some proportionate insurance, and that if we are to preserve our inheritance in peace we must be the "strong man armed," ready to defend ourselves against jealous or unscrupulous assailants.

In what I have here stated, I am merely laying stress upon the fact that the proper standard for the consideration of the strength of our navy is our own requirements as a nation, as was pointed out clearly by Admiral Sir A. Hood in a speech at the Mansion House a few months ago, and I wish to deprecate any comparison with foreign Powers as being conclusive in its character. At the same time, it is obvious that our armaments should bear some comparison with those of possible opponents; and it has been found that the strongest argument which could be addressed to the House of Commons or to the public, has generally consisted in an appeal to the necessity for not being outdone by others. Hence not only a vicious system of measuring our navy by a two-foot rule, which is is inapplicable; but it has been too much the custom to follow other countries in their designs, or at most to outbid them by larger and improved vessels of similar classes.

Captain Colomb, R.M.A., in his admirable lecture on Naval and Military Federation at the United Service Institution in May last year, gives some valuable statistics in comparing the present commerce of the empire with that of thirty

five years ago, the year of the first Exhibition; and he shows how the trade between the United Kingdom and India, which was 17 millions in 1851, is now 86 millions, while that between Australia and India has increased from £150,000 to over 3 millions in the same period. He adds, that "the sea-trade of India alone is about equal to that of Russia ;" and that "the aggregate sea-trade of the colonies and dependencies at the present time, exceeds by some 50 millions a-year that of France and Russia combined." These are stubborn facts, which make many of the laboured defences of the strength of our fleet as superior to that of France almost ridiculous; yet it was possible for Mr Childers, in defence of his Budget in 1883, to point out that the spending services were costing rather less than they did twenty years previously and he might have added that while the Army Estimates had somewhat increased, the Navy Estimates had been correspondingly reduced. As there has been some misapprehension as to the extraordinarily large Navy Estimates for the present year, amounting to £12,993,000, it is curious to find that they only exceed those of 1860-61, a year of peace qualified by a "little war" in China, by about £150,000, so that our Navy Estimates have not increased with our increasing commerce. I give the figures for the years referred to by Mr Childers, and for 1860-61

The lines in Don Juan irresist

ibly occur here to me

service,

but it is true of the public, who

The estimates above referred to are to some extent a proof of this; and it is worth remarking that so astute and experienced an official as Mr. Shaw Lefevre, who has been Secretary of the Admiralty, has proposed a reduction of the Navy Estimates, while he will not lift a profane hand against those of the sister service.

It is to a want of standard as to what our naval power should be, to a lack of appreciation of our natural necessities in this respect, to a rooted prejudice against plans or systems which may interfere with future liberty of action, and to a desire to subordinate all our requirements to political views of economy which may satisfy the House of Commons, that the halting and spasmodic nature of our naval policy has generally been due. Of this our statesmen are at last becoming aware. Mr Childers's reductions of 1868-1869 were promptly followed by the vote of credit of 1870, while there was a similar vote in 1878, which added four ironclads to the navy; and lastly, in 1885, we had the £3,500,000 which was spent recklessly, and to a great extent uselessly, to stop leaks in our naval armour. How much of this would have been avoided by some programme of naval construction, however faulty? Yet, from the reasons given above, though the French, the Germans, the Italians, and the Russians have consistentently aimed at carrying out certain schemes of naval shipbuilding, in

Practically, however, is it true. that, much to the advantage of the country, something like a systematic policy has been followed by recent First Lords of the Admirality; and I cannot but admire the boldness of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was determined to stick to the old plan of making reductions, solely because the estimates seemed to him to be high, without having regard to facts which have been brought prominently to our notice, such as the defenceless position of many of our coaling stations, or that mere reductions manufactured for budget service were the worst economy. I cannot help referring here to the insular nature of our statesmen's views of national armaments, as amusingly exemplified by Lord Randolph Churchill's allusion to the increase of our expenditure since 1874, whilst camly ignoring that of other Powers, as was plainly shown by Lord George Hamilton, who told the House of Commons on the 1st of February that the naval expenditure of foreign countries had increased in the last ten years France 39 per cent, Germany 43, Russia 45 and Italy 133, while Austria's alone remained about

as follows:

even Lord Randolph would have the temerity to argue that our naval policy should be framed on that of Austria.

