to get through, but that to force a passage would involve an operation employing almost every kind of craft. Minefields would have to be cleared, and battleships would have to be in attendance to protect the mine-sweepers. The battleships in turn would have to be protected from submarine attack, and as the operation of securing either channel would take some time, there would be a virtual certainty of the force employed being attacked in the greatest possible strength. In narrow waters the fleet trying to force a passage would be compelled to engage in the most disadvantageous possible circumstances. The Channel is closed, then, for the Germans, as the Sound is closed to the British, not by the under-water defences, but by the fact that to clear these would involve an action in which the attacking party would be at too great a disadvantage. The concentration, then, in the north of a force adequate to deal with the _whole_ German Fleet--again I have to say in the light of the way in which the use of modern weapons is understood--remains our fundamental strategical principle.” I then went on to reply to the critics who had said that the use of monitors for coast defence was the most disturbing feature of a very unwise series of departures from true policy, and then passed on to what seemed to me the more serious criticism, as follows: “The attack on this part of Mr. Balfour’s policy is vastly more damaging. For it asserts that the policy of defensive offence, Great Britain’s traditional sea strategy, has now been reversed. The East Coast towns may expect comparative immunity, but only because the strategic use of our forces has been altered. It is a modification imposed upon the Admiralty by the action of the enemy. Its weakness lies in the ‘substitution of squadrons _in fixed positions_ for periodical sweeps in force through the length and breadth of the North Sea.’ Were this indeed the meaning of Mr. Balfour’s letter and the intention of his policy, nothing more deplorable could be imagined.