We feel that we cannot leave the question of naval
defence without observing that, though it is absolutely necessary that we should, if possible, possess two capital ships for every capital battleship possessed by Germany, we must never forget that we cannot maintain our supremacy at sea by construc- tion alone. The possession of capital battleships is no doubt a sine DO non, but those battleships arc useless unless they are properly manned and organised. The country is awake now, but it must not concentrate its thoughts solely on 'Dreadnoughts.' It must also ask : "Is the Fleet that we have got an instantly ready' or only a practically ready' Fleet" ? To be specific, is it right that so many vessels should only be manned by nucleus crews P Next we must ask : Is the disposition of our Fleets the best that can be devised on strategic grounds ? Are we dispersing when we ought to concentrate P We shall return to these matters on another occasion ; but for fear of misrepresentation, let us say that we fully realise that a war- ship with a nucleus crew is better than a warship in reserve with no crew at all. What, however, no expert will ever be able to persuade us is that a ship fully manned and ready for instant service is not better than a ship which cannot go to sea with her full complement of men for some twenty-four hours, and cannot obtain that human homogeneity which is essential to naval efficiency until several months have elapsed.
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