Poland should also be made a member of the Council of the League. But it will be said that this danger does not and cannot exist, since every decision of the League must be unanimous to be binding on its members. The reply to that observation is that a design is already entertained to substitute the majority vote for unanimity, and if Germany backs that proposal in the future it may quite probably be accepted. These things are always done one step at a time. The first step was to constitute the League as a permissive organization without Germany; the second step was to introduce Germany; and the third step will be for Germany to dominate the League. If Germany dominates the League we may be certain that she will use her influence for policies which she has pursued in the past. One of these policies will be to divide the British Empire; another will be to weaken British naval power; and a third will be to strengthen Germany's hold of Eastern Europe. If there is the remotest danger of these things happening, why should we be so anxious to get Germany into the League of Nations? That is a question which puzzles me a good deal. I do not make any attempt to answer, but I put another question equally puzzling: Why is it considered a British interest to get Bolshevik Russia into the League of Nations? It is manifest that the Bolsheviks are implacable enemies of the British Empire, and yet a continuous propaganda is going forward to prepare the British mind for the entry of Russia into the League, and if that move has been prevented so far, it is because of the indignant opposition of the people of Switzerland, and particularly, I suppose, the watchmakers of Geneva, who remember that they have shop windows to be burgled.

There are many things in life of which I have given up attempting to find a solution, and one is the itch that those who govern our country have for bringing us into dangerous and disadvantageous positions. I content myself with remembering the observation of a wit, that although the tiger may quite possibly be dislodged from the Anglo-Saxon breast the donkey in us is more securely enthroned.

IAN D. COLVIN

THE SEA, THE AIR, AND THE NATION

In a remarkable leading article shortly after the outbreak of war the "sea affair' was appropriately described as making so searching a demand on faith and insight as to require constant reinterpretation.

It was pointed out that this most far-reaching of all forms of national strength had enabled our own trade routes to be kept open and those of the enemy to be closed, and that his colonies and his entire ocean-borne commerce were in process of capture and suppression. And not only that, his main fleet was beleaguered. Such achievements unaccompanied by the clash of arms made no special appeal to the imagination, but if any land or sea battle could have brought about such results the victory would have been described as the greatest in history.

And as the war progressed, how did this factor of sea supremacy manifest itself? Not only was the population of these islands kept alive and their industry preserved, but also the peoples of allied countries. But for the British Navy the armies in France would surely have perished through lack of supplies and Italy have fallen through the severance of her sea communications. The collection of vast armies from overseas, the transport of the American Army, the conveyance of many expeditionary forces to distant theatres-all was accomplished by virtue of the command exercised by the British Fleet.

That absolute supremacy was, it is true, seriously challenged by the illegal and barbarous use of submarines, but it was again the British Fleet and the British Mercantile Marine that eventually overcame that menace. And whilst

our armies were carried everywhere as required, and continuously provided with all the essentials to maintain the struggle, the civil and military masses of the Central Powers were being steadily undermined and strangled by the silent pressure of Sea Power.

History furnishes no more striking example of the immense effect of supremacy at sea.

In round figures, 23 millions of men, 2 millions of animals, and 50 million tons of warlike stores were conveyed by British military sea transport during the war.

It is in the light of this achievement and in constant grateful recognition of the part that the British Navy has played in preserving civilization in general, and the inde

pendence of these islands, that the Naval Estimates should be reviewed.

There are those who will point out that the situation has undergone considerable change since 1914. There is the Washington Agreement, which is regarded as the first stepand a very important one-to some general scheme of disarmament, and there is the newly realized potentiality of the Air Force.

It is not the purpose of this article to discuss the Washington Agreement, though the opinion of most thoughtful men may be recorded that our adherence to it marks the extreme limit of concession that a power so entirely dependent on the sea can be expected to make. Every child knows that in the limitation of sea forces the British Empire cannot subscribe to the common rule, for every child, looking at the map, can see our possessions either entirely surrounded by the ocean or, as in the case of India and Canada, with immense seaboards.

As regards disarmament, a consideration of the concrete questions now being addressed to the International Delegates cannot but make the most ardent idealist uneasy as to the possibility of any advance in that direction, whilst the man in the street may well wonder what is wrong with a world in which force now rests with the most humane and civilized Powers, each of whom cherishes liberty, champions the weak, and sets its face against tyranny, aggression, and injustice. The defection of any one of these from such ideals would draw upon her the united enmity of the rest. The strength of all is the best guarantee of the progress and peace of mankind.

