THE SUBMARINE CONTROVERSY. A LTHOUGH the Washington Conference has un- doubtedly
hit a nasty snag in the French demands about submarines, we are still confident that, even though the maximum of our ambitions may not be attained, an immense amount of good will come out of the Conference. For one thing, the English-speaking world has " got together " with an earnestness that will leave its mark for all time. That mark is indelible. There may be delay in securing all that we hope for from the Conference, but now that America and Britain are unmistakably leading the way as a matter of principle and duty progress will continue even though it may take years to reach the goal. We have started on new lines, and what has been done will not easily be undone. The sorry side to it all is that France should have shown a spirit so out of keeping with that of America and Britain. We cannot hope to elucidate the workings of her mind, for frankly we do not understand them. We understand quite well the technical case for the submarine put forward by the French experts—as, of course, also by the American experts. What we cannot understand is that, however strong France may think that case to be—and our argument would hold good even though it were a thousand times stronger than even France sup- poses—she should think it worth while to sacrifice to it the good will of Britain and America. For in the end the security of France must obviously depend upon the support of her friends.
Torpedoes and mines, and therefore the smaller vessels which make use of these weapons, are a traditional means of defence for Powers which are not strong enough to attack at sea. Well back in the last century, after France had abandoned the attempt to compete with Britain, she adopted the policy of what she called la guerre de course, that is to say, war waged on the communications and commerce of the enemy by swift cruisers. She has not wholly abandoned that theory—witness her demand for a larger number of secondary craft—but she has given it a new form by her present demand to be allowed to build a huge number of submarines. Against what Power she supposes these submarines to be necessary we do not know. All that is certain is that at the Washington Conference she has stoutly resisted the British demands for the total abolition of submarines, giving as her reason the old argument that a nation which is weaker than other nations at sea, and which therefore by implication renounces all idea of naval aggression or conquest, must at least be allowed to be safe. The argument is, of course, logical within its limitations, but it nevertheless nowhere comes in contact with the generous aspirations which are now moving other civilized countries, and—much more surprisingly—it does not even come in contact with the fact that American and British good will is essential to France. The French delegates, we are extremely sorry to have to say, seem to regard the Washington Conference not as a great movement in the interests of humanity, but as a tournament of wits. No doubt the French resistance to the British proposal for the abolition of submarines was greatly reinforced by the knowledge that America also adopted the traditional position about defensive weapons, and held that the only real need was to limit the instruments of aggression, namely, capital ships, and that every nation might safely be allowed to build submarines at its will for the security of its coasts.
But notice what a change came over the Conference when the British delegates had developed further than they had had the opportunity of doing at first the case for total abolition. America then consented, not indeed to abolition, but to a regular limitation of submarines, whereas France held out. No Englishman, we think, can have read the exposition of the British proposal as pre- sented by Mr. Balfour and Lord Lee without a thrill of pride. Not only the original exposition but the replies to criticism in the course of the discussion were informed by a magnanimity and a combination of candour and simplicity which left no doubt of the intense sincerity of the speakers. When the late Dr. Page was American Ambassador in London he used to say to Lord Grey of Fallodon that his ideal for diplomacy was that it should reproduce the spirit of negotiation between two private persons of honour. That ideal was achieved by every- thing that was said in the name of Britain about submarines. The Americans recognized the moral appeal, acknowledged it and in a considerable measure yielded to it. The proposal for abolition came with particular force and transparent honesty from Mr. Balfour and Lord Lee, because the British submarine flotilla is at present the strongest in the world. According to the British view the submarine failed in the War as a weapon of defence—. and, as we have said, it is for defence that France and America wish to retain it. A deep impression was, naturally, produced when the ' Hogue,' the ' Cressy,' and the ' Abou- kir ' were sunk within an hour in the North Sea, but gradually means of meeting the submarines were devised and multiplied, and finally the submarine was not the hunter but the hunted. Even if that fact be regarded by some persons as not indisputably established, it is at all events held to be a fact by Admiral Sims, who wrote a book on the subject. The main conclusion of the book was that the submarine danger had been disposed of before Germany collapsed on land. We will not, ourselves, go'so far, however, as to say that the capital ship emerged triumphant. We suspect that what has happened is that no British naval expert will take the responsibility of saying that the days of the capital ship are over, although, owing to the