Towards the Goal | Page 4

sympathy. Whither are we tending--your country
and mine? Congress meets on April 1st. Before this Letter reaches you
great decisions will have been taken. I will not attempt to speculate.
The logic of facts will sweep our nations together in some sort of
intimate union--of that I have no doubt.
How much further, then, has Great Britain marched since the Spring of
last year--how much nearer is she to the end? One can but answer such
questions in the most fragmentary and tentative way, relying for the
most part on the opinions and information of those who know, those
who are in the van of action, at home and abroad, but also on one's own
personal impressions of an incomparable scene. And every day, almost,
at this breathless moment, the answer of yesterday may become
obsolete.
I left our Headquarters in France, for instance, some days before the
news of the Russian revolution reached London, and while the Somme
retirement was still in its earlier stages. Immediately afterwards the
events of one short week transformed the whole political aspect of
Europe, and may well prove to have changed the face of the
war--although as to that, let there be no dogmatising yet! But before the
pace becomes faster still, and before the unfolding of those great and
perhaps final events we may now dimly foresee, let me try and seize
the impressions of some memorable weeks and bring them to bear--so
far as the war is concerned--on those questions which, in the present
state of affairs, must interest you in America scarcely less than they
interest us here. Where, in fact, do we stand?
Any kind of answer must begin with the Navy. For, in the case of Great
Britain, and indeed scarcely less in the case of the Allies, that is the
foundation of everything. To yourself the facts will all be familiar--but
for the benefit of those innumerable friends of the Allies in Europe and

America whom I would fain reach with the help of your great name, I
will run through a few of the recent--the ground--facts of the past year,
as I myself ran through them a few days ago, before, with an Admiralty
permit, I went down to one of the most interesting naval bases on our
coast and found myself amid a group of men engaged night and day in
grappling with the submarine menace which threatens not only Great
Britain, not only the Allies, but yourselves, and every neutral nation. It
is well to go back to these facts. They are indeed worthy of this island
nation, and her seaborn children.
To begin with, the personnel of the British Navy, which at the
beginning of the war was 140,000, was last year 300,000. This year it is
400,000, or very nearly three times what it was before the war. Then as
to ships,--"If we were strong in capital ships at the beginning of the
war"--said Mr. Balfour, last September, "we are yet stronger
now--absolutely and relatively--and in regard to cruisers and destroyers
there is absolutely no comparison between our strength in 1914 and our
strength now. There is no part of our naval strength in which we have
not got a greater supply, and in some departments an incomparably
greater supply than we had on August 4th, 1914.... The tonnage of the
Navy has increased by well over a million tons since war began."
So Mr. Balfour, six months ago. Five months later, it fell to Sir Edward
Carson to move the naval estimates, under pressure, as we all know, of
the submarine anxiety. He spoke in the frankest and plainest language
of that anxiety, as did the Prime Minister in his now famous speech of
February 22nd, and as did the speakers in the House of Lords, Lord
Lytton, Lord Curzon and Lord Beresford, on the same date. _The attack
is not yet checked. The danger is not over._ Still again--look at some of
the facts! In two years and a quarter of war--
Eight million men moved across the seas--almost without mishap.
Nine million and a half tons of explosives carried to our own armies
and those of our Allies.
Over a million horses and mules; and--

Over forty-seven million gallons of petrol supplied to the armies.
And besides, twenty-five thousand ships have been examined for
contraband of war, on the high seas, or in harbour, since the war began.
And at this, one must pause a moment to think--once again--what it
means; to call up the familiar image of Britain's ships, large and small,
scattered over the wide Atlantic and the approaches to the North Sea,
watching there through winter and summer, storm and fair, and so
carrying out, relentlessly, the blockade of Germany, through every
circumstance often of danger and difficulty;