o not see. The commerce-destroyer will have a
very short run; it will have to be an exceptionally good and costly
ship in the first place, it will be finally sunk or captured, and
altogether I do not see how that sort of thing will pay when once the
command of the sea is assured. A few weeks will carry the effective
frontier of the stronger power up to the coast-line of the weaker, and
permit of the secure resumption of the over-sea trade of the former. And
then will open a second phase of naval warfare, in which the submarine
may play a larger part.

I must confess that my imagination, in spite even of spurring, refuses
to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocate its crew and
founder at sea. It must involve physical inconvenience of the most
demoralizing sort simply to be in one for any length of time. A
first-rate man who has been breathing carbonic acid and oil vapour under
a pressure of four atmospheres becomes presently a second-rate man.
Imagine yourself in a submarine that has ventured a few miles out of
port, imagine that you have headache and nausea, and that some ship of
the _Cobra_ type is flashing itself and its search-lights about whenever
you come up to the surface, and promptly tearing down on your descending
bubbles with a ram, trailing perhaps a tail of grapples or a net as
well. Even if you get their boat, these nicely aerated men you are
fighting know they have a four to one chance of living; while for your
submarine to be "got" is certain death. You may, of course, throw out a
torpedo or so, with as much chance of hitting vitally as you would have
if you were blindfolded, turned round three times, and told to fire
revolver-shots at a charging elephant. The possibility of sweeping for a
submarine with a seine would be vividly present in the minds of a
submarine crew. If you are near shore you will probably be near
rocks--an unpleasant complication in a hurried dive. There would,
probably, very soon be boats out too, seeking with a machine-gun or
pompom for a chance at your occasionally emergent conning-tower. In no
way can a submarine be more than purblind, it will be, in fact,
practically blind. Given a derelict ironclad on a still night within
sight of land, a carefully handled submarine might succeed in groping
its way to it and destroying it; but then it would be much better to
attack such a vessel and capture it boldly with a few desperate men on a
tug. At the utmost the submarine w