CHAPTER IX.

NATIONAL DEFENCES.

"Narrerò solo quello che T. Livio dice innanzi alla venuta di Francesi in Roma cioé, come uno Marco Cedizio plebeio riferi al Senato avere udito di mezza notte passando per la via nuova, una voce la quale ammoniva che riferisse MACCHIAVELLI.

ai magistrati come i Francesi venivano a Roma."

"Solon said well to Croesus (when in ostentation he showed him his gold); Sir, if any other come that hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold." BACON.

Use of Tools.

As long as evil passions are powerful in the world, such a contingency as that of war cannot be considered impossible, and for a nation like England, the cheapest safeguard against the evils of such a contingency, and the best security for peace, are to be found in the maintenance of armaments, adequate in magnitude, and thoroughly efficient. To this subject it is now a matter of great urgency that the common sense of the nation should be applied. The superiority of England to other nations in industry depends greatly on the prevalence of that habit which has given rise to the maxim, that whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing as well as it can be done. If, as we are sometimes told, this old practice of giving the last finish to the work, so that it may wear, and not merely so that it may sell, shall ever disappear, the materials will be all ready for a second GIBBON to surpass the first by a darker and more mournful history. But the maxim has still force, that whatever is to be done should be well done. Let us see how it applies to the present matter. To turn out any piece of

work properly, as, for example, in manufactures, what is required? Two things-good workmen and good tools. These are exactly what are wanted for the effective defence of England; no more, but certainly no less. In these two, however, a great deal is implied.

To begin with the tools. It is evident that the progress of civilization is continually rendering more complicated and expensive the instruments by which the labour of man is assisted. The numbers who hung, day after day, with an interest which seemed to grow by what it fed upon, over the specimens of machinery in the Crystal Palace, saw nothing in those magical creations but tools, intended to give the highest efficiency to human labour. But that which happens with the instruments of peace happens also with the instruments of war. Human invention is continually rendering them more effective for their purpose. Nor is this to be regretted, for the more sweeping and infallible the means of destruction become, the greater will be the reluctance of mankind to resort to the use of them. But this continuous improvement makes it unsafe for one nation to remain behind another in the efficiency of its military tools. Even the Duke of Wellington could not win a battle with the bows and arrows which did such good work in the time of Henry the Fifth, and the muskets of the Peninsula are only fit for the stars and trophies of the Tower armoury, at a time when it may be necessary to face rifles which strike their mark five times as far, and with fifty times the certainty. But this is no point for the dogmatism or disquisition of nonprofessional men. According to Blackstone, it is a sound and ancient maxim of the English law, that each man is to be trusted in his own pursuit. This, then, is a case in which full power, with full responsibility, ought to be given to those who are professionally competent to settle it. There is no one who would not rather act upon the opinion of Sir James Clarke, in a case of consumption, than upon that of the majority of the electors of Westminster; and for precisely the same reason the opinion of Sir John Burgoyne, or Sir Howard Douglas,

upon the equipment of the British army, should outweigh that of the majority of the House of Commons. To such men the decision should be left, and one may hope that under this head some useful reforms are actually in progress. But the dread of criticism upon increased estimates is still strong and prevalent, so that even military men, whose position involves the least civil responsibility, may be dangerously tempted to think more of cheapness than is always consistent with perfection in the workmanship.

Naval Administration.

In passing to the still more important and expensive tools which are required for naval purposes, we are in the sad predicament of finding the naval authorities divided amongst themselves. There must be something desperately wrong in this naval administration to yield results like those that have taken place. Externally it has an old, sleepy, superannuated look. It holds out upon the strength of what was done in its younger and more active days. Whatever was good in the old routine keeps going; but wherever provision has had to be made for new emergencies, the failures have been painfully conspicuous. Of the dispatch of transports, and the state of the victualling department, it is not necessary to speak; but in the whole business of ship-building, the Admiralty has been, to say the least of it, signally unlucky; and there are very strong appearances indeed, in favour of the opinion that the Government would get the work better done by private capitalists than it does in its own dockyards. This, however, is not a point to be decided without more information than the public possesses. But, however it may be decided, it is certain that the Admiralty is now the most important department of the English Government. Internally the people govern themselves, with the help of the newspapers. If in the course of some long night the Home Office, with all its bustle, were to be carried away by the Thames, it would be a considerable

time before the nation at large found any difference from its absence. Even the loss of the Foreign Office would not be without its consolations. And if the opinion of the colonies is to be regarded, consolation is by no means the word to express the feeling with which they would learn the total and irreparable destruction of the department which watches over their welfare. But upon the Admiralty all hangs. Internal peace, security of domestic industry, the regular revolution of that complex machinery of credit whose least disturbance is always wide-spread suffering, the stability of the whole majestic system of English freedom, and the inestimable treasures, intellectual and moral, which have been amassed under its shade— all depend upon the vigilance, energy, and foresight of that department to which the guardianship of the English coast is entrusted.

Admiralty Reform.

Beyond all question that department does require reformradical reform. How the reform should be applied is not so clear to the unprofessional mind, but the results to be aimed at are perfectly clear; and two things, at all events, will seem, to ordinary common sense, to be amongst the means necessary for attaining those results. In the first place, the whole business of preparing the machinery of war, such as ships, should be so far under distinct superintendence and management, that those who are responsible for the management of fleets shall be unbiassed critics of the worth of the tools which are put into their hands. Without some arrangement of this sort there can be no effectual check upon bad workmanship in the dockyards. It is quite true, that means must exist for ensuring perfect unity and subordination in the whole series of labours which are intended to lead to one result; but it is no less true, that as long as the same men, who direct and are responsible for all active naval operations, have also to defend every blunder that may be made in naval architecture, such blunders will

continually occur, and continually impair the efficiency of the service.

Naval Estimates in the House of Commons.

The second point is more important still, and has reference to the manner in which the whole business of the Navy is treated by the House of Commons. In the discussions upon the Navy Estimates, the first point with the most vigilant critics is always the amount. The question of efficiency is second in order, and is habitually so dealt with as to make a Minister feel that if the Government is not strong (and no Government is strong now-a-days), there is no course so safe for him as economy. He may suffer a weak point in the defences to remain weak with impunity; but the enlargement even of a necessary item of outlay is sure to create discussion-always troublesome, often damaging, and will very possibly expose him to a hostile division. He lets the blot stand, trusting that it will not be hit, for the game must be played on somehow. Year after year the same thing goes on. The standard of what is right in such matters is lowered in the minds of those who constitute the executive. The process of dilapidation is permitted to proceed under this economical régime, until some unexpected event-as in the course of the present year-suddenly lifts the veil from the whole mass of crumbling ruins, and shows us at what enormous risk and cost all those slothful and short-sighted savings have been effected.

The critical function of the House of Commons is most valuable, but it should be applied to a different object. Waste and extravagance in themselves are bad, and to be punished; economy is in itself good, and, as a matter of justice, to be enforced; but in this matter economy is not the object of chief importance to any one. That which a Minister representing the Admiralty in the House of Commons ought to have, beyond all other things, to fear, is the detection of in