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misadventure-with a sacrifice of life so great that we have not realised its extent. Is it, therefore, to be concluded that we have been injured seriously in a military sense? Have our chances of winning the eventual victory which will reassure our command of the sea decreased as the war has progressed?

The record of the war on the seas suggests some preliminary reflections. There is a vital and essential difference between military and naval power. A nation fortunately situated geographically as we are can, after some months' delay, create new armies, enlisting men, commissioning officers, providing equipment. It is not a rapid process, but it has already been shown that it can be done even by a democracy with political conditions unsuited to the organisation of violence and its effective direction. On the other hand, unless hostilities last longer than they can possibly last owing to economic circumstances, naval power cannot be improvised; with the battleships and cruisers which a country has built or building when hostilities open it must win or lose. This is the first point which is usually ignored; army deficiencies can be made good by a maritime country which possesses complete or partial control of sea communications; naval deficiencies, except in respect of details, cannot be supplied, since it takes six years to train a junior officer, almost as long to produce a skilled lower-deck rating, three years to build a battleship, two years to complete a cruiser, and about twelve months to construct a torpedo vessel-destroyer or submarine. There is also another consideration. Armies fight for positions; navies fight that their merchant ships may use the seas without molestation.

If we bear in mind these distinctions, it is not surprising that the progress of the war has been marked by a succession of battles of first-class importance on the continent, directly bearing on the ultimate issue of the

Down to Nov. 11 the British naval casualties amounted to 4,327 killed, 473 wounded, and 973 missing, apart from the men of the Royal Naval Division interned in Holland. The high proportion of killed will be noted; in modern naval war few are wounded, but many drowned. The blowing up of the battleship 'Bulwark,' owing apparently to an accident, can hardly be regarded as a war casualty. Over 700 lives were lost.

This statement does not apply absolutely to destroyers and submarines, as under favourable industrial conditions they can be constructed rapidly.

war, while at sea there has been no engagement between the various fleets involved in hostilities which can by any possibility influence our fortunes. The explanation lies on the surface. Both our enemies, though possessing considerable naval power-war shipping with a displacement of over one million tons-have not so far disputed in any serious degree our use of the seas. We have been able to continue our trade with our allies and the neutral countries of the world. We have been in a position to mobilise no mean proportion of the effective manhood of the Empire, and to draw upon the military resources of India, and transfer these men either to England for a period of final training or direct to the battlefields on the Continent. Nor is this all. By the active employment of our naval power, we have been in a position to keep from our enemies what we have chosen to describe as contraband and conditional contraband, while they, on their part, have been unable to effect any limitation of our supplies of material to be employed in the prosecution of the war. The naval issue has so far gone by default. This is not to say that, at its 'selected moment,' the German High Sea Fleet will not sally forth and accept the challenge which the Grand Fleet has so repeatedly offered. Whatever may or may not happen in the Adriatic, it is impossible to doubt that, when circumstances are considered favourable, the main forces of the German Navy will be exerted, for German officers and men, as many incidents have shown, are lacking neither in seamanship, courage, nor strategical ability. But in the meantime, with the Russian Fleet on the east and the British Fleet on the west, the Germans have chosen to evacuate the seas in our favour; and we have been reaping all the advantages of sea command and translating them into economic and military power.

Incidental naval actions have occurred. Despatches have been published-after long and unexplained delay -describing the successful scooping-out movement in the Bight of Heligoland; British and German submarines have been operating freely; mines have robbed both navies of ships; an engagement has taken place off the Chilean coast with sad results; and British, Russian and French men-of-war have been surprised and destroyed at Zanzibar and Penang.

Before an attempt is made to examine any of these events, none of them, so far as our fortunes are concerned, contributing in any appreciable degree to the eventual issue of the war, it may serve a useful purpose to set out the main losses which the several navies have suffered, the dates when the different ships were launched being stated in each case: