NECESSITY OF BEING PREPARED FOR WAR.

5

and a thorough knowledge of how these and our vast indirect resources could be promptly and effectually applied, would be of more importance to us on the outbreak of war than the large capital at our command, however serviceable that might be in the long run. One great cause of our weakness in 1854 was the want of this organisation; yet, so far as regards reserves of trained seamen and the prompt utilisation of merchant ships and private dock-yards, we are really in no better position now than we were then.

Unfortunately, the great Continental Powers are now armed ready for war at a day's notice, and by means of the telegraph and steam, by land and sea, these forces could be concentrated at any given point in Europe, even at the most available parts of our shores within four, or, at most, six days, from the time of the declaration of war. Thus, a combination of Powers arrayed against us would necessitate on the first brush of war the employment of the whole of our immediately available resources to repel invasion, and to protect our great entrepots of maritime commerce, on which we depend, not merely for supplies, but for our daily food.

In the meantime, how are our Colonies, our coal depots, and our vast fleets of merchantmen to be protected? Herein rests our weakness, which unfortunately increases with the improved appliances of war, and the extraordinary extension of our Mercantile Marine.

proceeds shortly to Philadelphia. The turret-ship Preussen has just made her trial trip at Swinemunde, and the result is reported to be satisfactory. Besides the above-mentioned vessels actually afloat, there are several on the stocks and in various stages of progress, and these when finished will raise the fleet to a very respectable degree of strength. The fortified places, both on the German seacoast and inland, are now about to be enlarged and strengthened, the places mentioned being Dantsic, Konigsberg, Glogau, Nievre, Memel, Pillau, Kolberg, Swinemunde, Stralsund, Friedrichsort, Sonderburg, Düppel, Wilhelmshafen, the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe, Cologne, Coblentz, Spandau, Cuestern, Posen, and Thorn.-Army and Navy Gazette, June, 1876.

By the declaration respecting Maritime Law, adopted by the European Powers assembled in Congress at Paris, on the 16th April, 1856, protection is now afforded to enemies' goods under a neutral flag, and to neutral goods. To that declaration I shall hereafter very fully refer. In the meantime, I may frankly admit, and I do so with satisfaction, that the progress of nations and other events had rendered it imperatively necessary; but unless we can induce all nations to take one step further in advance and adopt the proposal more than once officially offered by the United States, that private property, wherever found, should be free from capture, our maritime commerce would, in the event of war with that country, be swept from the seas.*

As the future action of the United States is, however, a matter of conjecture, it behoves us to consider how we should stand, under existing circumstances, in the event of a great European war. So far as regards ships, our means of defence have materially changed. Within the last few years we have expended very large sums of money in the creation of huge ironclads, or floating citadels, each of which, when fully equipped, costs somewhere about half-a-million sterling. But have we ever asked ourselves the question, how these huge flotillas are to be employed in the event of war. If for the protection of the Thames, Mersey, Solent, and Medway, or the blockade of the principal forts of the enemy, we should do well to enquire what their value would be to us in even these important services, considering their cost? Some of them are to mount guns of 81 tons weight unquestionably huge instruments of destruction

*I brought this grave matter under the notice of the House of Commons in 1857, and again March 14, 1860, and a letter I addressed to Lord John Russell, the then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on this subject, was ordered to be published. (See Parliamentary Paper. Belligerent Rights-No. 151. Session 1860.)

-but will they be as efficient for the purposes I have named, as vessels of greater speed, and of only onequarter their cost? I doubt it. Nor do I exclude from my doubts such vessels as the Inflexible and Dreadnought, which are each, I understand, to mount four of these guns on turrets, and to cost, ready for sea, £750,000!! In the destruction of fortifications, as at present constructed, an 81-ton gun would unquestionably make fearful havoc, but against earth mounds of ample depth, or batteries on the Moncrieff system, it would be very little more effective than the old 64-pound gun; while its efficiency-considering its cost for the purpose of protection, would be far from complete. A swift ship could run the gauntlet past one of these floating citadels without much chance of being hit by its ponderous shot. I question, if in action, each of these guns could be fired every ten or fifteen minutes, and that space of time represents, in a swift steamer, three or four miles, when an enemy's cruiser, if not hit (and the chances are five-if not tento one in her favour), would be out of range before a second round could be fired.

