Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/272

246 advantageous—the most dangerous criticism being ever that which is based on a bald knowledge or results without any information as to details and special circumstances.

On the other hand it is well to remember that the dread of hostile criticism is always a safeguard against an incompetent man becoming a leader in war, and to take a case bristling with suitable points,—the British Press and the Boer War—we find that, despite the absence of restrictions, criticisms on 'regrettable incidents' were in the main moderate, restrained and such as exhibited a sound grasp of the main necessities. 'You must either succeed or make way for a man who can' was the gist of what the British Press hurled at defeated leaders in that not very glorious campaign.

Let us now turn to another campaign still more inglorious, still more plentifully scattered with 'regrettable incidents'—the Russian part of the Russo-Japanese war. Most things point to Kuropatkin as an able man swamped by incompetent inferiors about him. A Russian press free to speak its mind would probably have laid its hand on that sore. To some degree despite all censorship it did, but only to a very curtailed extent and carpet warriors held the destinies of the nation—to be more correct failed to hold them. Is it not probable that a free Press would have made for valuable reforms—too late to achieve victory, perhaps, but certainly not too late to better things?