inferior in these arts, China[1] perhaps, or Russia. And this other nation, because of its very incompetence in the trick nautical exercises of the future will be driven to fall back on some type of ship, slower, heavier, unable to execute beautiful manœuvres, but carrying, may be, some heavier gun absolutely annihilating when it hits, and heavily defended with armour because the gun specialists want to take care of themselves. It is all too conceivable that such a fleet might go forth, controlled by people with no notions about pretty tactics or target practice, but full of the crude old idea of killing the enemy, and attain the victory which has usually followed the whole-souled pursuit of that simple idea.
If this be not the true picture of the future, it is at least the picture most fully in accord with past history, with the fall of the Athenian and Carthaginian navies.
This should not be taken as implying that sea-aptitude may be of no avail. Undoubtedly it is the most valuable thing so long as it remains, as it should remain, a means to an end. Once it becomes the end only, danger is very near at hand. To cultivate the means without ever losing sight of the one and only main objective, the killing of the enemy, is the ideal to which no Sea Empire has yet succeeded in reaching, and the doom of every once important Sea Empire has
- ↑ It may be noted that there is a tremendous latent naval possibility in Chinese sailors, judging by the reports of those who have had full opportunity of studying them.
