The Scheme herein shadowed forth must be adopted as a whole!
Simply because all portions of it are absolutely essential—and it is all so interlaced that any tampering will be fatal!
The country will acclaim it! the income-tax payer will worship it! the Navy will growl at it! (they always do growl at first!)
But we shall be Thirty per cent. more fit to fight and we shall be ready for instant war!
and in time when we get rid of our redundancies in useless ships and unnecessary men it will probably be 30 per cent. cheaper!
The outline of the various proposals will first be given. No one single point must be taken as more important than another. Each is part of a whole; As St. Paul well observes in the xii. Chapter of the I Corinthians:—
“The eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body which seem to be more feeble, are necessary.”
So is it of this scheme! All its parts are essential for the perfection we must have if England is to remain the “Mistress of the Seas”!
The British Nation floats on the British Navy! So we must have no doubt whatever about its fighting supremacy and its instant readiness for war! To ensure this and at the same time to effect the economy which the finances of the country render imperative there must be drastic changes! To carry these out we must have the three R’s! We must be Ruthless, Relentless, Remorseless! We must tell interested people whose interests are going to be ignored that what the Articles of War have said since the time of Queen Elizabeth is truer than ever!
“It is the Navy whereon under the good providence of God, the wealth, peace, and safety of this country doth chiefly depend!”