OUR MARITIME STRENGTH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1408, 3 June 1865, Page 5

OUR MARITIME STRENGTH.

(From the Spectator.) No man ever quite attains his own ideal. That seems to be the root of the chorus of criticism which always breaks out when the naval estimates are produced, and which almost convinces timid people that Great Britain, with all her expenditure on her marine, has not an efficient navy. The national idea has for some years been a navy, chiefly of iron-clads, stronger than the navies of any two Powers, composed of invulnerable ships, each able to destroy an opponent without injury to itself; each able to !-ail to the Pacific, if necessary; each as swift as a dispatch-boat, and altogether costing about eight millions a year. Nobody, however,, ever gets his ideal, this nation has not got it, and never will get it, and the real point for discussion, is, whether its efforts secure any reasonable or sufficiently reasonable approach towards its end. Lord Clarence Paget, as v spokesman for the Government, says that so much at least has been obtained. The nation, he says, will by the end of this year, possess a total of thirty iron-clads, all of the first-class in one way or another, though four are intended only for harbour defence, and four cannot be sent to great distances because they are so large that out of England they could not be docked. Docks, however, are to be built both at Malta and Bermuda, by which that defect will be remedied. In addition to this line-of-battle fleet, there will be seven armed vessels built entirely for speed, on a model improved from that of the Alabama, and intended entirely for the protection of commerce. This is the vessel, which of all others, private yards can best turn out, and it is useless, therefore, to overdo their construction. In addition to all this force, t' ere is a wooden steam fleet, hereafter to be found, perhaps, more useful than some critics believe, admitted to be superior to any wooden fleet in existence. To man them w r e have 69,750 men, besides 17,000 enrolled in the reserve, and training schools which turn out some 2,000 most efficient seamen a year. This great force, immense when we consider that Secretary Welles, in the fourth year of war registers only. 17,000 American-born seamen, comprises a proportion of " expert " gunners, which has doubled in two years, and is as a body so orderly that the demand for good-conduct pay rises every year till it becomes an appreciable weight upon the finances. All this we obtain at an expense, stated in round numbers, of ten millions a year, which, again, is in course of steady reduction from two cause. The " conversion " of the fleet is getting itself done, very slowly indeed, but still getting done, and as it gets done the number of men employed decreases. The iron-clads do not want so many men, but need more thoroughly qualified men, — in fact, to use Lord Clarence Paget's strong illustration, " skilled labour is being substituted for brute force." Finally, behind and beyond all this enormous provision of ships and docks, and men and material, rests the still greater provision now in private hands, a provision large enough to lit out a great war in a twelvemonth, and all available for money, though doubtless after a certain loss of time.

- It seems a very satisfactory statement that, and the only question is whether it is all quite true, whether ships, and men, and material exist anywhere except in Lord Clarence Paget's speeches. Sir John Packington, in his capacity of First Lord in Opposition, is inclined to question that; that is to say, he does not believe the men are not there, or the ships, or the stores, but he alleges that they cannot be put to use. There are the men, he says, but they are never at hand when wanted; there are the ships, only they can neither fight nor sail; and there are the the guns, but they burst. Of course, as the natural and fitting depository of every whisper of discontentand every non-official criticism,he makes out some part of his case. The Admiralty does, of course, occasionally make blunders, and very often throw away money, is subject to fits of experiment not always conducive to efficiency, and is apt to build a very fine ship not exactly fitted for the immediate work to be done. There are vessels, of course, not fully plated, and vessels which, being fully plated, " pitch a good deal," and vessels which, when holes are made in them, sink more inches than their constructor approves, and the multiplication of such criticisms makes the case look very serious. But still the unprofessional public, looking at the matter in a broad way, will, we think, decide that on the whole, the balance of evidence with the Government; not the Whig, or the Tory Government, but the Government. They will remember that when the last great committee sat on naval expenditure they found plenty of evidence of waste, but they also found that one main cause of waste was an over profusion of good work, that, as one great shipowner said, Government ships " were three times as good " as they needed to be. How should it be otherwise ? A very great, though clumsy organization is supplied with almost limitless means of building ships, which it has the strongest official interest in building well and very little interest in building cheaply. The natural result will be as an average, very dear ships, and very good ships, and that we cannot but think will, in the event of war, be found to be the case in England. The nation has not reached its ideal, but is as near it as any other nation, is tending under criticism closer towards it, and is obtaining meanwhile a fleet strong enough to meet any call worth the cost of providing against. Expense and delay, not failure of o.ut-turn, are the characteristic faults of the British Admiralty.