[TO THE EDITOR OP THE 'SPECTATOR."]
unfortunately missed reading in the Spectator of October 7th your reference to the article by the author of "A Retrograde Admiralty," but I gather from his remarks in your impression of the 14th that he is accused by the Spectator of "attacking" (inter "quick steaming." If, Sir, you were guilty of advocating the advantages of superior speed in our battleships and cruisers, you have a very large naval following, and if you (as I am) are impressed with the written views of officers, both Japanese and Russians, who were present in the naval actions of the late war, on the value of speed, you will be further convinced of your soundness on this point. And setting aside the experience gained in the late war, is it not common-sense to feel that superior speed "commands the situation," that it tends to nullify the tactics of an enemy, that it assists in the more rapid development of your own, and that it enables a beaten enemy to be followed up when with superior speed on his side he would escape ? To most of us the advantages of superior speed have been fully demonstrated by the late war, and if the author of "A Retrograde Admiralty" is no happier in convincing us to the contrary than he is in trying to prove to the public that the most "up-to-date" and progressive Admiralty we have had in my fifty years of naval service is retrogressive, his opinions
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