SEA POWER

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 28, 3 February 1913, Page 8

SEA POWER

AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY TO A NATION WITH OVEESEA DOMINIONS. STIEEING ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR. Following the precedent set by Lord Islington, His Excellency the Governor (the Earl of Liverpool) has accepted the position of patron to the New Zealand Club, and to-day was the guest of the club at luncheon, accompanied by Capt. Eastwood, A.D.C. He was welcomed by tKe Hon. C. M. Luke, who presided, and greeted with very hearty applause by the members present — a reception which the distinguished guest warmly acknowledged. His Excellency took as the subject of his address, ''The absolute necessity of sea power to a nation that has oversea Dominions." He gave a luminous outline of the development of British seapower from the days of Pitt the younger, "the great Commoner " and the true founder of British supremacy at sea, to the state of affairs to-day, demonstrating, with extremely accurate knowledge of history, the necessity for the maintenance of the Dominion over the sea. •J have taken as my storting point, said His Excellency, a period analogous to' the French Revolution, for two reasons—(l) to show how impossible it is for a great Power to ignore the trend of events which take place in nations and which must vitally affect her policy, both financially and commercially j (2) that it was about this 'period, viz., 1787, that a small colonising expedition •was Sent to Australia, and gave immortality to an obscure Minister by calling the settlement Sydney. PITT, THE POUNDER OF SEA POWER. At the time England had been engaged in a long and inglorious war with America 5 her troops were prisoners or block' aded in America ; her credit was exhausted; her fleet was unprepared, and she had reason to fear attack from the united navies of France and Spain. This was in 1778. In December, 1783, the great Commoner — the Younger Pitt — assumed the First Lordship of the Treasury, and so commenced a supreme and, unbroken Ministry which was to last for 17 . years. The student of history realises what a colossal task he was undertaking. In the last eight years the country ■ had seen political degradation reach its climax. Fox, who had denounced North, now sided with him — • the accuser had sat down with the accused. The country was sick of the old methods. , They saw a young man, rich j with eloquence, heir to an immortal name, untainted in character, spotless in life, who showed the very first day he met Parliament as Minister, a supreme disdain for the material prizes of \ life. The country recollected that in a few months the Elder Pitt had raised England from the ground and placed her at the head of Europe. Might not something be hoped for from Ids son? No Minister can ever wish for war. Apart from the inseparable dangers to our Constitution and our commerce, his own j position suffers detrimentally. He has to face not the excitement of the field, but domestic misery and discontent, the burden, of taxation, and the unpopularity of the sacrifice which -all war entails. If this is true of any Minister, with how much greater force docs it apply to Pitt? SUCCESS OB 1 PITT'S POLICY. The crisis, continued the.Earl of Liverpool, came in 1793, when the French Convention declared war on the rjllers of Great Britain and Holland. With indefatigable energy Pitt faced the crisis. The notable points of these years as regards the conduct of the war and of foreign policy were these : Pitt's two 'endeavours to combine Europe against the common enemy-j— his, constant anxiety for peace — the four direct overtures which he made with this object between- 1793 and 1801 — the uniform success of the enemy on land and the uniform triumph of our arms at sea. Pitt's policy was twofold — it wafi a naval and colonial polr icy. It meant that while Pitt was sub&U dising the armies of the Continent against France, our navy being .supreme, we were able to have our troops operating with success in India against Tippo Sahib, preventing Napoleon from overrunning Egypt by Nelson's victory of the Nile in 1798— capturing practically the whole of the French possessions in the West Indies. And so we pass to the last phase of the war—the crushing of the French and Spanish Navies at Trafalgar and making the naval strength of England supreme, which enabled us to convey our troops safely during the Peninsular war and at the same time guard their supplies" and base. Let it not be forgotten that this supremacy was gained by the forethought of the Great Commoner. THE SECOND PHASE The second phase is embraced by a period from after the Peace of Paris in 1815 to the present time. We have seen the supremacy of our great Navy unquestioned during the great war and we find that supremacy maintained during the years of peace, that is to say, of peace so far as we were concerned with reference to Europe — only broken by the Crimean war 'in 1863. It was the vital essential to us for the maintenance of our Indian Empire during the Sikh wars of the 'forties, the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the China War of the 'sixties, may 1 say the unfortunate striie of the same decade in these islands, the maintenance of our authority in Egypt during the stormy period which began in 1882, not to end finally till 1898 by the crushing of the Khalifa — our very life blood in maintaining our lines of communication during the struggle of 1899 to 1902— that is what the Navy has meant to our country and to her colonies. It is a great heritage and one of which we are .all proud, and one which the British nation intends to maintain, not as a menace, but as a safeguard for the peace of the world. (Applause.) WHY SPAIN FAILED AND JAPAN SUCCEEDED. Why did Sfain so signally fail in 1898 against America, and lose practically all her colonies? Firstly, because she had not considered her colonies an asset in the strongest sense of the word, and secondly, she had not the sea power, when the hour of stress came, either to meet her enemy, or to guard her lines of communications. Take the RussoJapanese war of 1904. Again, what made it possible for Japan to Jand her armies, with practically no opposition, in Korea ? Simply because she was omnipotent on the sea. These are the two great examples of to-day, of nations other than ourself, where the supreme power of the sea has been vital to their undertakings and development. Let it not be forgotten that both of them art great commercial nations, to whom the expansion of their commerce and outlet for their population is a necessity. j GROWTH OF ARMAMENTS. ' His Excellency then briefly desciibed tl\s .astounding growth of armaments in reference to naval power, and the great evolution • both in ships ,and material. The Great Harry,, in Henry-ym.'B rejgti,

