September 12, 1918 
LAND &> WATER 
even- direction, there was effected at sea a double change of 
r61e. The most startHng manifestation of this was, of dourse, 
Sir Roger Keyes' coup on the Flanders coast. And it is 
surely something more than a coincidence that this proof 
that the tide of sea war had ebbed for the enemy should have 
come just when his fortunes in the land war were at the flood. 
For there is nothing at all obscure about the relations of 
sea force to land force in a war of the present character. 
Barely a year ago the British Army, having fought victoriously 
since the beginning of the Battle of the Somme, in July, 1916, 
began a special effort in the north which, so far certainly as 
the American Press was concerned, was hailed as the begin- 
nings of a movement for driving the enemy from Flanders, 
with a special view to reducing the sea menace which the 
enemy's position at Ostend and Zeebrugge held over British 
supply. The scale and cost in lives of that terrible campaign 
is, of course, known to all. But it never did and never could 
come near achieving the purpose thus attributed to it. Had 
Ostend and Zeebrflgge been made useless to the enemy in 
August or September a year ago, an entirely different direction 
might have been given to the British campaign. On the 
other hand, had those ports remained undamaged in the 
German possession in May and in June of this year, it is 
quite possible that the form that the enemy's offensive would 
have taken in France would have been altogether different. 
If to Ostend and Zeebriigge the enemy could have added 
Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne, not only the military but 
the naval situation might have been very seriously changed 
to our disadvantage. 
As it is, the enemy's sea offensive has failed, the 
chances of an alternative sea offensive have been gravely 
jeopardised, the seaports, of Belgium which he has seized 
have become both immediately and literally valueless. It is 
obvious, then, that the enemy has one powerful motive the 
less for maintaining his hold on ^Belgium, a factor we may 
see reflected in the peace offer which cannot now be long 
delayed. 
Now, it is this which lends significance to the other facts 
of the naval position which I have summarised above. Just 
as the sudden necessity to expedite and enlarge the transport 
of American troops has taxed our powers of convoying our 
sea supplies and has temporarily absorbed our capacity to 
wage an active offensive against the submarine, so, too, the 
change in the military situation created by the German 
offensive of March to July has changed the whole position 
with regard to our capacity to replace the lost shipping. At 
the beginning of the year the First Lord of the Adrniralty 
was able to speak hopefully of the possibility of building 
1,800,000 tons this year and 3,000,000 tons next. But this 
was a forecast that depended entirely on the state of the 
labour market. Men were to be brought back from the 
fighting and labour units at the front ; no further drafts 
were to be made on the skilled or unskilled labour necessary 
for shipbuilding. But the German successes not only made 
it impossible to send back men from France and to slacken 
the rate of withdrawal of men from civiUan life to fill the 
depleted ranks of the Army. They, by overnmning so 
many of our stores, depots, and railway lines, threw a strain 
upon our munition, wagon, engine, and arms production, 
that made any diversion of labour from these fields to shipping 
impossible. In the result, so far from averaging the 165,000 
tons a month we were all hoping for after February, our 
production has fallen lamentably short of this. But it does 
not necessarily follow that anyone is to blame. The signifi- 
cance of Lord Pirrie's notes to the August returns is just this : 
that we may shortly expect relief from another quarter. 
Naval and Merchant Building 
■ The relief is to come by labour, skilled and unskilled, 
now devoted to naval shipbuilding, being released from this, 
and made available for the construction of standard and 
other ships. Tliere is, of cfourse, no possible ground for 
supposing that there is any less need than there was for 
naval shipbuilding. If there is less demand for the naval 
shipbuilding in Greaf Britain, it must be because there 
needs can be suppUed from elsewhere. It is obvious that 
it is from America only that they can be supplied. We 
have during the last six months heard a vast deal of the 
amazing success of Mr. Schwab in getting the new American 
shipyards to work. Three hundred and thirty-four thousand 
tons, it is said, were commissioned for service in August 
alone. The Emergency Shipping Corporation, of which Mr. 
