On Tuesday, in the House of Commons, Mr. Lloyd George
said that if the House desired it, all the available information about the Battle of Jutland would be published. We hope that the facts will be published soon, because an essential doctrine of naval strategy is involved. The truth about how the Battle of Trafalgar was won was not really ascertained until a hundred years after the event, when an expert Committee sat upon the subject. The experts may be trusted to unravel the mysteries of Jutland, provided all the facts are placed before them. The despatches of Lord Jellicoo and Lord Beatty in the form in which they have been published so far are hardly reconcilable. We do not yet know whether Lord Jellieoe, in breaking off the action, as we think it is not unfair to say that he did, acted on his own responsibility—and no doubt his some of responsibility for the Fleet which alone stood between us and defeat was very great--or whether he acted in the spirit of superior orders from the Admiralty. At all events, it is necessary to have naval doctrine clearly laid down for the future. In the years before the war, and probably during the war, a teaching prevailed that it was sufficient to keep communications and sea routes open. That was a denial of the Nebionian principle that the one duty of a Naval Commander is to search out his enemy and destroy him.
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