XIV.


THE NEEDS OF THE NAVY

The doubt which, since the Prime Minister's statement on the
introduction of the Navy Estimates, has disturbed the public mind, is
concerned almost exclusively with the number of modern battleships in
the Royal Navy. The one object which the nation ought to have in view is
victory in the next war, and the question never to be forgotten is, what
is essential to victory? While it is probably true that if the disparity
of numbers be too great a smaller fleet can hardly engage a larger one
with any prospect of success, it is possible to exaggerate the
importance both of numbers and of the size of ships.

The most decisive victories at sea which are on record were those of
Tsusima, of Trafalgar, and of the Nile. At Tsusima the numbers and size
of the Japanese Fleet were not such as, before the battle, to give
foreign observers grounds for expecting a decisive victory by the
Japanese. It was on the superior intellectual and moral qualities of the
Japanese that those who expected them to win based their hopes, and this
view was justified by the event. At the battle of Trafalgar the British
Fleet numbered twenty-seven, the Franco-Spanish Fleet numbered
thirty-three; at the battle of the Nile the numbers were equal--thirteen
on each side. These figures seem to me sufficiently to prove that
superior numbers are not in battle the indispensable condition of
victory. They certainly prove that the numerically inferior fleet may
very well win.