Although an ordinary vessel could not attack them with much prospect of success, it could evade them, and play terrible havoc with the property they were meant to protect. For these reasons I am disposed to think that we have recently been expending much more money on these ponderous floating batteries than their value to us in the hour of need would justify; and it is a matter hardly to be questioned that we have, in a great measure, adopted this policy because other nations are building ships of like huge dimensions.

Instead of troubling ourselves about what other nations do, I think we should consider what is requisite for our own wants. Such has been our wisest policy in all commercial matters, and we shall do well to adhere to it in our preparations to meet the eventualities of war.

Tactics and science will now have more to do with the settlement of disputes between nations than actions fought at close quarters "in line of battle." Indeed, the French are said to have quite given up the idea of fighting in line or formation. The indomitable bull-dog courage of our seamen will now be of much less avail than it was at Copenhagen or Trafalgar; and the swift ship, longrange, and scientific gunner, will carry the day in naval engagements. Let us face these facts. It is necessary we should do so, more especially as another instrument of destruction, much more terrible than the largest ironclad has now been discovered. The power of torpedoes, and their value for the protection of harbours, have been known for some years.* They are, however, now to be employed in another and apparently very effective and destructive form.

Messrs. John J. Thornycroft and Co., of Chiswick, have already constructed torpedo boats for the French, Austrian, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish Governments. In the Frontispiece will be found an illustration of one of these ready for action. She is 67 feet in length, by 8 feet in width; she is built of steel, and is rifle-proof in the parts containing the machinery and the crew engaged in working the torpedoes. On her trial trips she steamed in smooth water 18 knots an hour, and maintained that rate of speed for two consecutive hours. The cost of each of these vessels, fully equipped and ready for sea, is about £4,000. There are two poles, about 40 feet in length, ready to be projected from the bows, and to the end of each

* Besides the Star torpedo, worked from a boat, we have Harvey's towing torpedo, easily managed in a swift steam vessel of small size; and the Whitehead fish torpedo, the most formidable engine of destruction yet invented. These are now made 19 feet long, with a speed of from 20 to 22 knots per hour, which they maintain for 800 or 1,000 yards. They can also be discharged from the broadside of a ship, going full speed, from a carriage placed in the upper or gun deck of the ship.

of these is attached a torpedo,* or copper cone, resembling in form a pine-apple, which is charged with either 33 lbs. of gun-cotton or 25 lbs. of dynamite. This cone explodes the instant it strikes a solid body, or it can be exploded by anyone on board the boat by means of a firing key on the wire connecting the cone to the battery. By a very simple process these torpedo poles can be run out beyond the boat's bow, and instantly lowered to an angle at which the end of the torpedo cone would strike a ship's bottom, or they may be projected from the boat's side so as to strike a ship at from 6 to 9 feet below the water-line when the torpedo boat is running alongside, and should the officer in charge think the cone will not strike the ship, he can fire the charge by means of the firing key on board. In either case the force of the explosion, even when fired within 3 feet of the ship, would be so great as to sink almost instantaneously the largest armour-clad. By experiments which have been recently made, a torpedo charged to the limited extent named, made a hole through a ship's bottom 7 feet in width, and 18 feet in length! In a word, tore up, in the most frightful manner, the plating and planking of the vessel against which it was exploded.

A ship costing half-a-million sterling, and with, what is far more precious, 600 to 700 men on board, might thus be instantaneously destroyed by a torpedo boat costing only £4,000, and with less risk to herself than might be supposed; for experiments have shown that the explosion of the torpedo cannot in any way injure the vessel which carries it, unless she gets entangled with the wreck of the ship she has destroyed.†

*The torpedo gear is so arranged that an attack may be made directly a-head of the boat, in which case the boat must be stopped and backed off her enemy immediately after the explosion, or on the broadside, when the boat may be kept going a-head all the time, and so saving the time which would be otherwise lost in stopping and backing.

The importance of speed in such an operation as sinking an iron