340 
GOLD MEDAL PRIZE ESSAY, 1897 . 
(c) This would comprise the combined practice already referred to, 
carried out under service conditions from all the guns, except the 
lighter Q.F., mounted in the defences, or from as many of them as 
could be manned, on the days set apart for practice under the proposed 
bye-laws. This practice would correspond to the present station and 
regimental practice, and to the ammunition allowed for it should 
if possible be added that sanctioned for position-finding practice,* 
courses being so timed as to enable them to complete instruction in 
time to take their places at the instruments. As at company practice 
tactical ideas should be followed, but in this case on a more extended 
scale. The blank Q.F. Practice already mentioned would be included 
under this head, and should if possible take place at the same time, but 
need not necessarily do so. 
IV. CONCLUSION. 
The endeavour has been made to put forward no proposals but such 
as it is believed are both practical and practicable, and would entail 
little or no additional expense. More could easily be said on the 
subject of Coast Artillery practice, and details which will no doubt 
suggest themselves have had for want of space to be left unnoticed. 
But when guiding principles are once acknowledged details are easily 
filled in. The great danger lies in the tendency, often apparent, to 
elaborate details first and then adapt principles to them. For this 
reason it seemed prudent to consider somewhat carefully the possibili¬ 
ties and probabilites of war. Such consideration brings out most 
clearly the liability of coast defences to one form of attack—Paid—and 
the consequent paramount importance of practice from quick-firing 
guns. This is a matter of the very greatest urgency, not only to 
Coast Artillerymen but to the country at large, which at present 
without doubt is not getting full value for the money spent on these 
guns for land service, inasmuch as there is not one man of those in 
whose hands they would be if war came to-morrow who has been or 
can be under present circumstances fitly trained to use them. When 
war comes there will be no time to make up for lost opportunities in 
this respect. For each individual concerned in the service of these 
guns there is no more proper motto than that which heads this essay— 
“ Semper paratus.” 
* “ Equipment Regulations,” 1896, Part 2, Section xii., paragraph 174. 
