Towards the Goal | Page 5

with every consideration
for neutral interests that is compatible with this desperate war, in which
the very existence of England is concerned; and without the sacrifice of
a single life, unless it be the lives of British sailors, often lost in these
boardings of passing ships, amid the darkness and storm of winter seas.
There, indeed, in these "wave-beaten" ships, as in the watching fleets of
the English Admirals outside Toulon and Brest, while Napoleon was
marching triumphantly about Europe, lies the root fact of the war. It is
a commonplace, but one that has been "proved upon our pulses." Who
does not remember the shock that went through England--and the
civilised world--when the first partial news of the Battle of Jutland
reached London, and we were told our own losses, before we knew
either the losses of the enemy or the general result of the battle? It was
neither fear, nor panic; but it was as though the nation, holding its
breath, realised for the first time where, for it, lay the vital elements of
being. The depths in us were stirred. We knew in very deed that we
were the children of the sea!
And now again the depths are stirred. The development of the
submarine attack has set us a new and stern task, and we are "straitened
till it be accomplished." The great battle-ships seem almost to have left
the stage. In less than three months, 626,000 tons of British, neutral and
allied shipping have been destroyed. Since the beginning of the war
we--Great Britain--have lost over two million tons of shipping, and our
Allies and the neutrals have lost almost as much. There is a certain
shortage of food in Great Britain, and a shortage of many other things
besides. Writing about the middle of February, an important German

newspaper raised a shout of jubilation. "The whole sea was as if swept
clean at one blow"--by the announcement of the intensified "blockade"
of the first of February. So the German scribe. But again the facts shoot
up, hard and irreducible, through the sea of comment. While the
German newspapers were shouting to each other, the sea was so far
from being "swept clean," that twelve thousand ships had actually
passed in and out of British ports in the first eighteen days of the
"blockade." And at any moment during those days, at least 3,000 ships
could have been found traversing the "danger zone," which the
Germans imagined themselves to have barred. One is reminded of the
Hamburger Nachrichten last year, after the Zeppelin raid in January
1916. "English industry lies in ruins," said that astonishing print. "The
sea has been swept clean," says one of its brethren now. Yet all the
while, there, in the danger zone, whenever, by day or night, one turns
one's thoughts to it, are the three thousand ships; and there in the course
of a fortnight, are the twelve thousand ships going and coming.
Yet all the same, as I have said before, there is danger and there is
anxiety. The neutrals--save America--have been intimidated; they are
keeping their ships in harbour; and to do without their tonnage is a
serious matter for us. Meanwhile, the best brains in naval England are
at work, and one can feel the sailors straining at the leash. In the first
eighteen days of February, there were forty fights with submarines. The
Navy talks very little about them, and says nothing of which it is not
certain. But all the scientific resources, all the fighting brains of naval
England are being brought to bear, and we at home--well, let us keep to
our rations, the only thing we can do to help our men at sea!
How this grey estuary spread before my eyes illustrates and illuminates
the figures I have been quoting! I am on the light cruiser of a famous
Commodore, and I have just been creeping and climbing through a
submarine. The waters round are crowded with those light craft,
destroyers, submarines, mine-sweepers, trawlers, patrol boats, on which
for the moment at any rate the fortunes of the naval war turns. And take
notice that they are all--or almost all--_new_; the very latest products of
British ship-yards. We have plenty of battle-ships, but "we must now
build, as quickly as possible, the smaller craft, and the merchant ships

we want," says Sir Edward Carson. "Not a slip in the country will be
empty during the coming months. Every rivet put into a ship will
contribute to the defeat of Germany. And 47 per cent, of the Merchant
Service have already been armed." The riveters must indeed have been
hard at work! This crowded scene carries me back to the Clyde where I
was last year, to the new factories and workshops, with their