Men, too, who have, after the short service, re-entered, should justly receive increase of pay. Men who have maintained a high character, and have preserved their classification throughout their period of service, should receive a much higher rate of pension. Character being thus recognised by the good men being taken out of the mass, and by its being made a distinction, would prove a strong counterpoise to the temptation of riot, and would, we hope, give a stimulus and a power to the discipline of merit and reward. Whilst, however, the system aims at encouraging good men, it must also insist on discouraging the bad. They cannot be coerced as heretofore; the best plan, therefore, is to get rid of them after they have undergone a certain trial. The authorities have ever been chary of exercising this power of dismissal. A man as a numerical item was so valuable, that he was retained even though an incorrigible scoundrel. The institution of the permanent organisation in barracks would nullify this reason. Men would be ready to supply vacancies, however they occurred, and the incorrigible could be cast adrift without remorse. It is well known that, after undergoing certain ordeal of punishment, there is little hope of reclaiming a man: it is wiser, therefore, to discharge him at once. It is no use keeping a man merely to be continually punishing him he is only then a trouble, an expense, and an infection. The presence of such fellows is ever a disturbance to the general economy, and their riddance is a blessing.

The barrack homes would be a strong support to this discipline of merit, by rendering the seaman's lot so much more comfortable, by giving an assurance of stability to all its advantages, and associating it so much more with country and home ties. The motives which induced such a high state of moral discipline with the coast-guard men during their employment in the fleets, might be made equally cogent with the general body. The tie of home, and the home interests which were at stake, would operate in a degree at least on all. Thus we believe that

the service through these homes, and the advantages consequent on a permanent organisation, might be made so comfortable and so popular that dismissal from it would be dreaded as a heavy punishment.

These homes, too, might be agents in weaning the seaman from his vices. Dissoluteness has been looked upon as the nature of a tar. We believe his dissoluteness to be very artificial-to be the result of impulses or artificial causes. It is often produced by mere recklessness, and a desire to escape from discomfort; often it is assumed from a traditional idea that it is proper to the seaman, and that he cannot be true to his character unless he appear drunk and reeling about the streets, with a harlot on either side of him. Generally, however, it results from the man, when he is on shore, having no resort save the lowest haunts of vice. He has no alternative save the potshop and the brothel. The barrack would offer him an alternativewould afford him a resort where he might find comradeship and recreation.

It may be said, that the barrack has little effect on the soldier in this respect. This may be, perhaps, because it has so little of the character of a home. Yet the barrack may, and should have, this character. The sailor, if not sociable, is a gregarious fellow; he loves to be in a crowd or with others. We would therefore give him large rooms, apart from the dormitories, which might be well lighted and warmed, and where all hands might assemble to dance, to spin yarns, to sing and to smoke. This last is an indispensable condition. An arrangement which separates Jack from his pipe will be futile. The bigots of an obsolete school tried it, and begot discontent and confusion to themselves. might also have his coffee-rooms and his reading-room. Though not much of a literary character, Jack is fond in a great degree of reading, or being read to, if the books are well chosen. His tastes in this respect may be well known, for there are certain works in the libraries furnished (which, by the by, have been repeated upon him without much change,

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almost as necessary) bearing the marks of hard service, whilst others again are fresh as when first issued. This will be a good guide. It will also teach theorists that Jack is not quite ripe as yet to be made intellectual or scientific, and that if they would address him through his mind, they must first amuse him, and then perhaps they may instruct him. There might also be an allotted space, where he might carry on his athletic games and the larks he is so fond of.

Men of the old school will growl at all this, and say it is giving in to the seaman, making too much of him. We believe not. There are many other concessions too frequently made which may have this effect, but we believe it is perfectly legitimate to make the soldier's and sailor's home attractive by every reasonable comfort and means of recreation. Every plan by which he can be kept voluntarily within his own walls must be a gain to the service.

