If the practice is to make the fleet ready for war, it must be carried
out with the fleet in its war composition. All the different elements,
battleships, cruisers, torpedo craft, and the rest, must be fully
represented, otherwise the admiral would be practising in peace with a
different instrument from that with which he would need to operate in
war.
The importance of this perpetual training ought to be self-evident. It
may be well to remind the reader that it has also been historically
proved. The great advantage which the British possessed over the French
navy in the Wars of the Revolution and the Empire was that the British
fleets were always at sea, whereas the French fleets, for years
blockaded in their ports, were deficient in that practice which, in the
naval as in all other professions, makes perfect. One of the complaints
against the present Board of Admiralty is that it has not encouraged the
training and exercise of fleets as complete units.
Another point, in regard to which the recent practice of the Admiralty
is regarded with very grave doubts, not only by many naval officers,
but also by many of those who, without being naval officers, take a
serious interest in the navy, is that of naval construction. For several
years the Admiralty neglected to build torpedo craft of the quality and
in the quantity necessary for the most probable contingencies of war,
while, at the same time, large sums of money were spent in building
armoured cruisers, vessels of a fighting power so great that an admiral
would hesitate to detach them from his fleet, lest he should be
needlessly weakened on the day of battle, yet not strong enough safely
to replace the battleships in the fighting line.
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