Page 231 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

212 Preparedness for Naval War.

tions have created for us also external interests
and external responsibilities, which are likewise
our hostages to fortune. It is not necessary to
roam afar in search of adventures; popular
feeling and the deliberate judgment of states-
men alike have asserted that, from conditions
we neither made nor control, interests beyond
the sea exist, have sprung up of themselves,
"
which demand protection. " Beyond the sea
— that means a navy. Of invasion, in any real
sense of the word, we run no risk, and if we
did, it must be by sea; and there, at sea, must
be met primarily, and ought to be met deci-
sively, any attempt at invasion of our interests,
either in distant lands, or at home by blockade
or by bombardment. Yet the force of men in
the navy is smaller, by more than half, than
that in the army.
The necessary complement of those admi-
rable measures which have been employed now
for over a decade in the creation of naval ma-
terial is the preparation of an adequate force of
trained men to use this material when com-
pleted. Take an entirely fresh man : a battle-
ship can be built and put in commission before
he becomes a trained man-of-war's man, and a