The Defence of London.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 5, 18 June 1887, Page 4

The Defence of London.

Times, April 20. Sir Edward Hamley yesterday delivered a most interesting and instructive address upon the defence of London and the commercial ports of Great Britain before the Loudon Chamber of Commerce. The chair was taken by th’e Lord Mayor, and a large attendance testified to the interest which the subject excites in the City. When London makes ur> its mind to be defended the thing will be done in one Way or another, and until London bo makes up its mind nothing at all will bo done. It is idle to look to the War .sffice for businesslike dealing pith th e problem, London must it-: Mif take the initative ; and the War I Office '-oay then perhaps come to its aid. General Hamley has sketched out I a very' complete and elaborate system of defence for London. Beginning with the river, he says we must have Bubmarin e mines to blow up any ironclad attex opting to reach London ; quick-firing' gons to smash the boats sho would send out to explode the mines ; big gnntf to pierce her armour and disable her en gines in case she succeeded in. passing the mines ; the torpedo boat to provide against the possibility that she might escape both mines and guns. This is rather a formidable catalogue of requirements, though we should be sorry to affirm that anything in the list could bo wholly dispensed with. A great deal, however, depends upon details and quantities. The mouth of the Thames is already protected by forts costing enormous sums of money and carrying, we have a right to expect, though perhaps not much ground to assume, guns capable of dealing with anything that may try to pass them. When we are told that more guns are required we naturally ask where they are to be placed, how they are to be mounted, and who is to supply them. Unless they are to be better guns than many Woolwich has turned out, and unless they are to be more efficiently and economically mounted than in" many of the pretentious fortifications erected by the War Office, it is pretty safe to predict that the attempt to strengthen the defences of the river will only end in the waste of a great deal of money, and the erection of additional monuments of human folly, and the renewed disgust of the public with military expenditure of all kinds. Eor a dozen years past a simple and cheap method of mounting guns so as to practically baffle attack has been pressed upon the attention of the War Office, which has stubbornly insisted upon spending the money of the nation of the construction of costly works in which it is doubtful whether gunners could stand the smoke and concussion of their own guns, while it is nearly certain that they could speedily be exterminated by showers of bullets from machine guns. If any more of that sort of thing is to be attempted, General Hamley’s scheme for defending the rivers will never be carried out. The common-sense of the public rebels against it, and though money may be forthcoming to begin, supplies will be withheld before the things is finished. We suspect that big guns are even more seriously wanted on the Thames than most people imagine. We doubt very much, judging from the character of the War Office perfoimances, whether either the guns or the emplacements down the river are fit to cope with a a first-class ironclad. We rather think that there are ships which could run the gauntlet of those costly works without much danger, an! were it not that an ironclad visiting London might not find herself very potent for mischief when she got there and very much at a loss to get away again, we should feel very little confidence in the efficacy of our river defences. It is high time that a few first-class guns were mounted on the Thames, but they must be first.class, and they must not be built into vast piles of costly masonry,