Page:Great Speeches of the War.djvu/143

 Royal Sovereigns are all armed, coming into line, and this gun in quality equals the 13&middot;5 inch gun, and is vastly more powerful and destructive.

There is another remarkable feature of this action to which I should like to draw the attention of the House. I mean the steaming of our ships. All the vessels engaged in this action exceeded all their previous records without exception. I wonder if the House and the public appreciate what that means. Here is a squadron of the Fleet which does not live in harbour, but is far away from its dockyards, and which during six months of war has been constantly at sea. All of a sudden the greatest trial is demanded of their engines, and they all excel all previous peace-time records. Can you conceive a more remarkable proof of the excellence of British machinery, of the glorious industry of the engine-room branch, or of the admirable system of repairs and refits by which the Grand Fleet is maintained from month to month, and can, if need be, be maintained from year to year in a state of ceaseless vigilance without exhaustion? Take the case of the Kent at the Falklands. The Kent is an old vessel. She was launched thirteen years ago and has been running ever since. The Kent was designed to go 23½ knots. The Kent had to catch a ship which went considerably over 24½ knots. They put a pressure and a strain on the engines much greater than is allowed in time of peace, and they drove the Kent 25 knots, and caught the Nürnberg and sank her.

It is my duty in this House to speak for the Navy, and the truth is that it is sound as a bell all through. I do not care where or how it may be tested: it will be found good and fit and keen and honest. It will be found to be the product of good management and organization, of sound principle in design and strategy, of sterling workmen and faithful workmanship, and careful clerks and accountants, and skilful engineers, and painstaking officers, and hardy tars.

The great merit of Admiral Sir David Beatty's action is that it shows us and the world that there is at present no reason to assume that, ship for ship, gun for gun, and man for man, we cannot give a very good account of ourselves. It shows that at five to four in representative ships—because the quality of the ships on either side is a very fair representation of the relative qualities of the lines of battle—the Germans did not think it prudent to engage, that they accepted without doubt or hesitation their inferiority, that they thought only of flight