TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 185 
the question whether we should give more or less protection to our vessels by 
means of armour plates must be subordinate to the purposes to which the ships 
are to be applied as floating batteries. I say that you ought, in the first place, to 
obtain a fast ship and one that will carry her battery so steadily as to make it most 
useful and effective, and she ought to be able to go through a head sea; then, sub- 
ordinate to these requisites, protect her as well as you can. It is of no use to have 
a ship so protected and oyerweighted that she becomes inefficient as a moveable 
fort. 
Before concluding my remarks on ships I would say a few words on propulsion, 
upon which subject there is a paper, and in reference to which Dr. Fairbairn has a 
report to make. You must all be aware that within the last year or two a new 
mode of propulsion by the emission of water has been introduced, and that the ex- 
periment has cost the country about £40,000. It has been broadly asserted that 
there are no means of obtaining from that mode of propulsion more than 25 per 
cent. of the power applied. I say, therefore, that before experiments of this sort 
are tried, the Government, or at all events this Association, ought to investieate 
the subject in order to see whether the new mode be the most economical applica- 
tion of power or the most wasteful that can be adopted. The matter is not to be 
worked out by experiments with ships which only go eight knots an hour in smooth 
water. Admiral Sir Edward Belcher assures me that the speed attained was ten 
knots, and that she beat the other vessel against which she was tried; to which I 
would reply that she might easily accomplish that, as the other was one of the 
worst designed ships in the Navy. 
This leads me to another question in which we are all interested, and that is our 
coast defences. We have all been frightened for some years by the statement that 
we may be attacked by an invading force, and that we are or have been peculiarly 
open to the assaults of an enemy, and therefore ought to take the best possible 
measures for protecting our shores. The theory of this no one can deny, but the 
mode in which the protection is to be afforded is another thing. I happen to be- 
long toa Volunteer Staff Corps whose especial business it is to consider this question 
and to advise the Government uponit. The first question we had to consider was 
the defence of the east coast of England, and especially of the coast of this dis- 
trict. Itis obvious that there is no part of our coast which is so vulnerable as 
this particular division ; that there is no part of the country which offers the same 
inducements to an enemy to attack it as this district. How this district is pro- 
osed to be defended, and what are the operations to be undertaken in providing 
or that defence, are matters of confidence between the corps I represent and Her 
Majesty’s Government; but I have the satisfaction of being able to say that 
we have come to this conclusion—that, easily as the coast in this district might 
be attacked, it would by the adoption of judicious means be just as easily defended, 
and this, too, without the erection of those ponderous forts which have been con- 
structed on the southern coast. But it would have been expected that no sooner 
were the Armstrong and the Whitworth guns inyented, and the power and precision 
with which projectiles could be fired against any fort or vessel were understood, 
than the authorities would have turned their serious attention to the question, and 
would have applied the strictest scientific investigation to the new condition of 
things. Indeed from the moment when the Armstrong and Whitworth euns were 
produced the days of embrasures were numbered. Any man who lnows anything 
of the question will agree with me that he is safer in the open country than be- 
hind an embrasure. In the open country he affords but one small point of attack, 
and the chances of his being hit are comparatively small, but beside a gun inside 
the embrasure of a fort, if a shot strikes within that space he is subject to 
casualty from splinters. The introduction of the new mode of gunnery marked an 
epoch at which the whole method of fortification should have been reconsidered ; 
and if this had been done I feel suve that we should not have had to regret the 
p, 
4 
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‘ 
construction of many large useless forts, not however including some of older date, 
for the design of which it is impossible to discover who is responsible. 
A Commission has been instructed to report on the soundness of construction of 
_ these forts; I would venture to suggest that another Commission should be ap-~ 
pointed to report on their military efficiency. 
