NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Navy haacome altogether into its own again. The details of the gloriously daring naval enterprise at Zeebrugge and Ostend have taught the nation to remember—what it was in danger of forgetting—that the Navy is not only the staple of our strength, but has a very positive power of aggression even under the conditions of this war. Ultimately our victory will depend upon the exercise of this power. That that fact was in some danger of being obscured was due to the prevalence of a naval doctrine which assigned to the Navy a task of finesse rather than of universal offensive action. The spirit of the Navy has always been true to the Nelson legend, and it was not the fault of the Fleet that sometimes the opportunities have been withheld from it of acting in accordance with its traditions. The latest offensives, of which the Zeebrugge affair was only the most conspicuous, have been so successful that we cannot doubt that a new page has been turned in naval policy.
