The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-04-15

to the world the greatest and the only complete definition in any language oi the work of a navy In war time. When Admiral Mahan penned the words, "the silent pressure of sea power," he de scribed exactly the work of the prepon- derant navy in every one of the wars of the worlds history, and his words apply with double force to the sea war of today because the silence of the belligerent navies is in such marked contrast to the welter of news about everything to which we had become accustomed before Au- guts, 1914, when Jellicoe and the grand fleet vanished into the northern mists f1guratively as well as literally.
 The pressure of sea power Is silent be- cause 1t does not depend mainly on the outcome of battles. The clash of armed forces in fact is merely an incident 1T naval warfare. The only maritime wars ir which fleets have been constantly at each others throats were the three short fierce periods of strife between England and the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. In all others wars the great bat ties took place at long intervals. Thus throughout the first half of the eight eenth century, although Britain was ire quently at war, there were only five big naval battles, one to each decade. Ir the second half, which includes the open ing of the great Napoleonic wars as wei, as the Seven Years war and the Amer ican war, in which France intervened there were only 14 decisive fleet actions or about one every three years.
 This Is fact which Is often lost sight of by those watching the present great war. Our history books tell us about the great battles; they do not tell us about the months of weary cruising from point to point, with only an occasional duel be- tween outlying ships to vary the mo- notony. They tell us all about Trafalgar, but they do not tell us of the 22 months that Nelson spent before Toulon without ever setting foot out of his ship while he was waiting for the chance to get at his antagonist. It was that silent, seem- was the real essence of sea power. Ira falgar was but the outward and audible sign.
 SILENT, UNGUESSED POWER
 Those, then, who ask what the British navy has done in this war have not fully understood the meaning of what has hap pened. Because the battleships have not limped home battered and bruised twice a week, because not single British dreadnaught in the battle squadrons has been blown sky high in action, because, in word, there has not been somethinlg dramatic to discuss once a month, many people have jumped to the conclusion that nothing has been done. They are wrong. The evidence of 1t is in every American port Why were 27 German liners laid up at New York, six at Bos- ton, three at Baltimore, three at San Francisco, 10 at Honolulu and 23 in ports of the Philippine Islands?
 There has been no pressure in their boilers. All the pressure has been out side them, the unseen pressure for which there is no gauge invented, the pressure of the 4000 vessels of the British navy.
 That is a bloodless victory, but it Is none the less valuable, none the less effective none the less complete. The tremendous loss of 5000 British lives in the battle of Jutland brought no addi- tional advantage to Great Britain. All that she held at sea before she still held after it. The dramatic element was su- perfluous. The value of Jutland from Britain's point of view was simply this: It made clear what hitherto had been only half realized by the untutored in