Page:The empire and the century.djvu/243

 It must still remain true, however, that expenditure during peace is of far more value than any undertaken during war, always provided the Solomons control it, for otherwise much of it, as we have seen, had far better have been left to fructify in the banks of the nation. No ability and no exchequer can retrieve grave administrative blunders. The training of the personnel is, for instance, the work of years. At Trafalgar the training revealed inestimable advantages on the side of Nelson's fleet, for the mere enumeration of guns shows a superiority of 22 per cent for the allies. In his progress to Tsushima, the Japanese engineer pursued his ideal of mechanical efficiency from early youth upwards no less relentlessly than did the sucking Togos on deck that of fighting efficiency. Perfection it is given to no system to attain; but, by concentration and coordination of efforts, each in his proper sphere, we can come as near to it as is possible to those 'who are neither children nor gods, but men in a world of men.'

No man can forecast the will of a many-headed democracy. Alarmists can play on its nerves as orators do on its passions. The one makes fook rush in where angels fear to tread; the other shouts 'Fire!' to an excitable crowd. Scare has succeeded to scare, and the psychological factor in strategy plays a definite part as it did with the Americans, when a squadron was officially stated to have been stationed at Hampden Roads to calm the fears of the sea-board. To feed the symptoms of panic in democracy is to give it a strong drink, for which it will cry out the more. The remedy for democracy, and for its representative orators, is to educate them. The orator has pleaded for efficiency, and candidates have inscribed efficiency on their election addresses again and again. It has been my endeavour to strike a new note by going back to those simple first principles which came to us from the times of Drake, and which are capable of being understood by the man in the street. Efficiency will follow when simplicity is attained.