THE “DREADNOUGHT.”
The characteristic differences between the American type and the English type of sea-going Monitors (if we may apply that designation to the Devastation type) have already been stated, but may be restated here in a single sentence, viz., the elevation in the English ship of the turret breastwork deck to a height of eleven or twelve feet above the sea’s surface, and the raising of the upper deck generally, or of a considerable part of it, to at least that height, by means of lightly built superstructures. Over these again, and many feet above them, are built bridges and hurricane decks, from which the ships may be commanded in all weathers. Lofty as these ships are by comparison with American Monitors, it is only gradually that they have acquired the confidence of the naval service, so freely do the waves sweep over their weather decks when driven, even in moderate weather, against head-seas.
The British navy, having very diversified services to perform during both peace and war, requires ships of various kinds and sizes. Its first and greatest requirement of all is that of line-of-battle ships in sufficient numbers to enable England to stand up successfully against any European naval force or forces that may threaten her or her empire. If any one should be disposed to ask why this requirement—which is obviously an extreme one, and an impossible one for more than a single power—is more necessary for England than for any other country, the answer must be, Circumspice! To look round over England’s empire is to see why her failure on the sea would be her failure altogether. France, Germany, Italy, and even Holland, might each get along fairly well, losing nothing that is absolutely essential to their existence, even if every port belonging to them were sealed by an enemy’s squadron. But were Great Britain to be cut off from her colonies and dependencies, were her ships to be swept from the seas, and her ports closed by hostile squadrons, she would either be deprived of the very elements of life itself, or would have to seek from the compassion of her foes the bare means of existence. It is this consideration, and the strong parental care which she feels for her colonies, that make her sons indignant at any hazardous reduction of her naval strength. There are even in England itself men who cannot or will not see this danger, and who impute to those who strive to avert it ambitious, selfish, and even sordid motives. But it is to no unworthy cause that England’s naval anxieties are due. We have no desire for war; we do not hunger for further naval fame; we cherish no mean rivalry of other powers who seek to colonize or to otherwise improve their trade; we do not want the mastery of the seas for any commercial objects that are exclusively our own. What we desire to do is to keep the seas open thoroughfares to our vast possessions and dependencies, and free to that commercial communication which has become indispensable to our existence as an empire. To accomplish that object we must, at any cost, be strong, supremely strong, in European waters; and it is for this reason that England’s line-of-battle ships ought to be always above suspicion both in number and in quality.
THE “INFLEXIBLE.”
It is not a pleasant assertion for an Englishman to make when he has to say that this is very far from being the case at present. A few months ago this statement, from whomsoever it emanated, would have been received with distrust by the general public, for the truth was only known to the navy itself and to comparatively few outsiders. But the official communications made to both Houses of Parliament early in December, 1885, prepared the world for the truth, the First Lord of the Admiralty in the Chamber of Peers and Lord Brassey in the House of Commons having then proposed to Parliament a programme of additional ship-building which provided for a considerable increase in the number of its first-class ships and cruisers, and which also provided, on the demand of the present writer, that the cruisers should be protected with belts of armor—an element of safety previously denied to them. It need hardly be repeated, after this wholesale admission of weakness by the Admiralty, that Great Britain is at present in far from a satisfactory condition as regards both the number and the character of its ships. Were that not so, no public agitation could have moved the government to reverse in several respects a policy by which it had for so long abided.
It will be interesting to broadly but briefly review the causes of the present deplorable condition of the British navy. In the first place, in so far as it is a financial question, it has resulted mainly from the sustained attempt of successive governments to keep the naval expenditure within or near to a fixed annual amount, notwithstanding the palpable fact that every branch of the naval service, like most other services, is unavoidably increasing in cost, while the necessities of the empire are likewise unavoidably increasing. The consequence is that, as officers and men of every description must be paid, and all the charges connected therewith must in any event be fully met, the ship-building votes of various kinds are those upon which the main stress of financial pressure must fall. From this follows a strong desire, to which all Boards of Admiralty too readily yield, to keep down the size and cost of their first-class ships, to the sacrifice of their necessary qualities. This may be strikingly illustrated by the fact that, although the iron Dreadnought, a first-class ship, designed fifteen or sixteen years ago, had a displacement of 10,820 tons, and was powerful in proportion, the Admiralty has launched but a single ship (the Inflexible) since that period, of which the displacement has reached 10,000 tons. In fact, every large iron-clad ship for the British navy since launched has fallen from twelve hundred to twenty-four hundred tons short of the Dreadnought’s displacement, and has been proportionally feeble.