Page:The empire and the century.djvu/242

 an unnecessarily heavy displacement. The following table of the tonnage launcned in two periods for the navies will show that we should have been easily able to have attained better results:

If a thorough knowledge of strategy had been brought to bear on both the class of ships built and their designs, a smaller building programme would have left us in an equally unassailable position. If it were realized that the battleships of a predominant Power always afford a secure base of refuge to the cruisers, which, even when out of sight, can communicate by wireless telegraphy, we should hardly be building hybrid cruiser-battleships to do the work of scouts and look-out vessels. It is a significant commentary on the endeavour to obtain great strength of units rather than the requisite number of units that Sir Compton Domvile, in the 1903 manoeuvres, lost half his cruiser force through ordinary accidents. Like Nelson, he wanted eyes, not fists, in his scouts. On the other hand, the battleships are based only on their own strength. They must always be our first care. With them we obtain security, so that we can adjust and augment our forces during war, and, working to standard patterns, all types of vessels could be built in a year instead of sixteen to eighteen months, as is now estimated, or over three years, as has hitherto been our average for battleships. In the war of American Independence we replaced all the waste of war, and increased the navy from 188 battleships to 178, and from 97 frigates to 201. In the succeeding French wars we increased the battleships from 141 to 248, and the frigates from 157 to 323.