main line 
of resistance in accordance with this, and the marks in the 
map to which we should direct our attention are not so much 
old trench lines as permanent water lines from the Lys River 
to the Crozat Canal. Six weeks fighting has enormously 
improved our position. Failing a miracle we are now, with 
the aid of the Americaxis, bound to win the necessary decisive 
victory. But the war is still a long way from being finished, 
and both journalists and the public would do well not to allow 
the enumeration of prisoners and retaken villages to induce 
them to throw their hats in the air. 
The Police Strike 
The sequence ofi strikes which began with that at Coventry 
and was continued by that of the tramway and tube employees, 
reached its chmax with the police strike. When they heard 
that the London police had struck many people felt as if 
"the end of all things" (in Lord Rosebery's ancient phrase), 
had come ; in other words, that this capped everything. 
Here were the police, those remote, almost superhuman, 
guardians of public order, abandoning their posts as though 
they were ordinary miners or munitioners. Not only that. 
but they were hooting supposed blacklegs, and even march- 
ing along the streets singing music-hall songs. It was as 
if a procession of bishops had sung music-hall songs : nobody- 
supposed that policemen knew such things. Two facts were 
driven home to the pubhc at once. One was that policefnen 
are human, that they require food and clothes like other 
people, and that (like the Jew in Shakespeare's play), they 
laugh when they are tickled, and cry when they are hurt. 
The second is that the Police Union, after years of persecu- 
tion and subterranean organising, has reached a point at 
which it commands the obedience of almost the whole London 
force. Its foundation dates from long before the w'ar. In 
its early stages its members were, wherever it was possible, 
marked out and "victimised." As conditions worsened the 
Union grew stronger, until at last it was able to call out 
virtually the whole force, and compel the Government to grant 
its just demands. The Government, without hesitation, has 
eaved in. It has conceded substantial increases in pay 
(before the men took the extremest course open to them, 
even an inspector got less money than the conductress of 
a tram), it has agreed to reinstate a "victimised" constable, 
and it has consented (whilst not recognizing the Union), to 
set up some machinery whereby representatives of the men 
can discuss matters of interest to the force with the authori- 
ties. This means — we need not bhnk the matter — that the 
Union will be recognized save in name. The usual objec- 
tion to recognising Unions is that they organise strikes ; 
this one has organised a strike without recognition ; to 
recognise it will mean (from the authorities' point of view) a 
possible gain and no possible loss. The concessions were 
coupled with the announcement that Sir Nevil Macready 
was' to succeed Sir E. Henry as Commissioner. We 
have nothing to say against Sir Nevil, who is a tactful and 
sympathetic man. But we are certain that the old system 
of appointing retired soldiers and Indian civilians to this 
post cannot go on for ever, and that the police will not be 
really satisfied until the ordinary constable (so to speak), 
carries a Commissioner's truncheon in his knapsack. 
Baseball 
It appears that an "Anglo-American Baseball League" 
is in existence ; that it has a secretary ; arid that its object 
is to propagate the cult of baseball in this country at the ex- 
pense of cricket. There is no reason to suppose that finan- 
cial interests are behind this propaganda, though even a new 
game (if discreetly handled), may mean money to those who 
push it. The motives of those who are endeavouring to 
spread baseball are no doubt thoroughly impersonal. They 
think, in fact, that cricket is a slow game, and that baseball 
is more exciting. In fact, they say as much. That said, 
however, all has not been said. Why sacrifice everything 
to excitement ? And why, merely in order to gratify the 
passion of spectators (i.e., gate-money) for continuous live- 
liness, abandon in favour of a new-fangled importation a 
game which, much in its present form, has been the national 
game of England for a century and a half, and wliich derives 
from a game much older than that ? If the arguments of 
the innovators are admitted as valid, all the world will soon 
be playing baseball — until something even more rapid turns 
up. How monotonous that uniformity would be 1 We 
sincerely hope that this country will resist the innovation 
tooth and^nail. Cricket is a fine flower of our civilisation ; 
it is also part of our history ; even where it bores the spec- 
tators it amuses the players, and we ought not to lose sight 
of the fact that games are games, primarily existing for 
the sake of those who play them, and not for the sake of a 
lot of lazy, gambling,' excitement-craving corpulent people 
whowatch them as they watch a horse-race, or an exhibition 
of juggling at the Alhambra. It has yet to be demonstrated 
that baseball excels cricket in respect of its effects upon 
character and physique, of the discipHne it enforces or the 
muscles it develops : and as far as the mere beauty of 
movement and setting is concerned, cricket can certainl}' 
give it points. We wish the length of matches could be 
reduced and some means devised of putting a premium on 
quicker scoring. 
