COAST DEFENCE IN RELATION TO WAR. 
right policy appears to be a vigorous offensive at sea, 
against the torpedo-boat, it is evidently futile to provide 
heavy armaments and remain unprepared against what 
might now be by far the most probable form of attack. 
The defence of a port always implies the fulfilment of two 
separate conditions—protection of necessary resources 
against purely naval attack, and protection against mili¬ 
tary operations on shore. There is a back door which, as 
history clearly shows, is the one usually selected ; and, in 
closing this back door, Coast Defence proper, in spite of 
its many weapons, will generally render no assistance. 
But for the unique conditions of the land front of Gib¬ 
raltar, the fortress would almost certainly have fallen. 
Finally, the conditions of our national life are special and 
peculiar. We must fulfil their needs in our own way, and 
we cannot borrow a policy from the foreigner. Least of 
all, is it rational to reply to Coast Defence by Coast 
Defence as we have been sometimes invited to do, and as 
we actually did in 1859. 
In conclusion, I will only add that it is a change of attitude in regard 
to fixed defences which I advocate. I am no fanatical enemy to forti¬ 
fication, but only to its ill-considered and irrational application. For 
fortification, if carried beyond its due limits, if made an end and not a 
means, seems in all history to be either a sign or a promoting agent of 
national decadence. In a fine passage Gibbon has illustrated this 
characteristic of the later Roman Empire • 
“ The fortifications of Europe and Asia were multipled by Justinian; 
but the repetition of these timid and fruitless precautions exposes, to a 
philosophic eye, the debility of the Empire. From Belgrade to the 
Euxine, from the conflux of the Save to the mouth of the Danube, a 
chain of above four score fortified places extended along the banks of 
the great river.a strong fortress defended the ruins of 
Trajan's bridge, and several military stations affected to spread beyond 
the Danube the terror of the Roman name. But that name was { 
divested of its terrors; the barbarians in their annual inroads passed 
and contemptuously re-passed before these futile bulwarks, and the 
inhabitants of the frontier, instead of reposing under the shadow of the 
general defence were compelled to guard, with incessant vigilance, 
their separate habitations.The Straits of Thermopyloe 
which seemed to protect, but which had so often betrayed the safety of 
Greece, were diligently strengthened. From the edge of the sea-shore, 
through the forests and valleys, and as far as the summits of the 
Thessalian mountains, a strong wall was continued which occupied 
every practicable entrance ; granaries of corn and reservoirs of water 
even provided for the garrisons, and by a precaution that inspired the 
cowardice it foresaw, convenient fortresses were erected for their 
retreat." 
I am not sure that some future Gibbon will not characterise, in like 
phrase, certain of the projects of the present age. 
542 
(4.) 
(5.) 
