THE DECLINE IN THE POWER OF THE NAVIES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 868, 16 November 1870, Page 3

THE DECLINE IN THE POWER OF THE NAVIES.

[prom the economist.] This war has revealed, or rather has hinted the revelation of, a fact of immense importance to maritime States, patnely, a diminution in their power of effective attack. This diminution has been effected in a curious, and, as it were, accidental way, without any direct decrease jn the strength of navies, and merely through a.change in the first condition of the art of war. Nations have become armed, and armed nations cannot, in the existing condition, of naval armaments, be conveyed by sea. France, for example, is a very strong maritime power, possesses the second war navy in Europe, and has wealth sufficient to secure any reasonable number of transports. This navy is xeif well fitted, very well manned, in complete readiness, and altogether so strong as to be formidable to Great Britain, and decidedly superior to any other navy now existing in Europe. Nothing whatever has occurred to raise any suspicion of its efficiency; nor are there any accidental circumstances, such, for instance, as want of coal, or absence of enterprise, or peculiarity of geographical position, which would reduce it to a temporary inaction. There is an abundance of coal, there is a great wish to make the French fleet effective, and the enemy has a long sea coast, offering many points for attack, and many points at which a descent would be comparatively easy. Nevertheless, the value of the French fleet in the contest is comparatively small—is confined, in fact, to its power of impeding trade, of frightening one or two considerable towns on the coast, and of inflicting a certain humiliation upon the German navy. To make the fleet efficient, it must be aided by a force capable of maintaining itself upon the coast —and such a force to be safe must comprise a number of men which no .existing navy would undertake to convey. No navy, except the British, could convey in one trip for any long distance more than 40,000 men. It is extremely difficult to pack a complete regiment of 1,000 men in a steamer of any available size for £iny voyage, however short ; and when the steamers are of average sizes, and artillery, aad cavalry, and impedimenta, and food have all to be conveyed, it is useless to reckon on less than three good sized vessels for every thousand men. One hundred and twenty first-class transports make a.considerable fleet,requiring a large convoy of ironclads; yet that fleet cannot convey in safety and ease more than 40,000 men, and 40,000 men cannot without useless hardihood attack an armed nation. They might seize a port, say Hamburg, but they could not hold it, or, holding it, cculd not make an advance which would materially affect the fortunes of the war. The days are past when 40,000 made up a considerable army. General Von Falkensteiu, whose .command is a secondary one, and who is almost forgotten amid the great struggles occurring in North-East Fiance, has still 150,000 men under his orders, and is said to wish for nothing so much as the landing of an expeditionary corps at Cuxhaven, which he would immediately proceed to destroy. Whether that report is true or not, it is quite certain that he could either destroy it or reduce it to inaction, and that consequently the abandonment of the Baltic expedition, which has been recalled to defend Paris, will have little effect upon the fortunes of the war. Armed nations, in 'fact, are in the field, and no force which can be conveyed in one trip by sea can have any effect upon their col.ss.il strength ; while to make many trips is to leave the first expedition isolated, without communications, and without supplies of necessary food. The effect of this change upm the position of Great Britain deserves attention. We could, no doubt, if masters of the sea, by a supreme effort convey 80,000 men to any scene of action; but unless those 80,000 landed upon a friendly coast, or a coast so near that many trips would not be equivalent to many desertions, we .could hardly land them in the face of the immense armies it is now the custom to bring into the field. General Yon Falkensteiu, for example, would dispose of our expedition's almost as rapidly as lie would have done of the French one ; and, practically, the only coast we could descend upon, with.any reasonable chance of success, is that of Belgium or France. We could, of course, injure any coast, bus modern war hardiy allows the bombard-

naent of peaceful towns ; and if the ports were left unguarded wo could, without a descent, effect little beyond a diversion, detaching, as in the Prussian case, only a corps d'arinee from the main body. This is a very serious diminution of our power, our navy having formerly enabled us to transport to any place an army as able to keep the, field as any army to which it .was at all likely to be opposed ; while, at present, an army such as Wellington led into the Peninsula would be destroyed by such a leader as the Crown Prince, merely by sacrificing man for man. On the other hand, this change immensely increases the safety of Great Britain herself from any attack not directed or supported by France. She cannot be invaded except by sea, and by sea she cannot be invaded by more than 50, 60, or, supposing Rotterdam the point of departure, possibly 80,000 men at once. The limit of military necessity, therefore, with her—that is, of a necessity it is impossible to avoid—is a force capable of crushing, and crushing rapidly, a complete army of 80,000 men. Such a force is not only within our power without conscription, or other violent change in our existing social system, but is, or in a few days will be, actually under arms. Without any undue national vanity, we may fairly believe that our troops—whose first characteristic is the Prussian one, the power of maintaining steadily an irresistible fire—r-are the equals of any other troops, and we shall in a few days have 100,000 of them, supported by 40.000 very good militia, quite equal to soldiers in a defensive war, and 160,000 volunteers, who in all but discipline are precisely the Prussian Landwehr over again, and who would find discipline enough in the danger itself. Such a force ought to be able, would be able, to crush any army that can be car ried by sea ; and we have only to see that it is efficient even in the minutest details, that for instance, it has mean 3 of speedy locomotion, to be as safe from any hostile attack as any State in which the population are not soldiers, and which will not willingly endure to make them soldiers, could be expected to be. If we want more than this, a point' on which we express no opinion, must change our position ; but it is clear that for mere safety we are sufficiently, provided—that all these marvellous events around us, the battles with hundreds of thousands on each side, and the marches of armed nations and sudden collapse of empires, do not, if steadily considered, affecc our position at all.

Two residents at Otakia, Ofago—Messrs. M'Laivn and M'Kegg— have made persevering effort 3 to find coal in that locality, but without success. Mr M'Laren gave up after sinking a shaft to the depth of 90 ft, while Mr M'ltegg sank no less than five shafts to a depth varying from 20 ft to 70 ft. A Wanganui telegram in the Wellington Independent, Nov. 3, says:—Henry Anderson, Editor of the Chronicle, has suddenly left Wanganui. He was taken to the Hospital, but broke out, contrary to regulations, and went in the direction of Eangxtiki. The Chroniele came out on Tuesday with Anderson's name removed, and with Hutchinson's name in the imprint. ■ wii ii mmrtrr —rm —i ■ ■»— iiini mm11111 mri ■ n nrßi-.—""if —»■ imff m«r«««Mi»wwomßWeOßW