THE NEW FLEET AT CHATHAM. A MONG the latest improvements in
the form in which the Naval Estimates are now annually presented to the House of Commons and the public, we must reckon that which gives the capitalised value of our Fleet, and its depreciation from year to year. It is a concession to the very proper demand for the treatment of a great national property upon the principles which are followed in private business, and gives a plain basis upon which sensible men can form a general idea, and if necessary a probable eriticism, of the present position and future needs of our first line of defence. But behind any such estimate of the existing fighting strength of the Navy lies the question of our ability to supply, not only its annual requirements for repairs and additions in time of peace, but its maximum power by a rapid supplement in time of war. In a recent correspondence in the Times, in reference to the dealings of the great Government manufacturing departments with private firms which have been in- vited to aid the public establishments in times of emer- gency, there has as yet appeared. no conjecture as to the kmount of national capital sunk in the existing " plant," not for the production of guns and ammunition, but for the main work of building her Majesty's ships. It would seem an obvious and necessary sequence of the valuation of our Fleet, that some idea should. be given of the capital value and productive power of the nation's dockyards, which in time of war will be expected to contribute the main share towards the supply and maintenance of the nation's Fleet; and before the next Naval Estimates are presented, it is not too much to hope that some such cal- culation may be ready for submission to the House of Commons. At present, most people are aware that a great naval vote has been granted ; that ironclads and cruisers have been built with a rapidity which no other nation could approach, and that somewhere on the Southern coasts these vessels are accumulating, and undergoing trials of speed with results more or less approaching the speeds 'which were promised, before joining the squadrons which are to hold " the gates of our enemies." But of the gradual accumulation of naval and military productive or defensive power on our Southern coasts—the only frontier on which we are at once re- minded, by the evidence of past and present preparation for defence and attack, that we are not an isolated com- munity in an illimitable ocean—there is little printed evidence to remind us. Few Londoners, for instance, realise that they live within an hour by rail of a first-class fortress ; and that within that fortress there is for the moment a fleet of the most modern and formidable con- struction, built mainly during the existence of the present Government. Yet until some such estimate as we have sug- gested is presented, the new forts which protect Chatham may still be as forgotten as the sheep-farms on the great chalk hills on which they lie ; and the new fleet, built and building in " Chatham Yard," may remain, as it is now, mainly an object of solicitude to the Chatham policemen. Yet the scene in the building-sheds at Chatham, and in the granite-bordered lakes on which the new vessels are now floating, is one which no Englishman can view without a cer- tain accession of national pride. The whole scene suggests the immensity- of the nation's growth ; for round the new ships lie the ancient fortresses, like old. suits of armour, outgrown, but too solid to be thrown off ; yet " Chatham Lines," with their bastions and ditches cut 50 ft. into the chalk, are now as obsolete as the walls of Ifpnor Castle, of whose shooting, according to Mr. Pepys, the Dutch ships " made no more than of a fly." The new forts are far away on the distant hills; while along the stone quays there lies, bow touching stern, a measured mile of iron- dads and cruisers. Mr. Stanhope must have indulged in an augur's smile when he promised last week to afford. Members every opportunity to satisfy themselves that the Government establishments were not working " overtime " in competition with private firms. The works at Chatham, if we may draw an inference from them in relation to those over which Mr. Stanhope presides, are as silent as a cathedral at the end of the week, with the exception of the vessels which are due to sail at once for foreign stations, and lie on the stocks or in the docks and basins- " as idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean."
