Let us state very plainly, for what it ie worth,
our own opinion. Having regard to the progress of the war on the Western Front, and to our maintained command of the sea and our increased pressure on the enemy by means of the blockade, we believe that nothing can possibly rob us of victory but a reduction of our power through the submarine campaign. In an interview recorded in the Daily Mail of Wednesday, Sir Arthur Yapp, who manages the new Food Economy campaign, said that at the present rate our construction in shipbuilding was not enough to overtake our losses. If that represents the true situation, and the British people do not do enough by abstinence to restore that balance, we may lose the victory " on the post," and should deserve to lose it. Of course it may be that some one or other of the numerous new naval devices for defeating the submarines will turn up trumps and make our course easy, but we must not rely upon these. We are by no means impressed, but rather the reverse, when statements are published, apparently with official consent and yet on no explicitly named authority, that the submarine danger is being solved by microphones, or smoke-boxes, or bombs, or the armament of mer- chantmen, or whatever it may be.
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