318 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



were far superior to anything which our Government 

 possessed. And when we did make a start in the 

 direction of improvement, we entered upon a period 

 of failure that was positively ghastly, the ships being 

 veritable death-traps, incapable of keeping the sea in 

 bad weather or even of being steered. But happily 

 a better day dawned before it was too late, the best 

 possible talent was secured for Government yards, and 

 a very large amount of work was given to private yards 

 of proved capacity, which showed Europe that, not 

 only had we the money and the will to spend it, when 

 necessary, but that our rate of shipbuilding was such 

 that no other nation could hope to approach us or put 

 ships into the water so rapidly that they had not time 

 to become obsolete before they had done good service. 

 With some, however, it is a question whether we 

 have not gone ahead too rapidly, whether the vast 

 congeries of complicated machinery which goes to 

 make up a battleship or a first-class cruiser to-day is 

 not getting beyond the power of the human brain to 

 handle in a time of stress of actual war. We have 

 ships of amazing speed, whose vitals are protected by 

 almost unpierceable armour, guns of terrible power and 

 range, which, under the direction of skilful men, can 

 be aimed with marvellous exactitude so as to strike 

 a target much smaller than a ship at a distance of 

 several miles ; but the question of what would happen 

 if two fleets of fairly equal strength, with equally 

 brave and intelligent crews, and all equipment and 

 ammunition in good order, were to meet each other 

 still remains to be answered. We have had object- 

 lessons in actual naval warfare between modern fleets 

 in the China-Japanese war, the Spanish-American 



