The Daily Telegraph MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1882.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3500, 25 September 1882, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1882.

It somehow does not seem so necessary now to spend money in the fortification of the principal ports of thia colony as it did a few months ago. Recent events have gone to show us that it would take a great deal more money than this colony can aflord to spend to erect defences that i would not stand for an hour against the modern armaments of men-of-war. An earthwork and a pop-gun of tbe old school, with some untrained civilians in gaudy uniforms, would be the most that we could do in tbe way of fortification, and, ia the light of the bombardment of Alexandria, it would be only money thrown away to make such a defence. Public opinion in tbe United States is J veering round to the view that to defend its coasts with anything les3 than forts and puns strong enough to resist an assault by British turret ships would be worse tban useless. Tbe New Orleans Picayune draws a comparison between the British ship Inflexible and the Miantonomob, a double-turreted American monitor, now building, and which has already c®st nparly half a million sterling. Says the Picayune: —"The Miantonomob. will if ever completed, four guns in two turrets; so does tbe British Inflexible. That sounds fair; but it must be considered that the Inflexible's armour is from sixteen to twenty-four inches thick in the central parts, and the Miantonomoh's twelve inches on the turrets and about seven on the sides; that the Inflexible's tonnage is 11,400 and the Miantonomoh's 1,225. The former's guns throw a projectile weighing 1,700 pouuds, which leaves the muzzle with a velocity of 1,520 feet per second ,* wbile our navy is armed with a lot of smooth-bores perfectly useless in modern warfare. Tbe Inflexible could safely run up within 500 yards of Robeson's pet, because the latter is not capable of penetrating the armour of the former at ali, on any terms. At that distance the British ship could hurl her 1,700-pound sbot clear through the American champion. Those f errific projectiles can penetrate at that distance twenty-seven iaches of armour, and wonld destroy the Miantonomoh's turrets in ten minutes. Therefore, under the mo9t favourable aspect of tbe case, we are foolish if we waste any more money on such tubs. It is perfectly true that the British fleet, which now has 233 guns pointed at Alexandria, could reduce New York to ashes in a couple of days; but that awful fact does not justify us in wasting money. Modern naval warfare has come to be the sport of floating fortresses, and we have none, and none of our people have yet proposed to build such as would prove of use. If we cannot build vessels which can compete with those of European powers, it is folly to waste money as is now being done. We haven't a solitary gun on land or sea which can stop the progress of the Italian irondads Dandolo and Duilio, so long as they have coal aboard and water below. Either one of them could sink our whole fleet. Our only defence would be in our torpedo service, and would not be very reliable at best. The real lesson of the bombardment for us is that it is idle to make a farce of navy building—and it is equally a farce to spend any more money on old brick forts that a couple of European war vessels could demolish in half a day, or in HttJe guns that could scarcely drive off a wooden fleet.