492 
FLOATING DEFENCE. 
upon “moral effect”—another Mesopotamia. No service is less suited 
to a partially trained personnel than that of the torpedo-boat. The cost 
of maintaining boats witli their necessary number of skilled specialists, 
in scattered ports, is usually left out of account. In ports which 
embrace within their defences free manoeuvring waters not protected 
by artillery fire and capable of being easily entered at night by hostile 
vessels, the provision of local torpedo-boats may be justified. They 
must, however, possess trained crews, and, except when used outside 
of the range of the fire of the defence, they will be a distinct encum¬ 
brance. 
In every case where fixed and floating defences are intended to co¬ 
operate, grave practical difficulties will arise. The command of a port 
must be vested in a single head—a military officer, except, perhaps, at 
naval bases. To ensure harmony of action and prevent interference 
between two such incongruous forces as fixed and floating defences is, 
a task from which the most self-confident may well shrink. Unless 
local craft can be independently employed outside the range of the 
shore batteries, they will inevitably enfeeble the defence. For pur¬ 
poses of communication, and in some cases to provide fixed electric-light 
beams on certain waters., they will prove useful. 
If, quitting generalities, we seek to investigate the practical modes 
of employing floating defence in specific cases, the advantages will 
usually either diminish or disappear. If, forgetting the requirements, 
real or assumed of other nations, we endeavour to realise our own, 
floating defences will no longer be the subject of vague demands. 
Where really necessary protection cannot otherwise be obtained, they 
will be employed; but they will no longer be superimposed—in fact or 
on paper—upon defences already inordinate. If the sea power of 
Great Britain is ever challenged, then every ship and every sailor em¬ 
ployed upon the seas will be a gain to the national strength, and every 
diversion of ships or men to local defence will be a distinct loss. It is 
on the seas alone that the Empire can be defended. On the seas lies 
the real security of its ports. 
