The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1877-02-10

/ ITVfu u lhiu DuJulc, I'LL lHe HuVHntHpcb pOe-
siblo from naval engagement aro few
and insignificant. A land victory may be
followed up; not only is the opposing army
scattered, but the positions which IL fought
to guard and hold arc also won, and nm
avenue Is opened for new successes and the
conquering Of an advantageous peace; but
when fleet sinks or dsablcs its cncmy's
vessels It has done all IL can do. IT can't
| follow up tho victory by going into the
enemy's harbors. for modern appliances for
bid that. II has won empty glory. and that
| is ALL
Tho failure Of the greatest feet ever
| got together In Europe to even attempt
to enter Cronstadt, for which purpose 1t was
| specially collected during tho Crlmean war;
opened the eyes Of the military world to the
! fact that the power OF naval ornaments
| had boen vastly overrated, and that naval
fleets must in the future take a place among
the antiquated appliances of warfare. When
Sir CHARLES NAPIER failed at Cronstadt, tho
English people were indignant and humli-
atcd at tho idea that their great fleets on
which they had lavishcd 50 much money
were little better than playthings; and dur
ing tho whole Crlmean war these ships ac-
complished nothing for the nation except as
transports. The English oven took sailors
from the naval vessels in tho Black sea TO
put In the trenches to man guns in the bat
tcries before scbastopol.
The great, numbering ironclads OF Eng
land, France. and Germany. drawing from
twenty-five to twenty-eight feet of water,
take in the navics Of to-day the place of the
linc-of-battc ships Of the Crimcan war; and
they are still moro ineffective, in view OF
the engineering resources now available
against them, than the old vessels were
against the obstacles before which they
were powerlcss. Even tho British Inflcxi-
BE. with her twenty inches of iron and her
eighty-ton gun, and tho Italian Duilo, with
her onc-hundrei-ton gun, would be certainly
destroyed n they attempted TO enter road
stead or pass n channel suitably defended
by torpedOes. Their solo value, II they
have any value, is for harbor defence; and
| even for this purpose their enormous
draught of water, rendered necessary by
the great dimensions given them in order TO
carry fuel and stores for long voyages, So
riously units them. So far as practicable
purposes are concerned, they are really
nothing more than extraordinary exam
pies OF engineering skill The engineers
have practically ruined navies, as they
were when there was glory for the Jolly
tar, whose place nowadays is taken by
stOkcrs. The defence now has the advan-
tnge, for with torpedoes and rams and other
! appliances, a city can defend its harbor
against the combined fleets Of the world II
does not need to send out opposing fleets
but simply TO lie still and wait for the enc
my Ia come in its ncighborhood when 1t can
quietly blow him up or run him down; and
all the courage aud seamanship OF the as
sailant will be OF little avail to him.
France therefore will be wise in letting its
navy go into decline. 1t is absurd to at
tempt to build ships in competition with
England. Even II France had them, they
would he Of no use to her. There is some
thing farcical about the contest between
nations in building ronclads, each with
little thicker armor than the Last; and il
France goes out of the business she will
save money To cxpcnd in better ways. For
ilft on years England especially has been
building ironclads with a certain thickness
of plating, then guns which will shoot
| through them; then other ironclads with
heavier plating, and guns to shoot through
these. The result ia, that fleets on which,
| WllNln lus luSI lcn years. size HAS spent
millions, are now practically obsolete. The
| last performance in this line was the con-
| struction Of armor twenty-five inches thick.
the heaviest known; and then building Il
| hundred-ton gun to shoot through 1t.
Moreover, France Is a compact nation,
with few colonies, and docs not require much
Of a navy; while England, which has vast
colonial possessions and is an island, has
more need Of a navy than any other power ON
the earth. Our position is similar 10 that of
France. We require only very small navy
monitors for harbor defence, n good sys-
tenn Of torpedocs, and few very fast ships
of the Alabama sort, not Tor fighting pur-
poses, but to destroy the encmys COM
mcrcc
If these principles had been acted on by
SEcoR robson, the sixty or seventy mill
lions of dollars he has spent In building new
ships and tlmbering up old ones might have
been savcd-not to mention what his con-
| federates have grabbed. During this time,
spite of all this money, he has not produced
either ship or Il gun even approaching the
requirements Of the times. But if the money
had been saved, hoN much poorer SEcoR
robson, the CAITELLs, and JOHNNY Roach
might now bel
Grants Kindness to Bciknap.