HOME DEFENCE.
LORD LOVAT'S request in the House of Lords on Monday for information as to the number of first- class battleships, fully manned, in home waters on February 13th, led up, as was no doubt intended, to an important discussion of the whole question of home defence. If we were asked to define the state of opinion on this old but vital subject, we should say that there are fewer signs of disagreement than ever between the two great political parties as to the need for supporting the Navy with an adequate Army. The " blue-water " policy in its extreme form is professed by no statesman. Lord Lansdowne assumed that Lord Lovat in addressing himself to the Government was preaching " to those already converted." And yet, in spite of this substantial agreement in Parliament, the country is less alive now than ever to the danger of a surprise invasion. For some reason, most Englishmen have put the question away as one that has been satisfactorily settled long ago (they do not generally try to remember when or how), and about which they need no longer trouble themselves. Thus the situation is a paradox. While the leaders of both political parties are agreed that there is danger, great or small according to their points of view, the country is, to use the old phrase, "drowned in security." A good deal of this false sense of security must be attributed to a notorious speech which Mr. Balfour made in May, 1905. He dismissed, or seemed to dismiss, the danger of invasion altogether. He was then President of the Defence Committee, and he spoke on the authority of information which he could not disclose. In the debate on Monday Lord Lansdowne explained that Mr. Balfour's speech really postulated the existence of an adequate Army behind the Navy. But after all, the country can do no moie than take Mr. Balfour's speeches for what they seem to mean, and it is not surprising that a speech delivered in such circumstances, apparently inviting the country to dismiss a familiar and troublesome bogey, was received gratefully as a guarantee of safety. Lord Lovat said on Monday that he could trace the effect of Mr. Balfour's speech on the recruiting of the Auxiliary Forces.
Men answer an appeal with Mr. Balfour says the country will not be invaded. Why should we serve ? " But before saying another word on the influence of Mr. Balfour's speech it is desirable to state quite moderately the danger as it exists.
" Surprise," said Lord Roberts, " is the essence of success in war." This maxim contains almost all the law and the prophets of making war. It is the unexpected coup which shatters well-organised plans and throws large forces into confusion. The coup is unexpected just because it seems too audacious to succeed. But audacity may do anything, as military history has proved from the time of Gideon onwards, and we have no right to consider that audacity will not be an element in the conduct of our future enemy, whoever he may be. Let us take the situation as it was at the moment when Lord Tweedmouth answered Lord Lovat's questions. Only one first-class battleship in full commission was at home, and she had just entered dock for repairs, which would take two or three months. Of the other ships in full commission, about sixty were manoeuvring at Lagos, three days' steam from home. Our shores were therefore protected at close quarters, not by our " ready " fleet, but by a " practically ready" fleet. Lord Tweedmouth, it is true, gave an inspiriting account of the promptitude with which ships with nucleus crews were got ready for sea when a surprise order came, but one has no assurance as to what might happen if " a bolt from the blue " came when a large part of the crews were away, say, on Saturday. A Saturday afternoon's leave is the kind of gap that is overlooked when the eye of authority runs over the whole field of home defence, because it is our comfortable way to think of any disturbance of the peace during the sacred time of leave as a violation of routine so preposterous as to be almost an upheaval of natural law. Of course, it is not suggested seriously that large portions of crews should never be allowed away from their ships at the same time. On the contrary, that would be es, ixtexoueable sort of panic-mongering which is at all
costs to be avoided. But we do mean that it is precisely the trifling gap in our national armour, a gap perhaps too small to be attended to by great minds, that is watched, studied, and used by an attentive enemy. The naval situation which Lord Tweedmouth described might quite easily recur in war. Suppose that we were fighting against two nations at the same time, our Fleet might be engaged in searching out and destroying the Navy of one nation, while the Navy of the other would be free to convoy a raiding party and harass our shipping. Lord Portsmouth said last December that there was no danger of more than ten thousand men being landed by an enemy in England ; but that is suspiciously like all those arbitrary estimates which it is the function of war to upset. The Norfolk Commission, at all events, could come to no conclusion on the matter.
It will be said : " But surely you do not suppose that our neighbours are such brigands and savages that they will attack us without the least warning although we have no quarrel with them? " If we thought that the only danger lay in acts of brigandage and savagery by the great civilised nations of Europe, we should sleep in our beds as comfortably as any one. The danger is of sudden clouds of dissension which spring into existence from a clear sky. Lord Portsmouth on Monday stated the case solely from the brigandage point of view, and in our opinion did far less than justice to the temperately worded recognitions of danger which came from both sides of the House. To take only one example of "a bolt from the blue," there was the Dogger Baal- affair, which happened when there was no British fleet near at hand. It is the sudden crisis, not the long-deliberated international difficulty, which commonly passes into war. And it should be remembered that generally the state of war is not even announced ; the arrival of the enemy is often the first word, as it was in the case of the unhappy Russian ships at Chemulpo. Sir Frederick Maurice has pointed out that, of a hundred and seventeen wars between civilised countries from 1700 to 1870, only ten were preceded by a declaration. Lord Roberts when he says that the risk we are taking is enormous is entitled to be heard with deep attention, not only because he has had more experience of war than any other Englishman, but because he has changed his mind, as he candidly confesses. Once he thought we were sufficiently safeguarded by the Navy, but he no longer thinks so. Surprise, owing to quicker means of communication and transport, is easier than ever, and the Japanese War showed that the propor- tion of men to tonnage in transports may be considerably higher than we thought. Lord Roberts drew a painfully interesting picture of an enemy landing somewhere on the East Coast, and dividing the main body of the Regular Army, which is in the South of England, from the main body of the Volunteers, who are in the great manufacturing towns of the North.
The need to reinforce the Navy with an adequate second line of military defence is urged on us, then, by the highest authority. The problem of Imperial defence, though making us all conscious of the unity of the Empire, has done us a disservice in one way by causing us often to lose sight of this interior problem of home defence. Even if the risk of invasion were as small as some persons think, we should not be justified in taking any risk whatever that can be lessened or removed. The Manchester Guardian, a devout supporter of the Government, excellently says:— " A sound system of defence must take every possibility into account, however remote ; it must have an answer even for the alarmists or it is to that extent imperfect.
If there is no such force [an adequate land force], a navy loses its liberty of movement; it is tied to its moorings on the coast where invasion is threatened ; it can never aim at, far less obtain, the ' mastery of the sea.' It seems to us bad policy to minimise the importance of facts so obvious • they are far better accepted and analysed." Mr. Balfour's too-well-remembered speech, as we have said, has unfortunately " minimised the importance of obvious facts." He told us in so many words that most of us need not trouble about that oldest duty of nations,— self-defence, the honourable office of bearing arms, not for aggression, but for the righteous defence of one's home. If Mr. Balfour's assurance were acted on too long, the moral effect would be nothing less than an unmanning of the nation.
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