and more constant outlook to be maintained in Home waters, and it almost entirely freed the outer seas of danger. That was a memorable event, the relief and advantage of which will only be fully appreciated by those who have full knowledge of all that has taken place, by those who not only knew, but felt, what was going forward.
Now I come to the battle cruiser action off the Dogger Bank. This action was not fought out, because the enemy, after abandoning their wounded consort, the Blücher, made good their escape into waters infested by their submarines and mines. But this combat between the finest ships in both navies is of immense significance and value in the light which it throws upon rival systems of design and armament, and upon relative gunnery efficiency. It is the first test we have ever had, and, without depending too much upon it, I think it is at once important and encouraging. First of all it vindicates, so far as it goes, the theories of design, and particularly of big-gun armament, always identified with Lord Fisher. The range of the British guns was found to exceed that of the German. Although the German shell is a most formidable instrument of destruction, the bursting, smashing power of the heavier British projectile is decidedly greater, and—this is the great thing—our shooting is at least as good as theirs.
The Navy, while working very hard—no one, except always themselves, knows how hard they have worked in these years—have credited the Germans with a sort of super-efficiency in gunnery, and we have always been prepared for some surprises in their system of control and accuracy of fire. But there is a feeling, after the combat of January 24, that perhaps our naval officers were too diffident in regard to their own professional skill in gunnery. Then the guns. While the Germans were building 11-inch guns we built 12-inch and 13½-inch guns. Before they advanced to the 12-inch gun we had large numbers of ships armed with the 13·5. It was said by the opposite school of naval force that a smaller gun fires faster and has a higher velocity, and therefore the greater destructive power—and Krupp is the master gunmaker of the world—and it was very right and proper to take such a possibility into consideration. Everything that we have learnt, however, so far shows that we need not at all doubt the wisdom of our policy or the excellence of our material. The 13·5 inch gun is unequalled by any weapon yet brought on the scene. Now we have the 15-inch gun, with which the five Queen Elizabeths and the five
