STATE OF THE IRON-CLAD SHIP QUESTION.
ONE of the strongest arguments in favour of iron-clad ships, is the fact that they have been adopted as part of his immense arma- ments by so sagacious a man as the Emperor Napoleon. One of the strongest arguments against them is, that they have not been adopted by a power which has always shown itself most forward in the application of new discoveries in ship-building and naval weapons—the United States. The French ships are on the stocks ; the American Government has just published a report on the state of the Navy, and not one word is said about ship-armour. These, it may be said, are arguments from authority, but authority in matters of this kind must go a great way, and both the authorities we have cited are of high rank. Of course authorities cannot decide a question which, as we have said before, is a question of fact. Yet they have their weight. The Emperor Napoleon on one side and the United States on the other may be regarded as neutralizing each other, with this qualification, that a positive is of more value than a negative, and the United States authority is only negative. That Government has not ordered the building of iron-clad ships, but we do not know how soon it may. England has neither gone the lengths of Louis Napoleon, nor has she been simply passive like the United States : she has made a host of experiments and she is building five ships plated with wrought iron. The proceedings taken by these three Governments very aptly illustrate the position of the point at
issue, and England, for once, is neither too cautious nor too hasty. lithe ship armour prove to be a success, undoubtedly the Empe- ror Napoleon will have an advantage, but he will not keep it long, for of course we can make more iron-clad ships than he can. If it prove a failure, we are not a whit the worse off, but we shall have spent less, and have prepared a stronger fleet of a kind which, in that ease, we know will answer.
The mode of writing about the question has considerably mode- rated. in tone, with exceptions to be pointed out. There is less flippancy, less 'wholesale advocacy of such novelties as Jones's angular-sided ships, less depreciation of the vessels now on the stocks, less ignorance as to their cost. It is now admitted that ship-armour is still on its trial ; that La Gloire has not settled the point at issue ; that she is no miracle of naval architecture; that, in fact, we need not be so much alarmed as we were when the French journals described the iron monster at Toulon as a Queen of the Sea. Our contemporaries, better informed than they 'were, speak, as they ought, with more respect of the Warrior, and with less apprehension of La Gloire. For instance, it is known that a slight sea would flood the gun-deck of La Gloire, whereas the gust- deck of our Warrior will stand above the wash of the waves. The port-sills of La Gloire are less than six feet, the port-sills of the Warrior are nearly nine feet from the water-line. What La Gloire may look like we do not know, but the Warrior is a splen- did model, with the exception that her sides are too much on the wall pattern, and do not slope sufficiently inwards. She is built for sailing as well as steaming, and her beak or ram will be no impediment to her speed. No expense will be spared in her con- struction, and her sides will be of the finest wrought iron, but she will cost 350,000/., and not 500,000/. as generally reported. We may hope that she will be afloat with the nevi-year, and in a few months we shall find out how she behaves.
The two exceptions to the general tone of discussing this im- portant question arc the Quarterly Review and Blackacood's Magazine; both are Conservative orgaus, and anxious to make the most of the accident that enabled Sir John Pakington to order iron-sided ships. We have commented already on the one-sided
statements of the Quarterly. The article in Blackwood is more sprightly and good-tempered, in fact, very pleasant reading; but it is hardly less arrogant in tone, and not a whit more judi- cial. Nor is it accurate. The writer either does not know or has pooh-poohed as worthless the authentic data to be found in the fifth edition of Sir Howard Douglas's Naval Gunnery, or he never could have relied upon newspaper cuttings for a record of scien- tific facts. A judicial writer would not have narrated the action between the floating batteries and fort Kinburn in the style of a pleader, exaggerating the advantages of the Russians, when an investigation of the facts shows that the contest was unequal, and that the batteries attacked the place under the most favourable circumstances. All that Kinburn proves is, that at 800 yards, 32, not 24-pounder guns, as the writer in Blackwood states, could not break the iron shell of the floating batteries, and that 50- pounder guns, at from 700 to 800 yards, could demolish batteries of 32 pounders placed en barbette. Nor is it correct to assert, as the writer asserts, that we muttered about the 08-pounder gun, and, going back to the groove of tradition, did not entertain even the question of mail- clad ships. Our experiments have been as unceasing as those of the French. The same results have been given in both countries, and the difference between us is, that the Emperor puts more faith in those results than we do. He has found that iron is not invulnerable, but he apparently thinks it is sufficiently so to enable an iron-sided ship to destroy a wooden one before she can be seriously injured herself. That is the point at issue. What the data are which the English Government have before them the writer in Blackwood professes not to koow, and evidently doss not know. But, instead of blaming the Govern- ment, and talking about official mysteries, he should blame him- self, for he might before he wrote his paper have read the record of our experiments in the work of Sir !Toward Douglas. This would have saved him from the blunder of stating that" a four- inch plate covering a solid block of granite is said to be impene- trable." It is not likely that the writer in Blackwood would be induced to modify his opinions did he read and collate the au- thentic record of English experiments, because he entertains a goodnatured contempt for the old school, and "goes in " for no- velty to such an extent that he recommends ships entirely built of iron.
Without prejudice in favour of either wood or iron, we can only repeat what we have said, that there should be no precipitate re, construction of the-Navy on the Gloire principle. We know too little about either the best form of iron-clad ships or the best mode of constructing them. We know too little of the effects that the artillerist will be able to produce upon iron ; and the whole question, both of battery and armament, is in an infantile state. We are quite willing that there should be a pause in our wooden ship-building until something more is known of the capacities of iron-clad ships for general naval purposes, as well as for attack and defence ; and something more of the resisting properties of iron before we employ it, in preference to earth, in coast batteries and fortifications.
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