was" looked upon as a ship of prodigious pretensions, and yet she was smaller than the greater number of our smallest coasting sailing vessels. "Then we see the Navy," said Hi 3 Excellency, "evolving from a series of what we should now term piratical or filibustering expeditions against the Spaniards in the West, Tndies in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and the rise of such names as Frobisher, Drake, Lord Howard of Effingham, and Hawkins, men of great daring, who were the mainstay in defeating the invasion of 1588, but whose ships were unwieldy and difficult to navigate, and whose guns were often more dangerous to the ships themselves than to the enemy. Afterwards we pass through a period which ivas not altogether to our credit, except during the time of Cromwell, when we know the. British ships of war were the terror of the seas. Gradually, with the commencement of the eighteenth century, the ships developed, not only in building capacity, but also in armament. The classes, as we know them, varied little between the early years of the eighteenth century, and at the end of the '50's and beginning of the '60's of the nineteenth century. The largest ships were — the first rate, three-deckers carrying 90 to 120 guns (in one case was there a four-decker, the Santisslma Trinidad, which fought at St. Vincent and Trafalgar, and finally foundered there) ; the second rate, two-deckers varying in armament, as 60. 74, and 80-gun ships ; the third rate, frigates of 6X), 46, and 36 guns ; the fourth rates, corvettes, consisting' of 26-gun 1 ships, carried on a flush deck, and the brigs, 10 and 16-gun vessels. Of the latter class, perhaps the less said the better. THE LAST FIFTY YEARS. With the era of eteam came the changes of conversion from sailing ships to auxiliary screws, and the fleets of the Baltic and Black Sea in the Crimean War to a certain extent consisted of these ships. But what this war did prove conclusively was that as the armaments had improved it was absolutely essential that fionie form of vessel should be devised to resist the penetrating power of the projectiles- which were destructive in such a marked degree to a wooden structure. And so in the early sixties commenced the era of the iron shape, to develop later into steel ships, which is the greatest change in shipbuilding the world has witnessed. The classes of ships bi war changed the old names ceased to be, and from tnem emerged battleships, cruisers of various classes, torpedo destroyers, torpedo boats, and, more lately, submarines, to be followed, shall we suggest, by air cruisers. One gun of to-day, fired from a battleship, can throw a projectile a great deal more than equal to all the broadsides of the Victory. And the size of our great grns is continuing to increase by leaps and bounds — the 10-inch, then the 12-inch, now the 13.5inch, and there are suggestions of a 16-inch gun. MODERN SEA MONSTERS. And what* of the size of the ships? It is difficult to measure the battleship of to-day with the, wooden ship, because the style of measurements are different, but this we can do: We can measure the battleship of the eighties and those of to-day. A 12,000-ton ship was looked upon as a monster— l am beginning to think we shall live to see a 40,000-ton battleship. I know the great commercial steamers have now exceeded this figure, but at present the construction size of battleships is still in 20,000 to 28,000 ton ships. When you see a battleship of the Dreadnought class passing the Victory in Portsmouth Harbour, you realise what size really is ; and if you again mention the Great Harry, she in her turn would only be equal to a steam pinnaee — if as latge-~of one of our modern battleshijis. In size of crews there is not so much difference. The' three-deckers usuajly carried crews varying from 600 to 780 men : the crews of to-day of the Dreadnought class are, if anything, slightly under this figure. And let us lastly tutn to the question of expense. The cost of a modern battleship is 2^ millions— a three-decker of Nelson's time about £80,000 to £9d,000. Is it not sufficient to say this : That the time has arrived when it is fully realised by her daughters that England can no longer bear this burden alone-, and hence the ready offers of assistance extended to her from all the oversea Dominions— offered in the sure and certain hope that in the day of difficulty, we, who all belong to the Empire, shall not be found wanting. (Applause.) Lastly, in conclusion, there are few here who will in one sense consider themselves sentimentalists, though all will find themselves allied with the true definition of the word in reality. Pitt rests in that old sanctuary in which so many of our great men lie, and over his body stands a monument graven by cunning hand. It depicts the great commoner, standing as he used to do when first Minister in the land, his hand outstretched, and it eeems to betoken "that, though not with lie in the flesh, lie bids us "To be of good cheer, work together, and not be dismayed." (Loud and prolonged applause.) Threo hearty cheers were given fop His Excellency and Lady Liverpool.