Page:The Development of Navies During the Last Half-Century.djvu/320



several of the navies of European states exhibit great progress during the last half century, in the west we observe a fleet practically created in little more than a decade. After a strange apathy of many years, the United States is now fully alive to the necessity of having a fleet commensurate with her position. A few years ago her navy consisted of a number of obsolete monitors and wooden cruisers equally ancient. Such a condition was humiliating, and might be dangerous, seeing that insignificant neighbouring states were in the possession of modern ironclads and swift powerful cruisers. No nation with a long sea frontier and important interests abroad should be without the means of protecting both, and for this an adequate naval force is essential. For the United States this dangerous