Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/312

286 the present time, owing to the vastly increased complication of and the general adoption of machinery, torpedo officers (almost entirely) and gunnery officers (to a very great extent) are in sum and substance members of the engineering profession in its widest sense. Out of these and the engineers proper the navies of the early future will—with evolution following its present course—be compounded. As hinted above, the tremendous complication of modern machinery is a difficulty in the way of return to the all-round man and many people question its possibility. However, it is probable that in the days of Drake it was hotly debated as to whether a seaman could ever acquire proficiency in handling guns, or a soldier in the proper management of ropes and sails—very difficult problems to the lesser intelligences of the men of those times. Still, whatever difficulties present-day critics may see, this is the thing that is likely to come about, and with it—if history goes for anything—some modification of the warship to suit the new order of things, and that modification probably in the direction of the big cruiser.

History does not tell us of the internal naval arguments if any which preceded the evolution of the Athenian trireme. But we may take it for granted that arguments were plentiful enough before the bulk of the heavy-armed fighting men were put on shore, before the heavy protection for these men was dispensed with, before the ship emerged light and swift,