Nor do we propose more consideration than should be shown in the construction and arrangement of all barracks, nor more than is now generally contemplated. The barracks should be a home, not a single room where numbers of men congregate to eat, sleep, and dress, and where they have neither space nor permission to assemble for recreation. With these barracks we would also associate the sailor's home. There should be certain rooms set apart where men belonging to ships might have a bed and a fire-might find comradeship and pleasantness without riot. We do not think that the seaman will at once be weaned from his old habits, or withdrawn from his old haunts, or that he will be ever made a saint by these means; but we doubt not that they would operate upon him in time for good. At any rate, as we said before, he would have the alternative of a home, and would not be driven to vice as a resource.

The next expedient, after trying to make men better, is to get better

men.

How is this to be done? It is difficult to get men at all; and how are the ten thousand, which it is proposed should be always in reserve at home, to be raised? A great au

thority stated before the Commission that any force could be kept up at a certain established strength, and that the difficulty arose only when sudden increases were required. This, however, from late experiments, would appear to be a fallacy. Let this, then, be the established strength, and let it be raised, as far as it can, by bounty, or by popularising the service. If men are not forthcoming, raise a proportionate number of marines for the time, as they are always to be had. The difficulty is only for the present; the future would take care of itself. The training-ships would be ever a certain feeding source. Let the number of boys entered and passed in them be doubled, trebled, or quadrupled, as may be necessary, to keep up the supply. The standing force might thus be ever, after a few years, kept up to its standard. The man difficulty would no longer exist. We should no longer need to go about begging and bidding in the different markets.

In these boys, too, we should not only have the readiest materials, but the best. There would be no difficulty in the supply. The seafaring men would eagerly seek such an early provision for their children. It might be made, and would be considered, a boon by the seamen of the navy. The State might here take its choice. The State, too, by taking these its future servants at an early age, would be enabled to nurture and train them according to its will, and might bring all the best and worthiest agencies to bear on their moral education; and when these its neophytes, brought up under its own supervision, shall be infused in numbers amid the ranks and classes of the navy, then, if ever, it may hope to carry out and develop the discipline of merit. This source, after a few years, would afford to the service a continuous supply of young men who had been healthily fed and well cared for from their boyhood; who had been also gradually instructed in the preliminary exercises and duties of their vocation, and educated under proper surveil lance; and would thus give not only quantity, but quality; not only give men enough, but men able, healthy, and intelligent, and who, from their

former antecedents, might be expected to prove men also of a better and superior stamp- men who would give a higher morale to the service. It has been objected to this plan, that it will make the service too exclusive, that the men coming from one class will form a caste. We can not think that this will be so. The introduction of boys from the merchant schools will prevent this. There might also be always room and place for such men of the naval volunteers as, from coming into contact with the navy, might be induced to join it. These, we believe, would not be few, and they would ever be infusing fresh blood. Even were it not so, the evil of exclusiveness would be a much lesser one than that of the ever-recurring man difficulty.

Thus we think that we see in the barrack system an institution which would give to the seaman faith in the intention of the State, and in the permanency of the service he is asked to enter; which would remove many of the difficulties which now hamper the administration, many of the objections which render the service unpopular; which would produce uniformity throughout; which would be a great auxiliary in raising the tone of the navy, and strengthening its discipline; and which, in conjunction with the standing organisation, would give the country the assurance of having always men sufficient for its defence, and men, too, worthy of their vocation and their nation.

We began these papers with a comparison betwixt the navies of England and France, which was then the great question of the day, and we have been led step by step to examine in detail the external and internal state of our navy, the material and the economy, and also to discuss the proper position of England as a maritime power, and the naval strength which she should possess to uphold it as a defence and as a supremacy.

Facts and concurrent testimony have since affirmed our statements and opinions relative to the comparative strength of the two countries in ships, and of their comparative power of producing material, and we are confirmed in our belief that we should

have no reason to dread a contact with any one of the great navies. But we asserted, also, that it was the destiny of England-a necessity of her polity and her existence-that she should not only be equal to one navy, but to the navies of the world; that England, to be the England of other days, the England even of the present time, must be supreme among maritime powers. In this we are supported by the authority of the past, by the general conviction of the present. It is not denied to be in consistence with political balances and national policies.

