LAND 6s? WATER 
November 28, 1918 
can reach the southern group of the new nationalities, 
particularly- Rumania. Of the two avenues, it is the Bos- 
phorus which will most certainly have to be internationalised. 
The struggle will take place over the Kiel Canal, and there, 
as in the rase (;f Danzig, we shall have all the arguments 
of nationalism turned against us. It will be said with justice 
that the country through which the canal passes is German 
in culture and tradition : that the work done was a German 
work. Indeed, if it were possible to apportion the new 
world exactly by racial boundaries, with no exception and 
with no concern for any other principle, it would be 
impossible to establish European control over this water- 
way. But the e.xception must be made, as must sundry 
others. Notably that of Danzig, which we ha\-e just con- 
sidered. Because if we do not make it, we are putting power 
necessary to our lives into the hands of what we have dis- 
covered to be the most dangerous of enemies. 
THE FUTURE AT STAKE 
The third point is, I think, the most difficult ; although 
in earlier and better times it would have been the most 
obvious. The common controls which we are about to 
establish, the general policy which we are about to develop, 
must be established and must be principally controlled by 
the Western Powers who liave been the protagonists in the 
great struggle. The British, the French, and, in their own 
sphere, the Italian peoples, are those who must be the 
guardians. It is their resistance to the Prussian scheme ; it is 
their tenacity and their sacrifice which have saved the world ; 
and it is they which by tradition represent those things to 
preserve which the war was fought. It will neither be just 
nor politic, and, what is worse, not statesmanship, it will not 
correspond to external reality, to treat the parties to the 
peace as a sort of mathematical symbols, units, equivalents. 
They are not. They are living nations with vital interests to 
preserve, with terrible dangers menacing them if they fail, 
with their whole future at stake, i 
Nothing permanent will be done if the general direction of 
affairs slips from their hands or is compromised by them. 
There is here a quarrel between two principles :" one false 
and the other true I The false one appealing to superficial 
minds, and even seeming obvious to them, the true one 
more difficult to appreciate. 
By the first principle, that nation is regarded at the end 
of the war as the strongest and the most able to dictate its 
terms which is the least exhausted. Thus, to take an extreme 
case, the neutral who has not fought at all will reap the 
harvest of any great struggle, and that belligerent among the 
victors who has sacrificed most will obtain the least reward. 
That the theory is false— its opposite is true. It is those 
who sacrifice most, who strain themselves to the utmost, 
and who are, therefore, the most exhausted at the close of 
the campaign, who reap its results in the long run. 
Why this is so it will be difficult to discover, though one 
may suggest that the moral effect of victory gained at a great 
price ha's something to do with it. But", at any rate, all 
history is there to prove the truth of the least obvious of 
these two contrasted theories. For one thing, exhaustion 
is not a permanent phase on the victorious side, whatever 
it may be upon the side of the vanquished. For another, 
the sense of justice, the sense of what is due to effort and to 
sacrifice and an intense emotion will profoundly affect the 
near future. 
The task of resettling Europe is much more difficult than 
the facile programmes issued during the war would lead men 
to think. It is terribly complex, filled with the most difficult 
problems, and demanding wisdom and forbearance between 
liighly educated peoples, all of whom contribute to the 
common victory. 
The mood created by the war is not one favourable to 
the exercise of those qualities. 
Nevertheless, the task can be accomplished if the major 
lines which should guide it are recognised in time and if 
the principal obstacles' to its success arc thoroughly appre- 
ciated beforehand and can therefore be guarded against by 
public opinion. 
The only value of such a sketch as this is to crystallise, to 
define. There are innumerable details, many of them of 
high import, which a brief summary of this kind does not 
touch. For instance, we have spoken of the two essential 
waterways into the Baltic and the Black Sea. The Suez 
Canal would also come under revision, so will the entry into 
the Mediterranean. Again, there is that enormous questicn 
of tropical supply on which Mr. H. G. Wells has supplied so 
much admirable material. Worst of all, both in peril and 
in complexity, there is the problem of disarmament ; at 
the very moment when men speak of disarmament you 
have the air full of ]>rogrammes for increased power. The 
machinery of international agreement which all desire to 
set up has not been so much as sketched out. No one 
as yet can give even the most elementary idea of what 
an international court is, its constituents, its powers, or its 
procedure may be. There are whole series of such grave 
questions still left unanswered. 
None the less, in the case of this great evil, as in the case 
of minor difficulties to be dealt with in life, it is everything 
to have the main lilies of the affair clearly before us, before 
one approaches solving of the riddle ; and those main lines 
I take to be in their largest aspect the three dealt with here : 
the confirmation of national life, the secure and free entry 
of the inland seas, and, the most important of all, the control 
of our decisions, not by some mechanical system of voting, 
but by the frank confession that the Western Powers, having 
won the war, shall dictate its conclusion. 
There is, of course, a further matter, which I have not 
touched on because it is, I think, obvious to all and univer- 
sally admitted. It is the question of reparation. On this 
there is very little to be said because no issue exists and the 
problem is of the simplest kind. The maximum effort 
which can be obtained from those who have ruined so much 
— that is, upon the people formerly composing the German 
Empire — must, of course, be obtained, and will be obtained. 
When it has been obtained — to whatever limit we may 
strain that effort, for whatever length of time we may compel 
them to the work, and whatever just confiscation of material 
may also be necessary — the resultant will fall far below the 
mere material injury which they have done. The mere 
wealth which they have destroyed by their singular interpre- 
tation of military honour could not be met even by the largest 
possible advantage of energy spread over the longest prac- 
ticable period of time. We must be quite clear on that. 
There can be no discussion save the discussion of what is 
possible. In the matter of principle, in the matter of justice, 
the conclusion is one with which the whole world agrees. 
Indeed, if reparation were not made to the utmost, civilisation 
could not endure. The example of such crimes escaping their 
consequences would be too much for the survival of Europe. 
Naval Terms of the Armistice : By Arthur Pollen 
A WEEK ago to-day the battleships, battle-cruisers, 
light cruisers, and destroyers that constituted the 
main elements in the riiaterial strength of the 
German Navy were tamely surrendered into the 
custody of Sir David Beattv's fleet. The enemy's 
submarines arrive day by day at Harwich. The first step in 
the disarmament of Germany at sea has, then, already been 
taken. It is a step so large that it is definitely certain that 
Germany cannot resume the war whether by" surface force 
or below the waves. The immense significance of these 
events is so obvious that further dwelling on them is unneces- 
sary—unless it is to say that there is little doubt that as it 
was the illusions of coveted Admiralty that led the Kaiser 
and his duped peoi)le to their insane ambition, so was it 
eminently fitting, when this ambition had been thwarted by 
sea-power, that the most signal acknowledgment of defeat 
should be made upon the high sea and to the fleet that brought 
their hope to nothing. But if it is unnecessary to dwell anv 
longer on this aspect of the matter, it is exceedingly important 
we should keep before us two truths which, in the relief 
from the strain of war and in the bewildered interest which 
our own domestic peace problems create, may easily be 
overlooked. 
The first of these is that the surrender of ships was only 
a part, and though the most dramatic, by no means the 
most important part, of the naval conditions of the armistice. 
The second is that unless between now and the meeting of 
the Peace Conference our sea-power is used to the utmost 
and, at the Peace Conference, its claims are resolutely main- 
tained, it may easily happen that Europe's transition from 
war to peace may be very gravely delayed, or the resulting 
peace be less sure and stable than it .should be. 