But in these unregarded hours the mind has time to realise imperfectly, unperplexed by crashing sound. cr hurrying feet, the vastness and symmetry of these last works of a sea-loving people, as they stand be- neath the wide arch of the immense timber-built roofs which cover them during construction, or float, like gigantic toys, on the artificial basins, with no encumbering crowd of small craft to hamper the view of their hulls. When the yard is closed, the silence in the lofty building under which the new ironclad, the Barfleur,' stands almost completed, is like the hush of a cathedral. The great ship towers up fifty feet above the keel-plate, and, like a church, she is " swept and garnished,"—searched by careful guardians at the close of the week. Every detail of her construction is then visible ; the double hull, the growth of armour-plating on the water-line and barbettes, and the huge forging which fronts the stem, and running downwards beneath the bow, would protect her, as it did the Victoria,' from immediate collapse if she struck the bottom. Close by lies the Forte,' whose thinner plating and sharp lines show the contrast between the cruiser and the battle-ship,—a contrast far more marked to-day than in the times of the wooden frigates. In the docks and basin are the Chatham ships already launched,- battle-ships and cruisers of the first dimensions. Looking at these, it is impossible not to be struck by the sentiment which still demands that a large proportion, in any cafe of our war-ships, shall still be built on the " fighting side " of the island. Probably not a ton of the iron in these vessels was forged. or cast south of the Trent, though it is refitted and floated on the Medway within a league of the castle of Odo of Bayeux. What wood is used is still grown in the nation's forests ; but it is mainly beauti- fully squared teak from India., which lies in huge piles in the dockyard, though here and there are massive trunks of British oak, from private parks or Alice Holt Forest. The Hood' and the Hawk' are, respectively, the last types of battle-ship and cruiser built at Chatham. The first, a 14,000-ton turret-ship, built under the new programme, is all but completed, with the exception of part of the plating of her turrets. Close by lies the Sansparsil,' which is to take the place of the injured. ' Victoria' in the Mediterranean, and the Benbow,' both vessels armed. with the doubtful 111-ton guns. The Monarch' is in dock close by, waiting for modern engines and a modern armament ; and in the basin floats a small fleet of large cruisers, beginning with the unfinished. Hawk,' and ending with that beautiful and costly failure, the Blake,' which is receiving its last supply of stores before crossing the Atlantic for Halifax. It would. be difficult to imagine a more beautiful naval sight than that presented by the ' Blake' as she floats in the basin, clear of all other craft, long, lofty, and symmetrical, or a greater contrast to the silence of the rest, than the scene between her crowded. decks. Even her immense length and size, built to secure the speed her boilers can never give, fail to diminish the sense of crowding by her crew of 640 men. Yet there is order in disorder, and in the hurrying crowd, where men are running messages, cleaning brasses, eating, sleeping, reading, cutting bread-and-butter for officers' afternoon tea, repairing electric lamps, keeping sentry, cutting out planks from the deck to insert pieces of a handsomer grain—could naval nicety go further ?—or hurrying up the hatchways to shift a gun, there is neither confusion nor complaint. Every man knows his work, and even the sleepers know the particular whistle which calls them, some starting up at the summons, others sleeping peacefully on. The trimness and order without presents as great a contrast to the scenes described by Marryat at the departure of a man-of-war for a foreign station, as does the cheerful energy within to the half- drunken, growling discontent of the old ships' crews at such a time. Instead of a crowd of bumboats, washer- women, Jews, and shore-boats round the ship, neat grocers' carts drive up the quay to the gangway, and deliver neatly labelled chests, and the quay has all the trim propriety of a London square. There is only one drawback to the satisfaction which such a scene excites. The Blake' was designed to steam twenty-two knots, and cannot, even with the maximum of forced draught, do twenty knots. Eighteen would probably be her maximum at sea. Chatham is naturally anxious that her consort, the ' Blenheim,' built in the yard, should do better, for the increase in the size of the hull and engines of these two ships in order to gain the last three extra knots is enormous. Unfortunately for those who contended that the defects in the Blake' were not inherent in the type of her boilers, but due to some particular faults of construction, the ' Blenheim' broke down on her first trials, three boilers being hors de combat out of six. These are now being repaired. But it is said that the vessel will still fail to do her speed. But, except for this most serious shortcoming, it would be difficult to suggest a more satisfactory sight for Englishmen than that of the new ships at Chatham.
Previous page
