THE AMERICAN FLEET.

Progress, Volume III, Issue 11, 1 September 1908, Page 371

THE AMERICAN FLEET.

Admiral Sperry and his vast Armada has fairlystartled the world with the truth about blood and water. There is no doubting the truth now that blood is the thicker of the two. The white ships went away loaded to the deeklines and truck tops with it, only to find bigger, but not warmer, cargoes, waiting in Sydney for them to take aboard as best they might. There they appear to have made a mighty conversion from the abstract to the concrete. When they staggered away towards Melbourne to add to the double load, they left an impression behind them that their visit was the biggest and mobt happily suggestive international happening of Austialasian history. To pudge by the raptures, oratorical and orthographic, one ought to conclude that the world has been surprised by the seagoing qualities of ships built to b? seaworthy. The mere voyage, however, adds nothing to our knowledge In the measurement of the development of the modern ironclad it supplies an interesting mark with the fact that only one sl'ip — the "Georgia" — had on arrival at Auckland coal enough to take her on to Sydney. Therefore the light thrown on the coal supply question is welcome. There is, it is appaieut, no difficulty whatever in cairying out a self-ieliant policy, in the matter of coal, provided your fleet has the command of the sea in wai. Here a sidelight opens. What a hurry of all searching vigilance will, in the next naval war, be devoted to the collieis of the Fleet's coal supply. Another point is that at present raids without the command of the sea are almost impossible. And another is that in a great war convoyaging must, thanks to steam, be a tar safer operation than in the sailing days. So much we must leain from the precision with which the white ships moved from day to day. Then we have the triumph of "wireless" and the enormous size of the signalling area. Lastly, the climax is the capacity for extremely rapid manoeuviing, which are the chief features of a modern fleet. We can see that the sea fights of the future will be tremendous almost beyond conception, and rapid beyond record. Remains to consider what will Japan say and what will she do when the white fleet reaches the land of Togo.