',LAND &, WATEh 9

that ship before \ Bnt just when and where she co~ld not
remf'mber. anv more trlqn she could put a name to her.
There was a ~ ,certain unplt>asantness connected \vith this
vague melnory too. \\'hat a nuisance that.. she was unable
to recall t he details. try huw Shfl might! Th€'tl all of a sudden.
it came hack to her, just at the very nl()mrnt wlwn Dane was
making his report ahout alnlnnnition, .• Hy jovc, YflS!
Shc's the old Hertha! The clumsy h~ggar that. driftfld
across 'nly hO\\"5 in 'C)~ and carrif'(l away my'starhoard sponson t
I'll $ponsoh her now, see if I don't! This is wherC;.' i get a
bit of my, own ba~k !" . them all-'all the ships of the l\lotherbank.
And with a quick Jeap ahead she charged at her ancient
enemy arid rammed her amidshIps. And that was the last
of the Hlrlha !
Afterwards. when Jack Dane told Gi11ian that her father
had -fought 'his ship magnificently,' she said" I told you so t
And yet you laughed at nle for calling him a hero! Now.
then! "-:Whic]l was just like Gillian. And when the
news reac1wd Motherbank the old ships reeked happily with~the
tide, well pleased that one of th~ir ,number had achieved
iInmortal fame; for they felt that the gli.try was reflected' on
'
','

I ' '

,
Why There
'
Must 'be Victory
By 'G. ~. Chestertoll
•
UR attention would probably he arrested. if we' pal1iat~d, such as crucifying babies. Everyone was aghast
walked along the street and saw a butcher's shop at these unheard-of things when they were first done; a
in which the dead bodies of human beings were few denied them; nobody dreamed of nlerely accepting them.
__ ' hung up for sale. 'We should think it an innovation They have only come to be recognised by being r~peated.;
of serious import; and any explanations offered would leave as if the sensationalism of a murder grew milder because it
us v.aguely dissatisfied. 'We might be told it was only a turned {nto a massacre. Now these things will really become
detaIl in the terms of peace recently made with the King 6f human na:bits unless one thing is secured; unless the horror
the Cannibal Islands, after a war In which that prince was we',all felt; When we jirsfhad to deal'with them, is 'expressed
foiled in his amoitions, and forbidden to kidnap foreigners in our attit~de when we finally ,have to deal ,with them.
for the, nationa! food supply. We might be ,assured that The way we 'end the war, must express Jhe amazement, as
the traffic was now strictly confined to the subjects 9f this well as the abhorrence, we felt at the way they began the war. '
foreign state. It might be explained, for instance, that the V/ e must 'keep inviolate the virgin astonishment of our anger~
shop supplied only those diplomatists attached to the Embassy If we do not/it means that they have not only degraded war,
of the Cannibal 'Islands round the corrfel\. I t might be said but they 'have degraded us. It means that, they have not
that, even for this purpose, it was confined to the corpses of only dulled the conscience of their subjects, but the ~onscience
criminals Jegally executed by th~ Cannibal Commonwealth. of their' enemies. It means that what our own souls once
But all this would but partially· appease a sense of unrest saw as a dance of devils has become for us, as for the blinded
and perhaps unreasonable repugnance; a vague atmosphere Prussians. a dull routine of discipline; that henceforth the
of regret and alarm which, when approximately analysed, corpses 'Of a massacre will be a mere self-repeating pattern
would resolve itself into .two fundanlental impre?sions. like the uniforms of.' a regiment; that henceforth a column
One would be an impression that the King of the Cannibal of slav.e'S wi.11 go by with as mechanical a beat as a column of
Islands had not been very badly beaten. The other would soldier~; and that even a child nailed to a door ~ould te~l
be the impression that people in London had lost something of us little, except thafit was as dead as a door nail. But It
the. first freshness of their horror of cannibalism. would not be the child that was dead.
