n the trade routes. As one merchantman after another was sunk
there could no longer be any doubt about it. What if, in panic, we had
suddenly dispersed our naval force to every part of the globe? What
then? But we didn't. What again if it had been determined, in accordance
with some fanciful scheme, to concentrate our main striking force in the
Mersey? Germany well might have captured the initiative. But authority
was not distracted from its primary purpose. Was its policy a success?
Come, now, was it?

The old year has gone. On January 4th the British Fleet had been at war
seventeen months--roughly seventy-four weeks (anyone can count them up;
there is nothing abstruse about my statistics). In a word, it might
almost be said, with some approach to accuracy, that it has been in the
throes of the struggle for a year and a half. Very well.

The German Flag has been banished from the ocean. Not since the War
began has a German battleship steamed down the Channel--nor a battle
cruiser, nor yet an armoured cruiser, nor even a light cruiser, nor a
monitor, nor a destroyer. None of them--not one. Why is that? Because
(_vide supra_) the German Fleet has been banished from the ocean. It
still exists, but it is safely locked up behind explosive agents (mines)
and protected by submersive factors (submarines). The German Fleet is in
a zareba.

Let us recall the striking words of one of Germany's leading naval
strategists, written, mark you, before the War: "England's strength is
mainly in her Fleet." I wonder now if that is generally known.

He goes on to define the duties of a fleet in the following words:--

(1) To avert invasion.
(2) To keep the sea open for the arrival of imports;
(3) And the departure of exports;
(4) And for the exit of re-exports;
(5) Also the entrance of re-imports.
(6) To protect trade.

Has the British Fleet succeeded?

The German Flag is banished from the seas. In January 1916 the German
Fleet is still lurking in that zareba. The _Dreadnought_ embodied an
offensive _in excelsis_, even as the expansion of the _Dreadnought_
policy embodies an offensive _in extenso_ and imposes upon the enemy a
defensive _in extremis_.

It is perhaps hardly realised that the performance of the British Navy
in this War has no parallel in history. In the past, enemy frigates
always succeeded in getting out of ports, however close the blockade.
But none has broken through this time--not a single frigate. On the
othe