The achievements of the Air Force and the advances it may confidently be expected to make in the future are, however, matters very much bound up with those of the Navy. It is commonly said that Great Britain is no longer an island, and recently that we suffer under a positive disability through being surrounded by the sea. Though the conquest of the air has provided an alternative means of travel, aircraft can never, by any stretch of imagination, replace shipping for the conveyance of armies and the revictualling of a country such as ours.

If the British Navy holds the surrounding seas, invasion on any scale to be worth undertaking is just as impossible to-day as it was throughout the Great War.

It would not be extravagant to imagine an army of, say, 10,000 men, escorted by a sufficiency of fighting planes, making a descent on some part of England. They would

be troublesome, but confronted by troops with every military resource at hand, the principal of which would be that of unlimited ammunition, they could not be expected to maintain themselves for long, to say nothing of the attacks from our own Air Force, which, though it may have been unable to materially hinder the passage of the enemy air army, will pay effective attention to it when it reaches the ground.

Enemy airmen may inflict great damage or loss on us by bombing crowded centres and gassing wide areas. They will undoubtedly attack dockyards, shipping, wharves, railway-stations, power-stations, fuel-stores, and food-depots.

All these things hitherto inviolate by virtue of the sea can now be reached. But the answer is not that the Navy has ceased to be any protection, but to that particular threat we must look to the air and land forces (e.g. high-angle guns, searchlights, range-finders, and soundlocaters), whilst the Navy interposes a barrier against invasion on any scale which could force the country to surrender. Dislocation and suffering we must expect, but we are still only at the beginning as regards the devising of methods of protection of critical areas from aerial attack. There is only one answer to the question, "What is the use of a Navy when an enemy can paralyse the life of a nation by a series of air attacks directed at its heart?" and that is, that it is no use.

It is necessary to take special measures to protect the heart. It is not far short of the truth to say that it is for the air and land forces to protect the heart whilst the Navy feeds the body. Death may ensue by either stab or starvation.

Can it be said that the Navy can insure against the latter? First of all, is the Fleet itself proof against modern air attack? There are a good many reasons that prompt a confident answer. Firstly, that it is not generally or even usually necessary for the Fleet to exercise its protective or blockading functions within the radius of action of shorebased enemy aircraft. Secondly, that if the Fleet is compelled to act within an enemy air zone it will be accompanied by its fleet air arm-squadrons in the aircraft carriers reinforced by fighters from individual ships. Those who have watched the progress of this new arm of the Navy have little fear as to its ability to maintain a patrol that will give warning of the approach of danger and deal faithfully with the enemy craft when they arrive. Thirdly, to make a successful attack on a ship moving at high speed

with either a bomb or torpedo the plane must come close or low. The great advance made in high-angle fire and its control renders either an operation of great danger, whilst the disposition of destroyers or other light craft round the capital ships which ensures a warm reception for torpedo planes at the very points they would select for firing is an added deterrent. Fourthly, our ships are now built specially to withstand the bomb and torpedo.

Can enemy air power prevent our shipping reaching port in spite of a watchful Fleet in being?

The Bristol Channel, Southampton, the Thames, the Humber, and the Tyne will probably lie within the zone of continental aircraft. Unquestionably those districts must have their own coastal air defence, which will provide aerial convoy to important ships on the first and last stages of their voyage as well as protect the port itself.

Other expedients will, however, be necessary. Ships must expect to have their routes altered by wireless to guide them clear of areas in which we have no air supremacy; they will have to make the best use of certain hours and non-flying weather, and, in addition to carrying anti-aircraft guns (as they did anti-submarine guns in the last war), they may have to be escorted by ships carrying aircraft themselves. In the main, however, their safety will best be assured by our shore squadrons intercepting enemy flights between their aerodromes and the focal points of our trade routes.

From enemy surface or submarine attack in home waters, and from all forms of attack in distant seas, the Navy must, as hitherto, be the protector of our merchant shipping.

The scope of such a responsibility will be realized at once if trade statistics are studied. Broadly it may be assumed that at any given moment there are not far short of a thousand large British ships actually at sea or about to sail in the Atlantic, about a third of that number in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and a quarter in the Pacific.

But over and above such widespread responsibility rests the obligation of neutralizing or defeating the enemy fleet and arresting all enemy sea-borne trade. It is to be hoped that the Fleet air arm will so expand as to enable the otherwise totally inadequate number of cruisers on foreign stations to discharge their duties by extending their radius of surveillance, but in any case this vast system of patrol and protection must fall entirely on the Royal Navy. The problem in its broad outlines has now been stated. It is for the Admiralty and the Air Ministry to say what provision must be made to ensure the national safety. How