Now to-d~y one question underlies all other questions In That is the first and most elemental fact; that if the end
Europe. Is thi' war to wash the world, or t.o stain it for ever? does not somehow express. the holy horror of the beginning
There are many other reasons for refusing the cosmopolitan -then for our enemies as for ourselves there will be no pur-
compromise with which some humanitarians would now con- gation b.ut 'only perpetuation. Blood shamefully shed will
clude the war. But of the two or three reasons which I wish have soaked into the earth and the sIl1ell of it will never
to note here, I wilfput first this psychological point of a habi- depart, ' There will be more wars; of course, and in every, war
t.uation to horror; of which. the above paragraph is !lot at these' monkey tricks will have become military models.
all an exaggerated parable. Indeed, so far from beIng an But even the peace will be full of this war; of th~ lost stan-
exaggeration, ,it i~ rather an understatement. The mere darqs and sickening pessimism of such a war. There IS only one
eating of human corpses is a matter of taste. compared with _ way to wake from such a night~are, and that is to punish
some of the departures of Prussianised Germany in what'are Prussia as' one punishes, something quite new and unnatural
clearly matters of morality. As for the defence of it in theory, in history. And the only way to punish ~russia i~, of co~se, to
it would be, like most sophistry, a matter of insane simplicity. conquer her. ' If we allo,v her statel~ diplomatIsts to dl(:~a~e
'I could Inyself produce in 1:wenty minutes,the scheme 01 the this and that in the terms of an ordInary treaty-well, It IS
monumental "Defence of Anthropophagy, "which a precisely as if we ~lowed the stately diplomatis~s of the
Prussian professor could produce in twenty years. It- would , Embassy of ~he Cannibal Islands to keep a canrubal shop
be a matter of talking ideally about the dignity of digestion. round the corner. We 'are admitting a11J entirely new sort of
of describing the line between beasts and men as, a matter of butcher into our social circle. \Ve condone something. we
degree; of sympathising with, the savages who eat a brave can never afterwards condemn. 'This, I say, is the first fact,
enemy as a 'compliment, of. misinterpreting the language psychological or rath,er spiritual. ~ut for those fer whom this
which refers to eating as a sacrament; of calling canniba- is what they would call too mystical,. and I should call ~oo
lism "incorporation," or the highest form of human unity. moral. there are quite cold and practIcal reasons that. dove
The Prussian professor need say no more than this nonsense; us directly to the same end. The first, ~f cours~. l,S ~he
though he would fill several volumes with the statistics of inevitable imminence of another, war; which agaln, bemg
the savage tribes and the description of the digestion, with a fact, has ·many facets. Perhaps the simplest ~ay o~ ~ta­
diagranls. He could ~nd historical inspiration in .the. hero,ic ting it is this; it ~an b~ proved .that aI~ Pruss~a'~ o~lgln~
lore of the German Folk; for there was' cannlbahsm In reasons fot promptIng thIS war will remaln and WIll Indeed
Gern:iany as late as the Thirty Years' \Var. German thought :be renewed.
t:Jlight any day propose the revival of anthropqphagy, as it The opinion, or rather the certainty, that Prussia will, if
is ~lready in SOlne quarters proposing the rev-ival of polygamy. she can, return to the charge, is not in Itself any part of the
The point is that the presence of this thing after a war with accusation again~t Prussia. .1 t is part of the defence always
its champions. its presence though merely tolerated, though offered for Prussia; of the only defence ever offered !or
carefully conditioned, though theoretically limited to its Prussia. ,The one plea made for modern Germany, of WhICh
pre.<;ent sphere-t1~e presence of their shop in our street would 'we have all of us heard hundreds of times wherever there was
prove that somethIng had appeared on earth that was stronger any difference of opinion about. moder~ Ger~any, was ~he
than civilisation. argument that modern Germany IS too bIg for Its boun~afles.
. Now Germanv has. in this war comlnitted cruelties worge We were told it would 'be forced to ,overflow; and ~t .was
than cannibalism. She has publicly confessed and commanded the friends. not, the enemies. of .Germany who told u~ It wa~
act$that had hitherto been considered exactly as we consider. forced to overflow. More often It was not even the fflends 0 ..
cannibalism. Her soldiers have not only done, but been ,Ger~any so much as the G,ermans themselves. \Vhether
ordered to do, things the wickedness of which has long bee!,! we think this a weak or ~ s!rong. re~on fo~' the remo~al of
a,p<;lpnlar' proverb; such. as po~'soni~g wells. They. have a neighbour's landmark, It IS qUite self·evldent that It re-
earned off women and chIldren ll}to htetal bondage, In the mains as weak or as strong as before, after a peace that merely
manner attributed to literal heathens and literal barbarians restores the neighbour'S landmark. It is, of course, ~ ma-
)?y ~ery historian or mo~alist who has distinguished between teriali8tic argument; it represents a German demand In !he
loa. barbarians and C.hnstenc1nIl1 or lTIodern' Europe. They sordid sense in which we talk about supply and demand.
