Losses have to be incurred in war, and mistakes will certainly be made from time to time. Our Navy keeps the sea; our ships are in constant movement; valuable ships run risks every day. The enemy is continually endeavouring to strike, and from time to time accidents are inevitable. How do you suppose the battle-cruiser squadron of Sir David Beatty was where it was when the action of January 24 took place? How many times is it supposed that the squadrons of the Grand Fleet, the cruiser and battle squadrons, have been patrolling and steaming through the North Sea, always exposed to risk by mine and torpedo, before at last they reaped their reward?
If any mood or tendency of public opinion arises, or is fostered by the newspapers, or given countenance in this House, which makes too much of our losses, even if they are cruel losses, and even if it may be said that they are in some respects avoidable losses, then I say you will have started on a path which, pressed to its logical conclusion, would leave our Navy cowering in its harbours, instead of ruling the seas. When I think of the great scale of our operations, the enormous target we expose, the number of ships whose movements have to be arranged for, the novel conditions to which I have referred, it is marvellous how few have been our losses, and how great the care and vigilance exercised by the admirals afloat and by the Admiralty Staff, and it appears to me, and it will certainly be regarded by those who study this War in history, as praiseworthy in the highest degree.
The tasks which lie before us are anxious and grave. We are, it now appears, to be the object of a kind of warfare which has never before been practised by a civilized State. The scuttling and sinking at sight, without search or parley, of merchant ships by submarine agency is a wholly novel and unprecedented departure. It is a state of things which no one had ever contemplated, and which would have been universally reprobated, and repudiated, before this War. But it must not be supposed, because the attack is extraordinary, that a good defence and a good reply cannot be made. The statutes of ancient Rome contained no provision for the punishment of parricide, but when the first offender appeared it was found that satisfactory arrangements could be made to deal with him.
Losses no doubt will be incurred—of that I give full warning—but we believe that no vital injury can be done. If our traders put to sea regularly and act in the spirit of the gallant
