The fact that the newspapers have been permitted to publish
these words unties our tongue. For the last two years we have been wondering why the attacks on Zeebrugge have always been so tentative and so half-hearted in character—why, that is, Zee- brugge has not been smothered with fire. We !mow, of course, that the answer is that the big guns behind the dunes might, unless weather conditions were favourable to our concealment, do great damage to some of our craft. Our reply is, Would not similar considerationi have stopped artillery preparation on the land ? Very few of the German fortreales on the Somme or elsewhere would have been smothered if there had been fear of our land batteries being destroyed by German artillery-fire. But why should the safety of a floating battery be so much more considered than one on land ? However, the Zeebrugge problem, with all its possibilities and with all the favourable consequences which would. flow from its fall, is one that we do not trust ourselves at the moment to discuss. Perhaps on a later occasion we may be able to deal with this most essential and vital matter.
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