Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/197

Rh certain points upon which the trade routes converge, but there would be no patrols stationed along the trade routes and the minimum of division of forces.

This approximately embodies the modern naval view of how commerce attack should be met. It is, incidentally, how the Dutch successfully met the English attempt to fight a commerce-destroying war in the time of King Charles II. It is how the Romans successfully met the Illyrian pirates. It is also in part —how the Northerners—very unsuccessfully for their trade—met the Southern war on commerce.

A perception—an over perception—of this last point is the characteristic of the popular view of how commerce should be protected. It should be understood that the popular realisation of all that commerce attack might mean is in all probability greater than the naval realisation of it: and probably the popular estimate of this danger is better to accept than the naval one, certainly that naval one which bases any of its arguments upon the old platitude that war against commerce cannot bring victory.

Now, in the popular view there is only one way in which commerce can effectively be protected. This way consists in covering the seven seas with cruisers 'patrolling the trade routes.' These cruisers, we are told, do not need to be very powerful or very fast; a fairly good speed and numbers, especially numbers, will suffice.

This idea, is on the surface, fairly plausible; and