b1tv.e, done things that nohody hl1r1 ever thought of, 'far less Hut it is olain that a policy of no annex~tinns is a policy of
 10 LAND & WATER
no answers to this demand. If there ever --was any evolu-
tionary or ethnical excu~e' for the Teutonic tribes makiIl$'
this movement there wIll be the same excuse for then
making another movement. In short J the most practical'
reason f?r saying that a peace ~f the status. QUO .must not sat-
isfy us IS the fact that, on theIr own shoWIng, It cannot pos.-
sib1y satisfy the Germans. The Germans at any rate have
been taught to make this material claim; and the Gennans
happen to live under a power which has simply blazoned it
as a motto that he who has a material claim has no need
of a" moral claim. "These rulers are sincerely convinced that
there is no international nloralitv. V·le do not accuse Prus-
sians of saying this. any more than w~ accuse thef!1 of living
in Prussia. It is simply the fact that they do say It. . There
has never been a great political spokesman of Prussia 'from
Frederick the Great to" Bismarck who did not say it,
and who \vas not praised by the Prussians for saying it. For
the .Prussians to deny it now, in the attempt to dodge
defeat, is exactly as if Eriglishmen professed to find
a painful subject I~ th~ saying that ~hey are t~e Inas~er~ of
the sea. AnnexatIon IS not a Prusslan" conspiracy, It IS a
Prussian glory. The problem is, therefore. wl\at happens
when a huge population, taught that it has a natura" right
to new territories, is ruled by captains \vho are par~icularly
proud ?f having achieved ,every one ~f .their ~ucc~sses by
a~uresslve war. It does not seem very difficult to ImagIne what
would happen----especially when it has happened already.
At this third stage of the debate the friend of a cosmopolitan
comprolnise intervenes and says in $ubstance It But wi.ll
Gennany not have learnt a lesson?" Yes; Germany' wlll
certainly have learnt a lesson, If the war ends in any such
compromise, Germany will have learnt a most memorable
and historic lesson. She will have learnt her strength. She
" will have learnt- that she is at least as strong as the largest
combination that. can be brought against her; and that '
ctvilisati0n is either unable or unwilling to refuse any innovation
she mav afterwards introduce into international ethics.
At some favourable occasion in the future, let us say, Berlin
may consider it a sufficient substitute for the old-fashioned
declaration of 'var to seize the British Ambassador and tor-
ture him to extract British diplomatic secrets, She may
at the same time invade Switzerland, not only kill the
Swiss, but cook and eat them-from motives of economy"
and efficiency. There would be an outcry at the offence;
but not a greater outcry than there was against the Belgian
massacres or the Atlantic pirC1:cy; there might be ~ cO.m-
bination against the offender, but not a greater combInatIon
than that which now links up the continents of Europe and
America. And the Germans would know by that time that
such an outcry ~ways die,S down to .a diploJl1ati~ chat, and
such a combinatIon always falls to pleces before It can effect
anything but the hurried payment of blackmail to the black-
guard. That is the weakness i!1 the invocation. of ~ Eru:opean
Tribunal and a League of Nations. They eXIst In thIS case
as completely as they could exist-if any revolt against them
were large enough to require their services. And the very
people who invoke them for th~ !~tur~ dare not use t~em In
the present .. If the rest of CIVIlIzation cannot pUnish the
immoralist mutiny of the Germanies, it will pever be able
to p~nish any mutiny large enough to .be wo~th punishing.
In the present case. as I say, the result wIll be SImple eno~h :
the Germanies will have discovered that they are too blg to
be punished. If the the war ends now with any mere" terms"
the moral for all Germans must be and can onlv be that the
world cannot conquer Germ~ny. "From that, by every pos~i?le
historical analogv, there cah be but one step to the posItIon
that Germany, with better luck or care, can conquer the
world. The G~rmans woula be more than human, instead
of being if anything rather less, if they did. not make the:;e
deductions from our dropping of the sword, suddenly and In
silence.
\Ve have therefore three plain facts; a people taught that it
must expand in the future; a ruli!,g power t~a<;hing that:a~l its
{'xpansions . have been by the h'~gher moralIty of aggresslon ;
and the fallure (or apparent faIlure) of the 'vhol~ world to
prove itself stronger than that power. \Vhat wIll happen
next I should have thought a baby could see-especially as
its faculties might \vell be sharpened by the anficipation
of being crucified o~ a doo~. . . . .
