The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-05-24

whether the real empire of the sea may
not even now have slipped out of our
hands while our attention has been
liked on our stately procession OF giant
warships, while our country has been
In a dream, hypnotzed by the dread
nought idea.
For some years there seems to havA
been a complete arrest of the British
imagination in naval and military mat
ters That declining faculty. never
very active or well exercised one. stag
scred up to the conception of a dread
nought and seems now to have sat down
for good. Its reply to every demand
upon 1t has been ''more dreadnoughts."
The future, as we British seem to see 1t.
Is an avenue of dreadnoughts and super
dreadnoughts and super-superdread-
noughts. getting bigger and bigger in a
kind of inverted perspective. But the
ascendency of fleets of great battleships
in naval warfare, like the phase of huge
conscript armies upon land, draws to
Its close. The progress of invention
makes both the big ship and the army
crowd more and more vulnerable and
less and less effective. \ new phase of
warfare opens beyond the vista Of our
current programmes. smaller more nu-
merous and various and mobile weapons
and craft and contrivanccs. manned by
daring and highly skilled men. must ul-
timately take the place of those mas
sivenesses. We are entering upon n
period In which the invention Of methods
and material for war is likely to be
more rapid and diversified than It has
ever been before and the question of
what we have been doing behind the
In, Of 4 .1tt., la ..
meet the demands of this new phase is
one of supreme Importance. Knowing.
as l do, the imaginative Incidence of
my countrymen, 1t is a question | face
with something very near to dismay
But 1t Is one that has to be faced.
The question that should occupy our
directing minds now is no longer How
can We get more Granddaughter" but
What have we to follow the dread
noughts?"
To the Power that has most nearly
guessed the answer to that riddle be-
longs the future empire of the seas.
IL is interesting to guess for oneself
and to speculate upon the poss bility
OF kind Of armored mother ship for
waterplanes and submarines and tor.
pedo craft, hut necessarily that would
be mere journalistic and amateursh
guessing. | am not guessing. hut asking
urgent questions. What force. what coun-
ell, how many imaginative and inventive
men has the country got at the pres
ent time employed not casually hut pro-
fessionally in anticipating the new
strategy the new tactics. the new ma
terial. the new training that invention
ID is so rapidly rendering necessary? I
have the gravest doubts whether we are
doing anything systematic at all in this
way.
Now 1t Is the tremendous seriousness
of this deficiency To which want to call
attention. Great Britain has in her ar
NOR gap more dangerous and vital
than any mere numerical insuiiicionCy of
men or ships. She is short of minds
Behind its strength of current arma-
ments to-day. strength that begins to
evaporate and grow obsolete from the
very moment Ii comes into being, a
country needs more and more this pro-
founder strength of intellectual and
creative activity.
This country most OF all. which was
left so far behind in the production of
submarines, airships and aeroplanes
must he made to realize the folly of its
trust in established things. Each new
tHlnS we ldhf up IlbIt anu
reluctantly than its predecessor. The
time Is not far distant when we shall
be Caught" tagging unless we change
all this.
We need new arm to our service
we need it urgently, and we shall need
II more and more. and that arm is re-
search. We need to place inquiry and
experiment upon a new footing alto
gether, to enlist for them and organize
them. to secure the pick of our young