But I am not arguing as to what our Navy Estimates ought to be, but that our national wants should be our standard of naval efficiency; and that mere comparisons of our naval power with that of other nations are barren and misleading. We need command of the sea, we must accordingly have sea - going vessels. Other Powers may be content with vessels for coast defense or ships that are mere floating batteries at most, fit only for Mediterranean service or fast cruisers to attack an enemy's commerce, but of little fighting value. We want all these, as supremacy at all points is a condition of our existence, yet we cannot follow the example of any nation differently situated.

I turn now to my second point, which would need several articles to deal with at all satisfactorily, as it is the tactical question of the day; but I will endeavour to sum up the relative value of different arms shortly and in general terms.

We have the gun, the ram, and the torpedo. The big gun can only be carried by a big ship, or by a small one which has sacrificed speed, sea-going qualities, protection, coal-carrying power, or some of these desiderata.

guns, and the gunboat alone will not answer Our purpose. An armed cruiser, again, can carry guns of fair calibre, and she is a very efficient weapon for patrolling the seas, and for the protection of commerce; but she is slightly armoured, if armoured at all-she is long and unhandy, and her guns are not adapted for breaching purposes. Small guns, it has been urged by Admiral Aube, the present Minister of Marine in France, with their range of over 7000 yards are sufficient for all ordinary purposes of destruction; but here at least we have the ounce of fact which is worth all these theories, as we know that the late Admiral Courbet officially expressed his regret at being unable to complete the destruction of the Chinese arsenal on the river Min with his gunboats, carrying 14 c. (51⁄2 in.) guns, in 1885. "We wanted,"he says, "guns of 24 c.(81⁄2 in.), of at least of 19 c. (7 in.)"

We want, then, big guns, and it has been proposed to carry them in floating batteries of slow speed. M. Gougeard, late Minister of Marine under Gambetta, who died recently, in a thoughtful treatise, published in 1884, called La marine de Guerre, son passé et son avenir,' whilst he condemns huge ironclads, advocates floating batteries for the attack of forts, and fast torpedo-cruisers of 1700 tons.

M. Gougeard points out clearly how important speed is in view of modern torpedo development; and his floating batteries are only proposed for attacking forts, the torpedo being the arm of the ships, which he considers as "navires de haute mer."

and range, into which I need not now enter; but above all, it is useless for many purposes.

It is good for destruction of an enemy afloat, but there its use ends. A single gun fired from a gunboat may be useful in protecting a landing-party, can shell exposed troops of an enemy, can effect considerable destruction on shore at long ranges, can sink attacking boats, and do many other services.

A whole flotilla of torpedo-boats would be useless under similar circumstances, and they might, if caught unawares, be themselves destroyed by a few shots from a single gunboat. When we come to torpedoes carried by big ships or ironclads, the torpedo takes a secondary position of value. It is intended to add to the power of the big ship, and not to supersede her. As to the power against big ships of the torpedo and the torpedo-boat, I venture to think that both are overrated; but we urgently want more experiments on these points. Our Own experiments against the Resistance show that, with every advantage in favour of the torpedo, the old ironclad remained afloat, though seriously injured; and the French and Italian experiments point to a similar result. The French strengthened an old ironclad, the Protectrice, and exploded a Whitehead torpedo against her last year, and failed to sink her. The Italians, before commencing their new ironclads, Sicilia and Ré Umberto, exploded a charge of 80 lb. of gun-cotton against a section representing a submerged portion of the Sicilia at Spezia, and were so satisfied with the resistance of the ironclad, that these two vessels of 13,000 tons were at once commenced.

warfare, torpedo-boats would attack and succeed in destroying large ships, when it is admitted that many, and perhaps the majority of the assailants, would be sunk.

There must be some limits, as is well known, to the risks which will be incurred even by brave men, and I object to the money argument as altogether inapplicable. The argument to which I refer is put much as follows: "A certain number of torpedo - boats, say ten, costing £100,000, attack an ironclad, costing £600,000; eight of the attacking boats perhaps are sunk, but the remaining two escape, and destroy the ironclad." It is then pointed out that "the torpedoboats sunk have only cost between £60,000 and £70,000, and that their loss of life has been some 100 men, while the ironclad cost £600,000, and was manned by, say, 500 men." The fact of the extraordinary. determination that would have to be shown by the assailants in such a case is conveniently overlooked; but it is certainly more probable that, after a few boats had been sunk, the remainder would not press the attack.

Such are some of the fallacies on which the arguments for the torpedo are based; and I venture to think that an impartial study of the facts of the problem will show that however useful the ram or the torpedo may be as adjuncts to naval power, a country such as England cannot rely solely or mainly on these arms. They are, indeed, simply destructive in their nature, only useful against an enemy afloat. They might destroy an enemy's naval power, but they have no conservative force.

of men

and