The above articles having been published previous to our country entering the war, and being thus of public knowledge, it is permissible to republish them as a method which might be used to advantage in preventing the German submarines from coming out from their bases. It is admitted that the allied fleets are overwhelmingly superior to the German fleet, yet they are impotent to attack the German battle fleet or to make reprisals on Germany for the constant depletion of their merchant fleet, because Germany's fleet of battleships, cruisers, and merchantmen will not come out in the open, but lies safe behind nets and mine fields as their inner defence, using her submarines on her outer line of defence. As mentioned, Winston Churchill said we must "dig them out like rats out of a hole." That was over three years ago, but not one has been dug out as yet, and, although it would be a very expensive process to do so, it might be possible, by the coöperation of submarines, surface ships, trawlers, and aeroplanes, to move forward gradually and expansively a double or treble line of nets and to defend such a line of nets just outside of the range of the most powerful shore-defence guns. The battleships should be protected by operating between the line of nets to prevent attack upon them by submarines in the rear. Bottom-working submarines would be needed to clear away the mines and nets of the enemy as the mines and nets were moved forward. Constant patrol and repair of the nets would be maintained under the guns of the net-protected fleet, and allied submarines must be on constant attendance in advance of the first line of nets to meet the concerted attack of a portion of the German fleet in "rushing" the line--which must be expected in the attempt to break the same--in order to let out a fleet of their submarines into the open sea to continue their attacks on the allied and neutral commerce of the world. This seems to me the only practical way of stopping up the hole or holes through which the German submarines come out, and to make it effective it would require a double line of nets and patrol fleets extending from Norway to Scotland, and across the English Channel, and across the entrance to the Dardanelles from Brindisi, Italy, to the Albanian coast. Also, battleships which should be unsinkable and provided with longer-range guns than those of the enemy would be required. Perhaps the combined navies of the world as arrayed against the Central Powers could accomplish it, but unless their guns were more powerful and far-reaching than the shore guns, even then they could not land an invading army.