Danger! and Other Stories

Danger! and Other Stories, by
Arthur Conan

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Conan Doyle
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Title: Danger! and Other Stories
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

Release Date: August 19, 2007 [eBook #22357]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANGER!
AND OTHER STORIES***
Transcribed from the 1918 John Murray edition by David Price, email
[email protected]

DANGER! AND OTHER STORIES
BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
AUTHOR OF "THE WHITE COMPANY," "SIR NIGEL" "RODNEY
STONE," ETC.
LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1918
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PREFACE
The Title story of this volume was written about eighteen months
before the outbreak of the war, and was intended to direct public
attention to the great danger which threatened this country. It is a
matter of history how fully this warning has been justified and how,
even down to the smallest details, the prediction has been fulfilled. The
writer must, however, most thankfully admit that what he did not
foresee was the energy and ingenuity with which the navy has found
means to meet the new conditions. The great silent battle which has
been fought beneath the waves has ended in the repulse of an armada
far more dangerous than that of Spain.
It may be objected that the writer, feeling the danger so strongly,
should have taken other means than fiction to put his views before the
authorities. The answer to this criticism is that he did indeed adopt
every possible method, that he personally approached leading naval
men and powerful editors, that he sent three separate minutes upon the
danger to various public bodies, notably to the Committee for National
Defence, and that he touched upon the matter in an article in The
Fortnightly Review. In some unfortunate way subjects of national
welfare are in this country continually subordinated to party politics, so
that a self- evident proposition, such as the danger of a nation being fed
from without, is waved aside and ignored, because it will not fit in with
some general political shibboleth. It is against this tendency that we
have to guard in the future, and we have to bear in mind that the danger

may recur, and that the remedies in the text (the only remedies ever
proposed) have still to be adopted. They are the sufficient
encouragement of agriculture, the making of adequate Channel tunnels,
and the provision of submarine merchantmen, which, on the estimate of
Mr. Lake, the American designer, could be made up to 7,000 ton
burden at an increased cost of about 25 per cent. It is true that in this
war the Channel tunnels would not have helped us much in the matter
of food, but were France a neutral and supplies at liberty to come via
Marseilles from the East, the difference would have been enormous.
Apart from food however, when one considers the transports we have
needed, their convoys, the double handling of cargo, the interruptions
of traffic from submarines or bad weather, the danger and suffering of
the wounded, and all else that we owe to the insane opposition to the
Channel tunnels, one questions whether there has ever been an example
of national stupidity being so rapidly and heavily punished. It is as
clear as daylight even now, that it will take years to recover all our men
and material from France, and that if the tunnel (one will suffice for the
time), were at once set in hand, it might be ready to help in this task
and so free shipping for the return of the Americans. One thing
however, is clear. It is far too big and responsible and lucrative an
undertaking for a private company, and it should be carried out and
controlled by Government, the proceeds being used towards the war
debt.
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
August 24th, CROWBOROUGH.

I. DANGER! {1} BEING THE LOG OF CAPTAIN JOHN SIRIUS
It is an amazing thing that the English, who have the reputation of
being a practical nation, never saw the danger to which they were
exposed. For many years they had been spending nearly a hundred
millions a year upon their army and their fleet. Squadrons of
Dreadnoughts costing two millions each had been launched. They had

spent enormous sums upon cruisers, and both their torpedo and their
submarine squadrons were exceptionally strong. They were also by no
means weak in their aerial power, especially in the matter of seaplanes.
Besides all this, their army was very efficient, in spite of its limited