to secure its mercantile marine in case of war; and it may well be that Ministers are mistaken.
Nothing in this life is certain – the element of chance enters into all human calculations as to the future; and it is of course possible that the chances of Great Britain falling into a war with a maritime Power may be so remote as not to be worth the consideration of practical statesmen. This is the political aspect of the case pure and simple, and, as a rule, soldiers and sailors refrain from doing more than glance at it. But when it comes to a calculation of the chances of success or failure, when once war has broken out, they claim to speak with some authority; and they have now declared with an almost unanimous voice, that the chances against us, in the present state of our armaments, would be very great. They have not arrived at this conclusion lightly or hastily, or without a full and deliberate inquiry into the number and potency of the forces at the disposal of Great Britain and her possible enemies respectively. Without eliminating absolutely the personal and moral elements of the problem, or denying that a British seaman is still the finest fellow in existence, they have been constrained to look at it in its unromantic and practical aspect of actual physical, or rather mechanical force – to count heads, in short; and having made due allowance for the superior moral, and perhaps physical, qualities of the British race, they still feel that there is some force and reason in the faith of the Great Napoleon that heaven will fight for the big battalions. The conclusions which all our best soldiers and sailors have (almost unanimously) come to, and the very plain and simple reasons which have induced them to come to those conclusions, have been so plainly and so frequently put before the public of late, that it is unnecessary to repeat them here. Suffice it to say that they have been evaded but not contradicted by the politicians, who take the optimistic view of the case; but there are, on the other hand, many honest and patriotic politicians who feel strongly upon the question of the national defences, and only refrain from making the subject one of national agitation lest they might seem to shake the authority or the prestige of the present Government, whose maintenance in office they look upon as essential to the most vital interests of the nation.
These men, if questioned on the subject, would probably admit that they saw great danger in the insufficiency of our national defences, particularly the navy; but they would reply that, as practical men, they felt the obligation of subordinating the less to the greater, the more remote to the more immediate. They would say – "The danger which threatens the country by repeal of the Union is imminent; the forces of dissolution have joined issue with us, they are upon us, in touch, in sight of us; we must defeat them first, and take care not to divide our strength. We admit that the danger to the country, if war with a maritime Power came upon us, would be great; but we do not see any immediate prospect of it. All is quiet at present: we are at peace with all our neighbours, and hope to remain so; it behoves us, therefore, as practical men, to deal first with the more immediate danger. After we have settled that, we will turn our attention to the other matter, and put the defensive forces of the country in a satisfactory condition; but