development of war in the air, with depth charges dropped from aeroplanes, and so on, all the experts may have considerable misgivings. However that may be, the British argument at Wash- ington seems to us to have been morally irresistible. It was to the effect that if the submarine were to be further used and improved, its only future could be as an offensive vessel. In the War German submarines failed against the Navy, but succeeded--for some time—against com- merce. Germany failed to kill by means of submarines a single man among the 15,000,000 soldiers who were trans- ported to and fro across the Channel. She killed several in hospital ships which were unprotected—except by the great and visible symbol of the Red Cross. She sank 12,000,000 tons of merchant shipping, and she killed 20,000 non-combatants at sea, among them a great many women and children. The American armies crossed the Atlantic without loss from submarines. The lesson is taken to be that existence has become impossible for sub- marines in narrow waters and that on the open sea trans- ports and merchantmen can be protected by the convoy system. A convoy can bring a very considerable number of guns to bear upon an attacking submarine, and it is, of course, also attended by its circumambient screen of destroyers and cruisers. The safest of all British' ships, according to the British view of submarine attack, were the capital ships of the Grand Fleet, which cruised in the North Sea many hundreds of thousands of miles without a single loss. It is said, therefore, that if submarines be permitted in future they will be used where their chances are best, or least bad.—in violation of all the laws and customs of war, since there will be little other effectual use for them. Under the laws of war a merchantman may not be sunk unless safety is provided for the passengers and crew. But by the nature of the case a submarine cannot provide that safety. Again, a submarine cannot legally attack a merchantman except on the surface after declaring her intention. But as a submarine cannot rise to the surface when about to attack, without extreme peril to herself, compliance with the law means sacrificing her chief advantage. In the opinion of the British Admiralty it is almost hopeless to expect a hard-pressed Power to respect a law when the law runs contrary to the facts. Submarines, in short, mean atrocity. If we do not want atrocities we cannot safely have submarines.
Let us repeat that we are not forgetting the traditional view about the class of vessels—within which submarines may be included—employed for defence. If America agreed to use submarines only for scouting and mine- laying and for legal attack against ships of war, she would, of course, abide by her word at whatever handicap to herself. But we agree that in most cases the facts would be too strong for the taw. We are faced, indeed, by some- thing even worse than the abandonment of civilized laws and customs by nations in extreme need. The French naval expert at Washington, Admiral de Bon, declared in effect that the use of submarines against merchantmen. in the German way must now be regarded as inevitable, and he suggested that it should be legalized. In the Manchester Guardian we have read an extract from the French Revue Militaire, which is understood to be inspired by the French Admiralty. Here is the extract :- "From this higher standpoint it must be admitted without reserve that the German Supreme Command acted within. its rights when it made use of' the submarine weapon as a means to final victory. It is necessary, therefore, to maintain with energy that, notwithstanding the protests. raised against its use during the War, the submarine weapon is from a military point of view unassailable. Nor is there any justification for holding, as was done in the early part of the War, that enemy merchantmen must be given warning before being torpedoed."
That is a terrible doctrine. There is no good in mincing words when one's feelings are strongly engaged, and we cannot help saying, that the fact that the Washington Conference was made an occasion to advocate a leap back into savagery fills us with indignation. If France should agree—as we suppose she will—to some limitation of submarines, even though the lintiebe a high one, much will have been salved, though much will remain to be done. Whatever happens we shall have no cause for despair. The good work has been begun and it will go on. But we must not fall short of our duty, which is to say that if submarines are to be unlimited while capital ships are limited a policy approaching insanity will have been adopted. The Washington Conference assumes international good faith in the case of the Great Powers, and if that good faith really exists, and can be depended upon, it can be made to apply to submarines just as much as to capital ships or, further, to any of the horrors prohibited in war by the Geneva and Hague Conventions. If submarines should be unlimited—though we do not believe that they will be for long—all that would have happened would be that expenditure would have been transferred from one type of naval weapon to another. The grinding, ruinous, demoralizing expenditure would go on. It might be lavished on an indifferent weapon instead of on a good weapon, but nevertheless, if France had her way, it would still be lavished. The old barbarism would continue, and something worse than the old barbarism. There would be a sort of sanction for " committing the oldest sins the newest kinds of ways." We should be rather like tribes of savages who agreed to give up using daggers but felt free to exhaust their resources upon poisoned assegais.
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