The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-15 00:00:00

THE NAVY ESTIMATES.

Ship-money, in a new sense of the term, seems
destined once more to alarm Englishmen for their
rights and their purses. We have spent upon ships
such incredible sums of money, and we are asked
for such large additional sums every year, that the
country has at length passed from bewilderment to
impatience, and from impatience to clamour. It is
hard to say how many commissions or committees
are sitting or have been sitting upon various sub-
jects connected with our naval expenditure ; and a
new committee, charged with a more comprehen-
sive mission than any of its predecessors, has
just now been appointed. If it be really
true, as stated in the debate, that " the ship-
a private room with the
bbuyiltdhinegFiorsft
Lordthe ninavy is completely managed
" Surveyor," we can form some idea of the way in
which the money goes ; but the real source of ex-
travagance we believe to be this—that we are
always in arrear of the age as respects our models,
so that we first lavish vast sums upon obsolete pat-
terns, and then incur fresh expenses for the purpose
of precipitate reconstruction. The history of our
dockyards for the last 10 years would make this suffi-
ciently plain. We might have saved at least five years'
outlay upon sailing ships, but we persisted in build-
ing them after steam had been established, and con-
sequently had to pay for our work twice over. We
again clung tenaciously to the paddlewheel after the
superiority of the screw had been proved, and the
result is that a considerable portion of even our
steam fleet is still of doubtful efficiency, so that we
divide our frigates and sloops and screws and
paddles with a mark of disparagement, if not con-
demnation, against the latter class. At last, how-
ever, we seemed to be emerging from these embar-
rassments, when the new question of iron against
wood plunged us once more into the old difficulties.
It is, we fear, but too plain that we have again
fallen into our old errors ; but something may yet
be saved by timely warning, and it is on that
account we revert to the subject.
Iron appears now to be so far recognised as to he
preferred to wood for all the ships of war above the
rating of a frigate. That was the doctrine recently
expressed in Mr. Lindsay's resolutions, and pointed
at in Mr. Corry's motion for a return of all the
wooden ships of two decks and upwards now build-
ing. To a certain extent, indeed, the principle
seems to have been accepted even at the Admiralty,
for Lord C. Paget informed the house on Monday
evening that whereas they had intended to build be-
tween three and four line-of-battle ships in the year
1860, they only built actually between two and three
of these vessels. Nevertheless, it is clear enough
that we have only seen our way after much of the
mischief was done, for within the last two years
we have doubled the numbers of this very class of
ships, and, indeed, only a few months ago were
pluming ourselves upon the achievement. The
French had not laid down a wooden ship of the
first or second rate since 1856, whereas we started
in 1859 with a sudden resolution to launch a whole
fleet of these vessels at any cost. After what has
been admitted in Parliament, it must be perfectly
obvious that if we had commenced our ironsides in
1859 as we are beginning them now, and had aban-
doned the old pattern as no longer serviceable, we
should have saved the cost of some 25 line-of-battle
ships, and possessed ourselves of a strong fleet of the
new model to boot. We may say much the same of
our frigates. The Secretary of the Admiralty de-
scribed our position in this respect as being " ex-
tremely satisfactory," meaning that by our recent
exertions we had raised this department of the
fleet to a good standard of strength and efficiency ;
but what will be the result if it should be proved
that frigates also are the better for being cased in
iron ? We shall then find ourselves with a nume-
rous squadron of these vessels just as they are super-
seded by a fresh model, and it will be the old story of
the sailing ship and the paddle over again. With
regard to smaller vessels the case is still more strik-
ing, inasmuch as this is the particular point upon
which we are engaged at this moment. Lord C.
Paget, having prudently said little about line-of-
battle-ships, and rather prematurely congratulated
his hearers in theniatter of frigates, observed that the
energies of the Admiralty would for the ensuing
year be devoted " mainly to the construction of
those most useful ships—sloops, and gun and de-
spatch vessels." No doubt these are very useful
ships indeed, and we dare say the " improvements
which are taking place in this class" have had a
natural effect in urging on the Admiralty to " the
completion of a great numberof them," according to
the Secretary's promise. But unluckily we have a
great number of them already, and find ourselves,
as usual, with a splendid stock of the very vessels
which " improvements" have rendered obsolete. It
was but five or six years ago that the " energies of
the Admiralty*" were " devoted to the the comple-
tion" of all immense flotilla of this identical class,
and at the present moment upwards of 300 out of
the 505 vessels composing our Steam Navy are
sloops, small vessels, and gunboats. Of sloops alone
we have nearly 100, 58 of them being screws. It
will be said that we built this flotilla in haste for
the Russian War, and that if the model has been
since improved we must needs keep pace with the
times. Granted ; but is it quite certain that we are
taking the best model at this minute Is it cer-
tain that iron armour will not be found applicable
with decided advantage even to gunboats ? We
can only say that the French have built some iron-
casedemsthoefseadtmminr
things better in
spoke
heyo fc tehr ot
as
ien
Tye s sdeol smi na
ntaegr
gunboats, and that Lord C. Paget himself
France, and for the simple reason, apparently, that
there is no obstructiveness at headquarters, and no
indisposition to accept a new discovery. The con-
sequence is that there is no money thrown away on
useless work. The French build their ships of the
most modern type, and, indeed, set the fashion in
this, as they do in other matters. We are always
two or three years behind the world. We ought to
have had our screw deckers in 1857, when they were
the best line-of-battle ships known, instead of in
1860, when they had been superseded. We ought
to have our ironsides now, in 1861, instead
of in 1863, when they will probably be finished.
It is confessed now that the theory is a sound one,
but how was it that we, with all our mechanical pre•
tensions, took so long a time to make the discovery !
It could not be accident, for the thing has occurred
over and over again ; in fact, it invariably happens
in the case of any new invention. We persist in
shutting our eyes to conditions which other people
have accepted, and then, as a necessary conse-
quence, we spend our money over again in efforts
to recover lost ground. At this very moment
we have only overtaken our neighbours just
when it would have been better not to have
done so. Assuming, as the aspect of the case
most favourable for us, that for all vessels except
line-of-battle ships wood is still the best material,
and limiting our view, therefore, to this class alone,
what is it that we discover on a comparison of the
two Navies ? We find that, whereas France has 35
screw line of battle ships afloat and 2 building, we
have 53 afloat and 14 bUilding or converting,
or nearly twice as many as our neighbours.
If, however, an iron-cased ship is the only ship
for the line of battle, it follows that our E upe-
riority is a superiority in encumbrances only.
We have succeeded by two years of tremendous
efforts in stocking our harbours with twice as
many inefficient vessels as the French possess.
That is the result of our recent expenditure—the
upshot, in this branch at least, of the " reconstruc-
tion of our Navy." The moral, we think, is plain.
We must keep our minds, as well as our eyes,
more open to the progress of things around us.
We must be more ready to accept new invention&
' instead of clinging with bigoted tenacity to vital)-
. lished models. We cannot shut out improvement
if we would, for what others do we must needs do
also, and we do but lose the lead by delay. After
nftaer
all, a more liberal system need notessa ntly cost u
building
additional penny. As we are incessantly
have only got to
n
e
ships on some model or other,
build them on the best model known at the time,
by which simple plan shall
we save our outlay on
keep ahead of the world
and
exploded patterns,
besides.-2intes.