The age-herald., 1898-07-05
WITHHOLDING
 GUNS OUT OF DATE

The first and most significant lesson of the war between Spain and the United States has been the danger of an obsolete armament. At Manila the Spanards may have been badly commanded, but they cer- tainly did not want courage. With pluck and a moderate amount of luck they ought than eight American wounded, when their own butchers bill was 614. Yet they killed not a. single American, and inflicted the most trivial damage upon Admiral Dewey's ships.
 The explanation is their guns were old and weak. They were breech-loaders, it is true, but breech-loaders of an ancient pat tern, and so the Spanish ships were torn to pieces and the Spanish seamen slaughtered without the possibility of injuring their op- ponents.
 Precisely the same thing might happen to a British fleet. England has ships on her effective list armed with guns of an even older and more obsolete pattern than those which disgraced Admiral Montejo's squad ron and brought defeat upon his flag. She has, that is to say, the famous muzzle- ioaders, which, in any other fleet would
  um But the British are a conservative people, and the British Ministry of Marine is a conservative institution.
 By the latest return of British warships there no less than forty-three ships armed with zle-loaders in the British navy These are:
 Sixteen -battleships.-Ajax, Agamemnon, Temeraire, Infiexible, Superb, Alexandra Dreadnaught, Neptune, Triumph, Swift sure, Sultan, Iron Duke, Invincible, Auda- cious, Monarch, Hercules.
 Twelve Coast Defense-Orion Belleisle, Hydra, Gorgon, Hecate, Cyclops, Glatton, Hotspur, Penelope, Prince Albert Wivein Scorpion.
 Nine Cruisers armored)-Northampt Nelson, shannon, Northumberland, Agln- court, Achilles, Minotaur, Black Prince, Warrior.
 Six Cruisers-Constance Carysfort Be- adicea, Active, Voltage, Ineonstant.
 The muzzle-loading gun was abandoned by the British admiralty as far back as 1SS0-eghteen years ago-and ought long ago to have vanished from all our ships. It was abandoned because it was inferior in power, accuracy, rapidity of fire and ease of handling to the breech-loader. Pow CT, accuracy, rapidity of fire and ease of handling in guns represent exactly those features which decide battles.
 How bad the muzzle-ioader is does not seem to De realized by BfltlSh clt1ZenS. A few figures may give some clear idea.
 Nine-inch muzzle-loader pierees eleven inches of armor and strikes a blow capable of lifting 36s1 tons one foot
 S,x-inch quck-firer of newest pattern pierceS twenty-one inches of armor and strikes a blow capable of lifting 4,S00 tons one foot.
 And the modern gun weighs little more than half the old gun; can be fired ten times for the muzzleloader's once. and is without exaggeration three times as likely to hit the-target.
 Certainly the English are a conservative race! Their seamen may be brave-and we know that they are brave-but I shud- der at the fate of men who are sent out with 9-inch muzzle-loaders to meet ships armed with 6-inch quick-firers or guns even better. For the new French guns are as good as, if not better than, even the British best. They have been adopted by Russia as the finest quiclS-frers existing.
 England will pay for this neglect some day. One fine morning war will come, and she will wake to the fact that one-fourth of her battleships are useless, or worse than useless, since she has counted upon them and imagined that they were fit and ready for service.
 She will pay for her neglect in the slaughter of British seamen, and in ships captured by the enemy And then per haps she will discover that Bismarck spoke the truth when he said, If we have to risk the life-blood of our men against our enemies in the field we are bound to give them the best weapons that money and science can provide"