194 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



in regard to Germany's naval strength were uttered in August 

 of 1908, the debates in Parliament of March, 1909, prove how 

 fallacious even tlie views of naval experts may be on naval 

 matters — a short six months, and the country is rudely awakened 

 to the fact that the sea power of Germany, measured in Dread- 

 noughts, which one of our most famous admirals assured us — 



" As a matter of fact, is far from having a number of fighting 

 ships equal to our own," 



is already within measurable distance of our own naval strength, 

 and may even exceed it in 1912. The fact is, the rapidly 

 increasing wealth of Germany, her enormous commercial and 

 industrial expansion, and the almost boundless ambition of her 

 people, render her a new and somewhat unintelligible factor in 

 the economy of the nations, and a good many people fail to 

 understand her. There is no wonder, then, that Sir Cyprian 

 Bridge failed to read the riddle aright. 



What Admiral Harding Close says 



Here is what Admiral Harding Close said on the subject in 

 1903— 



" We spend thirty-one millions a year on the Navy. You might 

 as well chuck that money into the sea for all the good Id will do, for 

 what is the use of our going to sea and winning battles of Trafalgar 

 if we leave a starving population behind ? . . . It is no use your 

 boasting that we have a powerful Navy, and that, therefore, having 

 command of the sea, our food supply is safe. You cannot get a 

 naval officer to say so. We never had command of the sea, so far 

 as the protection of our merchant ships is concerned. If there was 

 a period in the history of this country when we might say we had 

 command of the sea, surely it was after the battle of Trafalgar, 

 when there was not an enemy left on the sea. Yet after that 

 battle, hundreds of our merchant ships were captured ; and it will 

 be so again. We cannot protect our merchant ships ; the thing is 

 impossible. The true blockade will be the impossibility of our ten 

 thousand slow merchant ships obtaining any insurance, and being 

 laid up as the United States merchant ships were laid up when the 

 AJaJiama was about. This will prevent the weekly arrival of the 

 four hundred merchant ships which bring us our food, and cause 

 panic on the corn-market, the enemy having made food contraband 

 of war." * 



No comment need be made on these statements of two of 

 our great admirals, save this — that when naval experts disagree 

 — anylJti'iKj itiaij happen! 



* " The Murder ofiA^riculture," pp. 5G, 57. 