Hurley is the President and Mr. Schwab the managing head, 
came into existence immediately after America declared war. 
It was not until Mr. Schwab took over in December last 
that the immense and very unwieldy mechanism of thecorpora- 
tion was brougiit to that state of ready efficiency which we all 
associate with American industrial undertakings. But two 
months before Mr. Schwab took this over, 'another and hardly 
less striking shipbuilding development had already taken 
place. And in this development Mr. Schwab's share was great. 
The thing came about in this way. Early in the summer 
of 1917 Mr. Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy, got the 
authorisation of Congress for a building programme that 
ran to about £220,000,000 sterling. In this programme was 
included a very considerable number of destroyers. Six 
months before that a pre-war programme, in which again 
many destroyers were included, had been authorised ; from 
the autumn of 1916, then, until the autumn of 1917 all the 
destroyer-building interests in America had not only been 
full of work, but contemplating the largest possible extension 
of their plants to deal with projected demands. In July and 
August what may be called an anti-submarine propaganda 
was exceedingly active. All those who had the least title 
to speak as naval experts joined forces in xirging the suspen- 
sion of every other form of naval building except that of 
destroyers, sloops, and submarine chasers. The movement 
came to a head at the end of September and early in October. 
The Navy Department, which was cordially with the agitators, 
came forward with a new programme, and asked Congress 
to authorise the expenditure of a further £70,000,000 on 
destroyers alone. Before the end of the year, contracts for 
between two and three hundred had been placed. The 
exertions made by certain firms were prodigious. The 
Fore River Company, of Quincey, Massachusetts, promptly 
took steps for the construction of forty-six; Risdons, of San 
Francisco, the owners of a derelict yard, laid down 16 slips. 
Mr. Schwab's own organisation, the Bethlehem Steel Works, 
went boldly for 150. The Electric Boat Company, of New 
London, and other firms, joined in, so that before the month 
of January was out it was officially stated that the first of 
the new boats would be delivered in less than nine months 
from the placing of the order, and that the whole number 
would be available in another nine months after that. 
The effect of the three programmes would, it was said 
nine months ago, make America richer in destroyers than 
any country in the world. In nine months' time, then, she 
should possess probably 400. If all of these are thrown in 
to do the work which, as to more than 95 per cent., has 
hitherto been done by the British Navy, another revolutionary 
change will have been made in the situation at sea. For 
while it is true that Whitehall has commissioned nearly one 
trawler, destroyer, or sloop per day for the last seven or 
eight rnonths, this does not mean a destroyer a day, or any- 
thing like it ; and it is the destroyer that is by a 1 odds the 
submarine's worst enemy. Here, then, we have another 
point in which America's increasing share in the war promises 
to overweight the enemy beyond relief, and to mitigate the 
burden which this country has been bearing single-handed. 
It is, after all, our carrying ships that have suffered more 
than any others. It is our carrying ships which have done 
the lion's share of the Allies' work. It is our yards that 
have supplied the protective craft, while simultaneously 
repairing our own and our A'lies' merchant and naval shipping. 
The result is that we have sacrificed our merchant marine 
at both ends to the common cause. There are many ways 
in which America can Jielp, and we can count confidently 
on her taking them all. Arthur H. Pollen. 
The Garden by the Sea 
By Lieut. W. R. Humpherson 
I walked in a garden by the sea. 
The sun above shone with a warm glad light, 
A thrush — exultant^ — sang to its mate. 
I saw a deep red rose growing in the garden. 
I laughed in ecstasy for the very joy of life. 
And in my foolishness I said : 
This is heaven. 
There wjis war. 
For an eternity I lived in the midst of death. 
Life became a thing so foul that a great loathing for it filled 
my soul, ^tn'»' 
And the whole world became grey with the weariness and 
sorrow of it. 
Years afterwards I came back to the garden, 
It seemed that the thrush sang a yet more wonderful song, 
And the rose was a lovelier red. 
Smiling for very joy, 
I lifted up my hands, 
And in my wisdom said : 
This is heaven. 
