IS THE NEW FLEET A FAILURE?
HETHER the careful limitation of the Naval Manceuvres to deliberate fleet evolutions, and the exclusion of correspondents from the ships, have for their object, as some critics allege, the concealment of the break- down in the speed of our new cruising fleet, or whether the spare space on board half-a-dozen line-of-battle ships, and three times that number of torpedo-gunboats and torpedo- boats, is not equal to providing the necessary accommoda- tion, need concern the public little. For even if the first allegation is true—and no one who is familiar with the shifts and devices of the Admiralty to conceal shortcomings, will doubt that it might well be true—the weekly record of breakdowns, as ship after ship fails to do its speed, makes any precaution of the kind as useless as the suspicion of it is humiliating. When Lord George Hamilton abandoned the pretence that the new ships came up to modern re- quirements of speed by forbidding the use of forced draught, it was pointed out in the Spectator that the admission carried with it consequences far more serious than those stated by the First Lord in his Memorandum., and that the results of trials quoted from showed that a deficiency of three to four knots per hour, and not one and a half as stated by the First Lord, would be the pro- bable result of this backward step in the history cf our steam Navy. This exasperating failure, as every one knows, has occurred, not because the designs of the ships were bad, but because the old type of boiler was kept to do new work beyond its power, with just enough change to make whatever merits it had disappear. It is to this, which is elegantly but in- accurately described in the First Lord's Memorandum as "the hasty adoption of a faulty principle or immature idea in the designs," that all the trouble is due ; the fact being that, with the exception of making the fires at both ends instead of at one, which had the result of burning to death a few stokers on the Barracouta,' the boilers were much the same as they were before high-pressure and forced draught were demanded of them. Since the admission of their failure, which was not made until a third of the new ships had broken down, instead of boldly trying the new type of boiler so extensively used in foreign Navies, in which the water is taken in tubes over the fire, instead of the fire passing in tubes through the water, a type in which "leaky tubes" which have caused all the mischief are unknown, the Admiralty have taken a credit of £920,000 —why not take a million at once ?—for tinkering and altering the old bad boilers, because they are afraid "to try a new experiment," being blind to the fact that every ship they launch with the present boilers is an "experi- ment," often of a disastrous kind. So they are filling up parts of their boilers with bricks, and. pulling out tubes, and building a funnel a hundred feet high to their splendid new cruiser, the Blake,' with other strange makeshifts. It was mentioned in the Spectator that the results of the steam-trials of this fine vessel would probably afford an interesting comment on the whole bad business ; and if the stories which come from Chatham are true, this will be even worse than could have been anticipated. In this vessel's designs, nothing was grudged to give speed, and in return for enormous size, cost, and a very light armament, the Chief Engineer of the Navy promised 20,000 horse- power, which would give the great speed of 22 knots. It is now commonly stated that an outside speed of 19 knots may be obtained, and that the boilers are not expected to give more than 13,000 horse-power. We hope these reports may be falsified by the event ; but recent results of other trials give little ground for hope. One first-class cruiser, the Latona,' really did her speed of 20 knots, and the event was the subject of much advertisement. It was confidently predicted that all the Latonas ' would do their speed. Here is the result in the case of a sister- ship, the Melampus,' which is also instructive as an instance of the " cooking " which these accounts—even when appearing in the naval intelligence of a leading paper—are allowed to undergo :—" The Melampus,' one of the cruisers of the ' Latona ' class, made an eight-hours' full-power trial of her propelling machinery under natural draught at Portsmouth, under the command of Commander Neald. The sea was as smooth as a millpond. The result of the steaming was even more satisfactory than that of the Latona,' by the same contractors As the bottom of the vessel was foul, it was not deemed expedient to test her for speed on the measured mile ; but the approximate result was a speed of 18 knots." Here we are asked to believe that a new ship, whose contractors are bound to obtain certain results or pay forfeit, was sent for trial with a foul bottom, and are then asked to accept an "approximate result," instead of a measured-mile trial! It is not surprising to hear after this that the "forced-draught" trial was postponed, and the 20 knots never realised ! The Latonas ' are, however, the best of the new ships yet tried ; the others have been taken over from the contractors at any speed which could be got.
This helpless attitude is described in the First Lord's Memorandum by one of those verbal devices with which we are now familiar as " overcoming " the difficulty, "by changes reducing the estimated horse-power and speed of the vessels " ! Truly a strange way of overcoming a diffi- culty !—but this is not more ludicrous than the pompous attempts to depreciate the speed-test which the Chief Constructor designed his vessels to fulfil. The measured mile is described as "a fallacious test." Why was not this discovered before the engines were designed and failed ? The Board of Admiralty, in self-defence, do, however, let in a side-light on the awkward question as to who is responsible for the blunder. It is the Engineer-in- Chief who was solely responsible, the only complication being that the Engineer-in-Chief who designed the boilers and engines has left the service, while the present Engineer-in-Chief is responsible for the retention of his predecessor's failure. The Chief Constructor designs the ship ; an independent official, the Engineer-in-Chief, undertakes to let him have the horse-power necessary to give the speed he requires ; and in this case he has egregiously failed. This "unusually heavy responsi- bility," to quote Lord George's Memorandum, "is centred on the Engineer-in-Chief, and cannot be shared by members of the Board of Admiralty." But in future the Engineer-in-Chief is to be aided by a Committee of Inspectors of Machinery, though the Admiralty "desire to record their full confidence in the Engineer-in-Chief." Whether the public will share this confidence is another matter. A fair question to ask is, whether the Admiralty will also take the public into its confidence, and state squarely and without disguise what are the real facts as to the boilers and the speeds of the Navy. If not there will be an awkward settlement some day, in which post- ponement will only increase the ultimate condemnation of those responsible. Meantime, it is still open to the Engineer-in-Chief to make a change. It has been stated that one of the last ships to be built with the twenty millions voted for the special programme, is to be fitted with a water-tube boiler. The change, though so late, is still a step in the right direction. But why such timidity ? The authority which sanctioned the "hasty adoption of a faulty principle" in twenty million pounds' worth of ships, is now going to risk the success of the new departure by leaving it.to the chances which always threaten the success of a single vessel. The change must be made sooner or later, and the experiment, if experiment it is, should be made with every chance for its speedy and complete success.
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