Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/574

570 ventors, zealous for some neglected improvement of their own. It rests upon a statement, made in the presence of the Secretary of State for War, by the very men who are charged with the duty of providing us with guns. The truth is, that for years we have been staking, so to speak, our national existence on the theories of one or two of our own experts against the belief of the whole Continent, and of the majority of our own artillerists. For years "Woolwich," – that is, a very small set of officials, – upheld a system in two respects peculiar to itself. It believed in the superiority of muzzle-loading as applied to large ordnance, and it upheld the advantages of its own system of manufacture against the steel ordnance perfected by Krupp and others. On both points it has at length given way. But as Colonel Maitland, the present superintendent of the gun-factories, confesses, the effects of our blundering have been that we are at least some four or five years in arrear of all other Powers in the manufacture of effective ordnance. There is, however, it appears, comfort in store for us. We have, it seems, arrived at a model of gun-manufacture so perfect that we have only to spend vast sums of money upon new plant and new guns, and to keep out of all quarrels for some years, in order to be in a position of decided superiority once more.

We are very glad to hear that there is a prospect of future excellence; but we must frankly confess that, before we launch into the enormous expenditure which we have been asked to incur, we should like to have some satisfactory guarantee that we are to have our money's worth for our money. It is not possible to exaggerate the importance of this question to us of all the nations upon earth. To foreign Powers the greater or less superiority of their fleets, and of the great guns with which they are armed, is a matter of power, of prestige, of influence. For us it is a question not merely of the maintenance of empire, but of the food by which our population is to be kept alive.

Great as we assume the blessings and advantages which free trade has conferred upon us to be, it has unquestionably entailed upon us this tremendous necessity. We must "rule the waves," not merely, as the national anthem has it, that "Britons" never may "be slaves," but in order that Britons may not starve. From India, from America, and from Australia, come now our great supplies of wheat. We cannot afford, even for a single year of war, to incur the risks through which we passed during the time of the great siege of Gibraltar. Then, though for a considerable period England by no means ruled the waves, we could afford to wait, to recover ourselves, to gather fresh force, and to dissipate the victorious squadrons of our enemies by the fleets which we were at length able to launch against them. Now, we cannot afford to wait at all. To an extent which we hardly yet realise, the whole wealth of England is upon the seas. Our vast commercial fleets must be everywhere and on every sea protected by vessels of war, if there be so much as the risk of an attack on them being attempted.