Yet all this while, the British Fleet was tightening its grip upon the command of the sea to an extent which may now be described as absolute. The German flag, war ensign and merchant pennant, has been swept from the oceans as if it had never flown. Hamburg and Bremen, the Fatherland’s prides, are as completely demolished, as far as their usefulness to Germany for war is concerned, as if they had been battered into smoking ruins. German mercantile trade simply no longer exists, except such of it as can be smuggled in tramps and ferries across the narrow reach of the Baltic between Pomerania and the Scandinavian ports. The Germanic Allies can import and export nothing oversea except by the grace of Jellicoe. Their deported propaganda chieftains or compromised ambassadors and attachés can not return to their homes in Europe from the United States without gracious "safe conduct" by the British Fleet. The toymakers of Nuremberg can not deliver a solitary tin soldier to an American Christmas tree unless Jellicoe says yes. Two score proud German liners, including the queen of them all, the _Vaterland_, are rotting and rusting in United States harbors, ingloriously imprisoned by British naval power. In a dozen other ports throughout the world Hamburg and Bremen vessels tug at anchor--greyhounds enchained. Germany is banned from the oceans like an outlaw. Her people can eat and drink only on the ration basis. The British Fleet has done something else of which, it seemed to me, an American Presidential message might legitimately have made mention. It has enabled the people of the United States for many months to traverse the oceans in security. These are the immediate effects of British sea supremacy on the enemy, but even they are incommensurate with the advantages which accrue to Britain herself. A navy has three cardinal functions: to preserve its own shores from invasion; to maintain inviolate its country’s oversea communications, including cables, food supply, passenger traffic and postal transportation; and, finally, to destroy the sea forces of the enemy. The first two of these functions have been fulfilled by the Grand Fleet, and at a cost in men and material, though not inconsiderable, which is infinitesimal, measured by the results attained. To absolve the third, and, of course, climacteric, function, Jellicoe and his men and his ironclads stand ready when the opportunity is given them--readier, by far, than when the war began. They have not lost a really vital fighting unit (supposing unconfirmed reports to the contrary to be unfounded). They have had a priceless experience of sea warfare under almost every conceivable condition. They are veterans of every essential contingency. There is hardly a terror, military or atmospheric, which they have not faced and surmounted. They have added to their battle efficiency by a great many new and powerful ships. Their _morale_ is unbroken.