Facts have also unfortunately corroborated all we have said as to the want of facility in manning our fleets; as to our impotency, in an emergency, to command men enough to render our navy equal to meet a sudden danger, or constitute a national defence.

Without such powers we may build and build, add ship to ship, and still be defenceless-still far from an assertion of supremacy. Herein, confessedly, lies our weakness in the national comparisons. We have endeavoured to show what should be the material power, what the man power of our navy, and how we may attain it.

We may be wrong in details; they may be wrong, faulty, and impracticable; but we believe that the principles asserted are such as consist with the weal of the navy and the responsibilities of national defence.

We would here briefly recapitulate our suggestions; they have been given through an earnest desire to see the country truly defended, its naval might maintained: let them be so received.

We have suggested that the standpoint of England's ships should never be below one hundred sail of the line and sixty or seventy frigates, with a proportion of small craftthat there should be a standing navy sufficient with the resources to man these ships-that this standing navy should have a permanent organisation, which should include and depend on a system of barracks to be erected at the different ports-that this force should be fed by the increase of training - ships for boys-that it

should always command, beyond the peace establishment of ships in commission, a reserve of ten thousand seamen, ready at once to man a fleet strong enough to meet an immediate danger, furnish a nucleus on which the other resources should formthat this reserve should be raised by all the legitimate means of recruitment, by bounties and other means, until its feeding source was prepared -that the Royal Marines should never fall below the strength of 20,000, and that this number should be increased until the seaman tale was complete--that there should be a uniformity in the general administration, discipline, and routine, and that many defects and grievances now adverse to the popularity of the navy might be removed, and the general tone of the service elevated, through the agency of the barrack system. And we have further suggested, though here we tread on unknown ground, with regard to the reserves, that those which are not reliable or generally effective, should not be depended on; and that our whole strength should be thrown into the effort to connect the mercantile service with the navy, and to find in it our resources for a final reserve and a final defence. This we believe the constitution of the Royal Naval Volunteers will effect. There may be errors in detail which have been alluded to, but the principle is sound, and will, we hope, bear healthy fruit.

We have also insisted, and must insist, that the life-springs of our standing navy and our resources are the school and training-ships. Hence must flow the life-blood which shall feed both systems.

Again, when we began these papers, the national mind was disturbed by what peace agitators denominate a panic; we were surprised in unpreparedness; there were wars and rumours of war, and we had not reliable national defences. Every voice was then for defence; the nation was stirred to its depths in resolving it.

Now there is a lull; the political horizon is clear; there is no cloud in the sky; there are no signs of storms or tempest; there is promise of fair weather for years to come. Experience shows that political barometers are not unchangeable-that storms follow quickly on calms. Yet we would not base our arguments on the uncertainty of political arrangements, or on the probabilities and anticipations of danger: we believe that in peace or war, whether alliances are friendly or politics threatening, it is our duty to hold the supremacy of the seas-it is the heritage bequeathed by past generations, it is the destiny of our future. This supremacy cannot be claimed unless we manifest the might which should assert it. This might, we believe, cannot consist of lesser means than we have suggested. War policy or peace policy affects this not. We must stand secure and stand supreme -secure from panics or crises-supreme over the fears or possibilities of aggression.

Cost-cost-all this will involve cost. True, cost there must be; but it is supremacy, and will be well repaid by future security and future economy.

Cost there must be. Defence is costly, and defence is now a national policy. The nation has willed it. It is a question only as to what are its most necessary elements. We are planning a system of national defences. Our harbours are to be fortified, the assailable points of our coast protected; and the outlay is estimated at ten millions. This is good, very good. Our arsenals should not be open to attack, our shores to invasions; but it will be a new thing for the flag of England to find protection behind batteries. Our first fight should be fought on the seas. Fortifications are a necessary element of our defence-not the first. The creation of a navy which shall command the seas should be the first demand on the country's resources.

England's chief and first defence must be her navy.