The German mine-laying policy has so hindered the movements of the British Fleet, by necessitating wide detours, that to deal with a raid such as the recent Hartlepool affair involves enormous risks, while at the same time the German Fleet can navigate to our coast with the utmost speed and the utmost confidence. They know that we have laid no mines, and the position, of course, of their own mines is accurately charted by them--indeed we know this as a fact. Our Fleet, on the contrary, has to confine its movements to deep water, or slowly to grope its way behind mine-sweeping vessels. _There is no option but to adopt an offensive mine-laying policy._ It is unfortunate, however, that we have only 4,900 mines at present available. On February 1st (together with 1,000 mines from Russia) we shall have 9,110, and on March 1st we shall have 11,100 mines. This number, however, is quite inadequate, but every effort is being made to get more. Also FAST Mine-Layers are being procured, as the present ones are very slow and their coal supply very small. So at present we can only go very slow in mine-laying; but carefully selected positions can be proceeded with. We must certainly look forward to a big extension of German mine-laying in the Bristol Channel and English Channel and elsewhere, in view of Admiral Tirpitz’s recent statements in regard to attacking our commerce. Neutral vessels now pick up Pilots at the German island of Sylt, and take goods unimpeded to German ports--ostensibly carrying cotton, but more probably copper, etc., and thus circumventing our economic pressure.[17] _This would be at once stopped effectually by a mine-laying policy._ Nor could any German vessels get out to sea at speed as at present; they would have to go slow, preceded by mine-sweeping vessels, and so would be exposed to attack by our Submarines. [Illustration: THE SUBMARINE MONITOR M 1, which lately returned from a successful cruise in the Mediterranean. She is designed to fight above or below water. She carries a 12-inch gun firing an 850-lb. shell, which can be discharged when only the muzzle of the gun is above water.] A BIRTHDAY LETTER. _Lord Fisher to a Friend._ _January 25th, 1918._ MY DEAR FRIEND, A letter to-day on my birthday from an eminent Engineer, cheers me up by saying that never has France been so vigorously governed as she is now by her present Prime Minister, Clemenceau, and that he is my age, 77. The Conduct of the War, both by Sea and Land, has been perilously effete and wanting in Imagination and Audacity since May, 1915. I know these words of mine give you the stomachache, but so did Jeremiah the Jews when he kept on telling them in his chapter v., verse 31: “The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests [the unfit] bear rule by their means, And my people love to have it so, And what will ye do in the end thereof?”