THE NAVY AND THE COUNTRY.
A schoolboy was once asked to describe salt, and he said it was the stuff which made things taste nasty if you did not put enough of it into them. Similarly we might describe the British navy as an institution which makes foreign countries desirous of going to war with Great Britain if you do not put enough of it in the water.
It has been said that a powerful British navy is one of the surest guarantees of European peace. This formula has been repeated over and over again by statesmen and politicians belonging to both the great parties in the State; but neither side takes any practical steps for giving effect to the great and important truth which it enunciates. It is repeated as a shibboleth; the repetition of it is supposed to contain some charm; and when a member of the Government for the time being makes this declaration with all the great authority of his office, either in Parliament or out of doors, it has a most comfortable and reassuring effect – an effect which has been humorously described as being similar to the result of soothing syrup on a child. The guileless listeners imagine, of course, that the Minister intends to act upon it immediately; the country feels satisfied and contented, and the wistful foreigner feels, or at any rate ought to feel, that with such sentiments announced by a Minister of the Crown, it is useless for any other nation to dream of disputing with Britannia the empire of the sea. Possibly it had at one time this desirable effect upon foreigners; but the barren repetition of the words is at last beginning to sound hollow. Bob Acres has been found out; the wistful foreigner has taken the liberty of looking behind the warlike mask, and discovered that there was little or no back to the bluster. The number of our ships, the thickness and extent of their armour, the penetration and range of their guns, the readiness or unreadiness of our reserves, are as well known on the other side of the Channel as they are on this.
Our parliamentary wrangles over the money votes for warlike preparations, the extreme views of some of our economists, and the idiosyncrasies of some of the peace-at-any-price party, are keenly watched by our quick-witted and appreciative neighbours; and they can scarcely fail to mark the effect which these forces are producing upon the naval policy of this country – an effect vastly encouraging to them, in proportion as it bids fair to be disastrous to the commerce of Great Britain, should a maritime war overtake her with her navy in its present condition.
It has been repeatedly pointed out by those who place the interests of their country before the interests of their party, that the custom of subordinating the navy estimates to the interests of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in producing a popular Budget, is inconsistent with the maintenance of a navy sufficient to meet the enormous requirements of this extensive empire. It is almost impossible, – in fact we might say quite impossible, – that the men who, under our present system, frame the navy estimates for the year, can have either the time, the
