Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/303

Rh NAVY 291 has grown from 9,337,000 to 12,797,000, with an increase of half a million in the non-effective expenditure. &quot; The increase in the foreign trade and tonnage of our merchant navy has been out of all proportion with the increase in our naval expenditure. The total tonnage of British merchant ships was 5,711,000 tons in 1860, 7,149,000 tons in 1870, and 8,462,000 tons according to our last returns. Reckoning the carrying power of steamships as fourfold that of sailing ships, we have half the mercantile tonnage of the globe. &quot;Germany, with a mercantile tonnage of 1,129,000, spends 890,000 on the maintenance and construction of her fleet. France, with 976,000 tons of merchant shipping, expends 2,893,000 on building and repairs, and employs 26,000 workmen in her dock yards. England, with an excess of tonnage over the French mercantile marine of 7 million tons, employs only 16,000 men in her dockyards, at an expenditure, under votes 6 and 10, of 3,323,000. With these figures before us, it cannot be said that England is leading the way in an aggressive policy, or in the direction of extravagance. &quot; iJompara- Comparative View of Navies. A comparison of the ive view ma te&quot;riel of modern navies would be very misleading if it nf navies. Q ^ too k ^ Q accoun t; ^he num ber and power of the regular ships of war, because for some important services there is but little difference between the value of the ship built for war purposes and of that only adapted to such pur poses at need. The increasing vulnerability of the ship of war, however carefully built, to weapons which the adapted merchant ship can employ is one of the most notable features in the modern aspect of maritime warfare. The statesman who desires to estimate the naval resources of empires or states will need to consider the quality and extent of their mercantile marine in fast steamships and trained men as well as the number and efficiency of their regular ships of war, and their actual war personnel. A comparison limited to armoured or ironclad ships is vitiated by the defect that it does not account for the protection afforded to what are called unarmoured ships by other means than that of armouring their sides. This is fast becoming so considerable that a new term has been intro duced (protected ships) to distinguish such vessels from ordinary unarmoured fighting ships. The fairest available approximate measure of the power of the ships is their displacement or total weight. It always represents power of some kind, although in many cases the distribution of the various elements of power in the ship may be badly suited for many phases of war. Taking this as a measure, and reckoning, not only com pleted or practically completed ships, but also those in various stages of building, .the maritime powers named stand as follows, first as to tonnage of armoured ships, secondly as to unarmoured ships, and thirdly as to both taken together: Tons Displacement. Armoured. Unarmoured. Total. France 425.000 1 127,000 105,000 104,000 73,000 67,000 60,400 36,000 35,600 29,400 27,900 16,600 14,800 10,200 9,000 7.300 4,100 2,500 291,000 70,000 72,000 74,000 38,000 32,600 85,000 14,200 16,800 7,000 5,700 8,500 716,000 197,000 177,000 178,000 111,000 93,000 121,000 43, 600 44,700 i6, 6oo 13,000 12,600 Italv Russia Germany United States Turkey Austria Spain Holland Brazil Denmark Sweden and Norway China Japan Chili Argentine Republic. . Greece Portugal 1 Of this amount 183,000 tons is built of wood, and 155,000 is in complete, i.e., is building or completing. The following facts are noteworthy in connexion with the above figures. (1) Germany, which launched her first ironclad ship in 1864, has not launched one since 1880, and has not one on the slips. (2) The armoured tonnage launched by Italy (1876-83) is greater than that launched by Germany during the same period. (3) The French armoured ships launched before 1873 are, with insignificant exceptions, built of wood. Every armoured ship the French are now building or completing (1883) is of iron or steel. (4) France has in process of construction, i.e., building or completing, an ironclad navy equal in tonnage to the entire ironclad navy of Germany or Italy built and building ; and equal also in tonnage to all the completed ships in her own navy launched during the previous ten years. (5) France expended in building and completing ships for sea in 1873-77 only one-half what was spent by England in those years. Since 1877 her expenditure on this service has usually equalled, and generally exceeded, that of England. A general survey shows that the great cost of maintain ing a regular war navy is tending to limit its production and employment in states which either are not wealthy or are obliged to maintain large armies. This must be an increasing tendency for the following reasons. (1) There is a growing necessity for high speed. Commerce increases its speed, and war must at least equal it. High speeds and fair fuel endurance require large coal supplies. The ship with a high speed and large coal supply is already a large ship. To protect such a ship efficiently with armour demands the highest quality of protective material over considerable areas. There is then a further demand for powerful artillery for the purpose of dealing with such armour in an adversary. The attack is constantly develop ing new methods, and demanding not only the adoption of its weapons but also the creation and adoption of corre sponding defences against them. So it comes about that nothing but a large and costly ship can take first rank in a regular war navy. (2) The ships so produced need high training in officers and men, and the costly materiel must be accompanied by a correspondingly costly personnel. (3) The warlike usefulness of such ships is narrowed per petually by the rapidly increasing power of fortresses, aided by torpedoes and torpedo boats, to protect harbours and towns against both attack and blockade. It is narrowed also by their inability to compete in speed and coal endurance with ships not protected or armed. (4) Lastly, and more generally, the occupation of the seas by shipping tends to increase, for economical reasons, in pro portion as human labour is divided and specialized, and commodities interchanged. This growth in shipping and in the seafaring population will reduce the significance and importance of the single ship of war which it has cost so much to produce. PERSONNEL OF THE NAVY. The personnel of the British navy is composed of two different bodies of men, the seamen and the marines, each of which has its appropriate officers. The latter body is the subject of a separate article (see MARINES). Officers. The officers of the navy, exclusive of the marines, are divided into two distinct branches the military and the civil. 1. The military, or executive, branch consists of the Military undermentioned officers, classed in the order of their officers&amp;gt; rank: flag-officers, commodores, captains, staff captains, commanders, staff commanders, lieutenants, navigating lieutenants, sub-lieutenants, chief gunners, chief boat swains, chief carpenters, gunners, boatswains, carpenters, midshipmen, naval cadets. Flag-officers are divided into three ranks, viz., rear- Flag- admiral, vice-admiral, admiral. Formerly there were three officer - subdivisions of each grade, according as the officer belonged to the white, blue, or red squadrons, but this distinction has been abolished (see ADMIRAL). There is also the rank of admiral of the fleet : such an officer, if in com mand, would carry the union flag at the main.