I t is true that thIS PrussIan VIctory IS a delUSIon, WhICh a
few more blows will dissclve for ever. Are we therefore. to
refuse" to dissolve 'it; are we deliberately to let the delUSIon
harden into a l:d ee fixe for ever? I t is true that this uncon-
queraolc Germany is a dream; for them a day-dream and
for us a nightmare. Are we therefore, to go out of our ~ay
to make the dream come true? I fear I nlust fall back Into
that mystical Y.cin in wl.lich I began, ~ut if there be beyon~
events a purgatIon to Whl~I~~1l our punIshments are approxI-
mate, it nlav well he the cI\'Ilized AllIes, and not the half-savage
(~ermans \\·ho will then answer to God for having ordered
the rctu;n 0 f slayery and sayagery and prrhistoric night.
. JtIne 28, 191 7
British Salmon Fisheries ,
To the EditO'f of LAND & WATER.
SIR,-In his article Salmon and Food Supply" lIr, \V.
U
Baden Po well , K.C., made the suggestion that one of the
main causes of the decline of British salmon fisheries is the
protection afforded to "fish-destroying birds." Most of
those who have had experience of the rapid deterioration of
salmon fisheries during the past 40 years might have inclined
to place the pollution of rivers and excessive netting in the
fore-front of the contributing causes, and the suggestion
that the Wild Birds Protection Act has been the- "main cause" ,
deserves a little more examination than the writer of the
article accorded to it. What arc these '''fish destroying birds" ?
Gulls and divers (unspecified) are alone referred to.
'By divers," cormorants, gooseanders and mergansers are
tC
presumably referred to, for none of the other "divers J' habitu-
ally enter In any numbers the waters in which yo.ung salmon
live. The -'I divers" are therefore reduced to three, the t\\ro.last
though no doubt very destructive, are not C0mmon birds,
and very unc~mmon in the spring and summer months. The
cormorants and gulls must therefore be the "vermin" to which
the Wild Birds Protection Act is said" to afford protection.
On enquiry Mr. Baden Powell will find .-that localities, if
such exist, in the Eritish Isles where cormorqnts are protected
are a very great exception to the rule, and that the eggs of
gt}1ts, so far from being protected as he suggests, are at many
of the great breeding stations (e.g. Fame Islands) on the
British coast, annually collected by thousands for human
consumption. There has been much contrQversy about the
damage done by gulls. and the evidence by no lneans points
all one way, ·nor are all gulls equally destructive.
Assuming that a good case can be made by withdrawing
protection from all the gulls, the removal of the \Vild Birds Act
(and with it protection fer all wild birds) is indeed a snr-
prising suggestion as a means of carrying out that which has
been done in many parts of England by the simple process of
excluding gulls from the ~chedule of protected birds.
The dalnage done to' salmon fisheries by the natural enemies
of the salmon is not to be compared with the ill-efiects of the
artificial condition of the rivers, and the destruction caused
by man. A hundred years ago, a:{>art from tJ1e birds already
mentioned, the chief natural enemies of the salmon were the
•
seal, otter, osprer' and heron. No one will be iound to
assert that any 0 these exist to-day in numbers in' any way
comparable to those of a century ago. The seal has been
totally banished from many ofit-s former resorts and is no·
\vhere as-abundant as formerly. The same may be said of the
otter and the heron, while the osprey has become almost, if
not complete-Iy, non existent. Moreover it must be remembered
that all these were ,destroyers of grown fishJ and as such were
far more destructive than destroyers of spawn or fry ..
The decrease in the natural enemies of the salmon is as
marked as the decrease in the salmon themselves, and "an
attempt to ascribe the present deplorably rapid deterioration
of British salmon fish~ries to the increase of "fish destroying
hirds" will hardly carry ~onviction to any student of natural
history. I -,
The ~eat "fish destroyer" has been man. His devices
and notably the obstruction, pollution and netting c,f rivers
and estuarIes-have in a few decades reduced (in the case of
some rivers to vanis?ing point) the salmon upon whose vast
numbers centuries of unceasing <;:ompetition with their natural
enemies had made no impression whatever.
In Palestine." l\IAURICE PORTAL.
June,6 I9 I 7·
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