The Title story of this volume was written about eighteen months before
the outbreak of the war, and was intended to direct public attention to
the great danger which threatened this country. It is a matter of
history how fully this warning has been justified and how, even down to
the smallest details, the prediction has been fulfilled. The writer
must, however, most thankfully admit that what he did not foresee was the
energy and ingenuity with which the navy has found means to meet the new
conditions. The great silent battle which has been fought beneath the
waves has ended in the repulse of an armada far more dangerous than that
of Spain.
It may be objected that the writer, feeling the danger so strongly,
should have taken other means than fiction to put his views before the
authorities. The answer to this criticism is that he did indeed adopt
every possible method, that he personally approached leading naval men
and powerful editors, that he sent three separate minutes upon the danger
to various public bodies, notably to the Committee for National Defence,
and that he touched upon the matter in an article in _The Fortnightly
Review_. In some unfortunate way subjects of national welfare are in
this country continually subordinated to party politics, so that a self-
evident proposition, such as the danger of a nation being fed from
without, is waved aside and ignored, because it will not fit in with some
general political shibboleth. It is against this tendency that we have
to guard in the future, and we have to bear in mind that the danger may
recur, and that the remedies in the text (the only remedies ever
proposed) have still to be adopted. They are the sufficient
encouragement of agriculture, the making of adequate Channel tunnels, and
the provision of submarine merchantmen, which, on the estimate of Mr.
Lake, the American designer, could be made up to 7,000 ton burden at an
increased cost of about 25 per cent. It is true that in this war the
Channel tunnels would not have helped us much in the matter of food, but
were France a neutral and supplies at liberty to come via Marseilles from
the East, the difference would have been enormous.
Apart from food however, when one considers the transports we have
needed, their convoys, the double handling of cargo, the interruptions of
traffic from submarines or bad weather, the danger and suffering of the
wounded, and all else that we owe to the insane opposition to the Channel
tunnels, one questions whether there has ever been an example of national
stupidity being so rapidly and heavily punished. It is as clear as
daylight even now, that it will take years to recover all our men and
material from France, and that if the tunnel (one will suffice for the
time), were at once set in hand, it might be ready to help in this task
and so free shipping for the return of the Americans. One thing however,
is clear. It is far too big and responsible and lucrative an undertaking
for a private company, and it should be carried out and controlled by
Government, the proceeds being used towards the war debt.