Morning journal and courier., 1880-04-15
cSournal and Gouriep.
Thursday Morning, April 15. 1880.
A mORTIFY1NG NAVY.

There seems to be at last partial awaken l ing to the necessity of overhauling and reor-
 ganizing the navy of the United States, and if
 we are to have navy at all it is high time that it was made effective and kept so There is no sense in making a show on paper with the names of lot of old hulks in various stages of decay. which are only fit to be broken up or used as training ships and those war vessels which are at all seaworthy are entirely out of date and about as useless to pit against tho war vessels of other powers as Noah's ark would be.
 We have constructed only thirteen new ships since the war, but have for the most part been content to patch up the cid ones, and very expensive process this patching up has been. The result of this policy is that out of ninety five ships of which our navy, exolu- sive of sailing vessels, is now made up, there is not one which, in the opinion of competent 1 seamen, is fit to cross the Atlantic. We have four wooden steamships rated first class, of five thousand tons burden four wooden ships of the second class, whose tonnage is about three thousand; ffty-eight third and fourth class wooden ships, and twenty -four ironclads, whose varying patterns are alike in the one particu- lar Of being obsolete, and with burden rang ing from five hundred to twenty-five hundred tons If all these vessels were efficient we should not be so i'll provided, but only four of them the Trenton, Essex, Vandalia and Adams, three of which are third rates with an average burden of fifteen hundred tons-are equal to the task of making twelve knots an hour without slowing up to rest. Eight knots an hour is the average speed of the other unarmored frigates, while the ironclads, taken all round, cannot accom- plish more than eight. The all-round speed of the British navy, including both armed and unarmed vessels, is thirteen knots an hour, and uneaasing efforts are being made to raise the standard. The steel clad Iris. gently launched at Pembroke, exceeded seven- teen miles an hour on it's trial trip. England for thirteen years has been building war ships at the rate Of twenty thousand tons g year, iron-c and otherwise, and all the other great European nations have beon following the example as nearly as their means allowed. We for the same period have constructed about two thousand tons yearly, costing less than half million of dollars, and all unsr- mored.
 comparison of the strength, or rather the weakness, of our navy with the naval strength of some of the other nations strongly empha- sizes the need of different policy in the United States. We do not occupy even re- spectacle position as 8 naval power. Take first tho number of ships. We have in all but 142 and AS Of these cannot fire gun. In 1879 Great Britain had 531, France 226, Rus sia 223, Turkey 17O Ia that year Great Brit ain had 81, 447 men doing naval duty, France 5o,517, Russia 30, ,Os9, Turkey 1000, the United States 8, ,684 In addition it may be stated that He have less than 250 guns afoat in our entire navy, and of these less than forty are riflsd and ali the rest ara antiquated smooth bores.
 It will be seen from the above that we could not ''sweep the sea" to any great extent if oe- casion for it should soon arise. Some think we do not need navy, but if it should bs- come necessary to enforce the Monroe doc trine or any ether of our national doctrines, the need of navy would become immediately and painfully apparent. We ought at least to have as good Q navy as Turkey.