immediately as a factor in the defence of this country, and very soon as an element in the forces which we can use overseas.
We have never been a military nation, though now we are going to take a hand in that. We have always relied for our safety on naval power, and in that respect it is not true to say we entered on this War unprepared. On the contrary, the German Army was not more ready for an offensive war on a gigantic scale than was the British Fleet for national defence. The credit for this is due to this House, which, irrespective of party interests, has always by overwhelming, and in later years by unchallengeable majorities, supported the Government and the Minister in every demand made for naval defence. Indeed, such disputes as we have had from time to time have only been concerned with the margins of superiority, and have turned on comparatively small points respecting them.
For instance, we have discussed at enormous length what percentages of Dreadnought superiority would be available in particular months in future years, and we have argued whether the Lord Nelsons should be counted as Dreadnoughts or not. The House of Commons as a whole has a right to claim the Navy as its child, and as the unchanging object of its care and solicitude; and now, after six months of war, with new dangers and new difficulties coming into view, we have every right to feel content with the results of our labours.
Since November, when I last had an opportunity of speaking to the House on naval matters, two considerable events have happened—the victory off the Falkland Islands, and the recent successful cruiser action near the Dogger Bank. Both of these events are satisfactory in themselves, but still more are they satisfactory in their consequences and significance, and I shall venture to enlarge upon them and hang the thread of my argument upon them. The victory off the Falklands terminated the first phase of the Naval War, by effecting a decisive clearance of the German flag from the oceans of the world. The blocking in of the enemy's merchantmen at the very outset, and the consequent frustration of his whole plans for the destruction of our commerce, the reduction of his base at Tsing-tau, the expulsion of his ships from the China Sea by Japan, the hunting down of the Königsberg and the Emden, the latter by an Australian cruiser, were steps along the path to the goal finally reached when Admiral von Spee's powerful squadron, having been unsuccessfully, though gallantly, engaged off Coronel, was brought to action and destroyed on December 8 by Sir Doveton
