NOTES.[17]
There is no rigorous law by which a universal naval policy may be formulated, for a nation’s environment, geographical and political, defines the conditions that must be obeyed. Underneath all, however, the immutable principle exists that the first and supreme duty of a navy is to protect its own coasts. The measures required to achieve this end are as various as a country’s necessities, resources, opportunities, and temperament. England, for example, has always guarded her homes, not at the hearth-stone nor the threshold, but within gunshot of her enemy’s territory; her defence has been an attack upon his inner line, and her vessels have been, not corsairs preying upon merchantmen, but battle-ships, ready for duel or for fleet engagement, whether they had the odds against them or not. This is the true sailor instinct; this has made England’s greatness.
To-day the question is so much governed by the complexities of modern progress that the details must be altered to suit the new demands; for it is not the England of the British Islands nor of the sparsely settled colonies that is now to be defended—it is a Greater Britain. The trade and commerce of England have increased so enormously in late years that no figures are necessary to show the interests she has afloat; but as proof of her growth in territory and in population outside of the mother-country, these statistics, taken from a late number of the Nineteenth Century, may perhaps be quoted:
FIFTY YEARS’ GROWTH OF INDIA AND THE COLONIES.
INDIA.
| 1835. | 1885. | |
|---|---|---|
| Area governed in square miles | 600,000 | 1,380,000 |
| Population of European stock | 300,000 | 500,000 |
| Population, colored | 96,000,000 | 254,000,000 |
| State revenues | £19,000,000 | £74,000,000 |
COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES.
| 1835. | 1885. | |
|---|---|---|
| Area governed in square miles | 520,000 | 7,000,000 |
| Population of European stock | 1,800,000 | 9,500,000 |
| Population, colored | 2,100,000 | 8,000,000 |
| State revenues | £5,000,000 | £51,000,000 |
That is to say, in fifty years England has added 7,260,000 square miles to her territory, and nearly trebled the population she controls in India and her colonies. Is it necessary to add that with all this at stake the ocean highways which her ships traverse must be held toll free; that the nations which she has peopled and owns must be protected; that the enemy’s squadrons which will seek to cut off her food supply, destroy her commerce, and burn her coaling stations, must be chased and captured; or that in the line of battle her ships must meet his and conquer? Sea-going and sea-keeping fleets and their auxiliaries must always be ready; transferable forts for protection abroad, and coast-defence ships for safety at home, must be kept afloat; and, in a word, every means must be employed which, through successful sea-war, will maintain her integrity as a nation. Her navy must be eclectic in types, the exact instrument for any expected operation being always at hand; her maritime administration must be comprehensive; and her preparation ever such as will anticipate and surpass that of all her rivals. Enormously armored battle-ships may be economically wrong, but while other countries build them so must she; for her immunity depends not upon treaties nor the friendly but false protestations of rivals, but upon the fear of her unassailable superiority. A mistaken naval policy is to any nation a grave disaster, but to England it means ruin. “We cannot allow,” wrote Lord Brassey, “any foreign power to possess vessels which we cannot overhaul, or to carry guns at sea which may inflict a damaging blow to which it is impossible for us to reply. We must have ships as fast as the fastest, and guns at least equal to the most powerful which are to be found in the hands of any possible enemy.”