Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/302

290 NAVY There are now many ships for righting purposes built with iron frames and iron skin, and without armour ; but in most of these cases there is stout wooden planking wrought over this iron skin, with the express object of obliging projectiles passing right through the ship to punch a hole in the side by which the} pass out, instead of driving off masses of plating by the breaking of the rivets. There can be no doubt also that plates are better, and riveting is sounder now, than they were apt to be twenty years ago. The iron ships in the merchant navy have not this protection. It is difficult to estimate the precise gravity of the defect, but there is no doubt that it is sufficiently important to make proper division into com partments imperative, so as to give time to cover a damage in the side under water. But, unfortunately, a proper subdivision into compartments, of which the divisional bulkheads rise a sufficient height above the water, is very rare in merchant ships, even in mail steamers. If the compartments are so large and the tops of the bulkhead so low that, by filling a compartment, the top of the bulkhead is brought below the level of the water outside the ship, the loss of the ship is inevitable. Moreover, these ships are, as a rule, very narrow in proportion to their displacement, and their risk of foundering, by the filling of a compartment, is thereby greatly increased, because a narrow ship loses its stability rapidly under these circumstances, and will turn over. Another disadvantage is the height of the engines and boilers. In ships of war of the size of the mail steamers, and indeed in nearly all, of whatever size, the engines and boilers are kept below the water, and fairly out of the reach of shot. But in modern mail steamers the engines are worked with their cylinders standing some feet above the load water-line. The advantage of this arrange ment, in point of economy of working, is very great, but it involves serious risk in a fighting ship. Declara- In 1856 a most important event occurred seriously affecting this tion of question, viz., the signing of what is known as the Declaration of Paris. Paris, a sort of rider to the treaty of Paris of March 1856, by which declaration it was laid down that, " whereas it was formerly legal to grant royal commissions to private owners to equip, arm, and man private cruisers, to capture the commerce of the enemy for their own profit, this shall no longer be legal ; that, while the cruisers of the state may capture and destroy private ships be longing to subjects of the hostile state, they may not, as of old, search neutral ships in the open seas to discover and confiscate hostile property contained in them, but only to verify their right to fly the neutral flag, and to discover and confiscate property held to be contraband of war, destined for ports of the enemy. " This was in fact a ratification in perpetuity of an order in council of the 25th of March 1854, by which, on the outbreak of war with Russia, Great Britain consented to " waive her maritime rights " and allow enemies goods to be carried in neutral bottoms without liability to seizure. All the parties to the treaty of Paris agreed to this declaration, and the rights it confers on neutrals are rights now common to all the European powers. Under its operation neutrals M - ould doubt less insist on exercising for their own profit the right of carriage into and out of those ports of a belligerent which were not effectively blockaded by the enemy. Privateering being abolished, so far as the European powers are concerned, each maritime nation would seek, on the outbreak of war, to incorporate into the state navy the fastest and most powerful merchant ships it could obtain. Each war navy would become strengthened by the addition of merchant ships capable, at whatever risk to themselves, of mount ing guns, of ramming, and of employing the torpedo. By this means the naval power would depend, not only on the strength of the war navy, but also upon the strength and excellence of the national mercantile marine. For this purpose only the fastest ships would be useful, and all the rest would fall a prey, in any encounter, to the fast ships in the hands of an enemy. The great importance attached to the possession of such fast ships may be seen from, the figures given below. British registered merchant ships, sailing and steam (38,939) esti- Tons. mated gross tonnage in 1880 10,200,000 Of this the proportion of steamers (6903) was 4,400,000 At the same date the whole number of British ships built and building having an average ocean speed of 12 knots and upwards did not exceed 400 ; and ships of this speed built and building for all other maritime powers taken together did not reach 100. The only powers possessing such ships were France, Germany, Holland, Spain, United States, Italy, and Belgium. Between 1875 and 1882 the number of English merchant steamers of 13 knots ocean speed and upwards increased from 25 to 65, of 14 knots and upwards from 10 to 35, and the maximum speed rose from 15 to 17 knots. Ad- Since 1875 the Admiralty have been engaged in forming a list of niiralty all ocean-going British ships which, being reasonably divided into list. compartments, might be armed in the event of war. The number on this list having an average ocean speed of 12 knots and up wards is, in 1883, 112, with a total gross register tonnage of 451,470 tons. The number of men and boys actually employed in 1880 in Mercan- registered British sea-going vessels was nearly 200, 000, of which tile nearly 12 per cent, were foreign and the rest British. personnel Sir Thomas Brassey estimates that there are in the British mercantile marine 407,000 seamen, exclusive of men in British ships in the colonies and abroad. The total number includes Masters and mates, certificated 38,200 not certificated 10,000 Fishermen 150,000 Other sailor men. 151,000 Firemen 14,000 Apprentices 11,000 Boys in fishing boats 13,000 Naval Guns. From time immemorial smooth-bore guns in cast iron, or bronze for the smaller calibres, had been used for throwing spherical shot with charges not exceeding one-third the weight of the shot. The first use of rifled guns in the navy was in 1859-60, when Mr (now Sir William) Armstrong s breech-loading 40-pounder and 100- pounder guns were issued to the service. The elongated shot or shell and cartridge were entered from the rear, through a hollow screw. A breech piece in which the vent was formed was dropped through a slot in the breech of the gun, and, being tightened up by the hollow screw, closed the bore. The projectile was coated with lead to take the polygroove rifling. It fired much more accurately than the smooth-bore ; but in 1863, the method of closing the breech having proved inefficient on service in Japan, the manufac ture was discontinued. In 1865 muzzle-loading guns were adopted, built on Armstrong s principle of welded wrought-iron coils round a steel tube, rifled on the "shunt" principle, in which a studded projectile was rammed down grooves in the bore, rather deeper than those by which it was afterwards driven out. The guns gradually increased in weight up to the 12-inch 38-ton gun and 16-inch 80-ton gun. In 1876 the 80-ton gun was fired with a projectile of 1700 ft> and a charge of 425 Ib at a target composed of four 8-inch iron plates with 5-iuch intervals filled with teak, and perforated it. The charge of this gun was afterwards increased to 450 Ib of prismatic powder. In 1873 the advantage of an increased diameter of the powder chamber was recognized and adopted in the 38-ton gun, but in order to utilize this chamber in a muzzle-loading gun the cartridge had to be made small enough to pass through the bore and after wards expand in the chamber. This involved an awkward cartridge. Breech-loading obviated this difficulty. The use of slow-burning powder required a considerably increased length of bore, and made muzzle-loading exceedingly difficult. Breech-loading also offered greater facility for closing the windage of the shot. These causes have led to a return to breech-loading. The system adopted is the French intercepted screw. The plan of reinforcing the steel tube by wrought iron coils has been abandoned, and the approved system of construction is a steel tube, supported by a steel breech, which takes the breech screw and extends to the trunnions, reinforced by one or more layers of steel hoops shrunk on. These guns throw an elongated projectile of about three and a half calibres of the bore in length, with a charge nearly half the weight of the shot, which gives a velocity approaching 2000 feet per second. The powder pressure (17 or 18 tons on the square inch) is no higher than it used to be, but is longer sustained. A few only of these guns are yet afloat. Boats guns are similar in type, but of solid steel. The projectiles are the Palliser chilled shell, or cored shot ; the common shell, which contains about one-tenth of its weight of powder ; the shrapnel shell, which contains bullets and a small charge to liberate the bullets ; and the case shot, which is a thin case containing small shot for short ranges. These guns will be made of all calibres and weights. Those already tried are the 12-inch 43-ton, 10 4-inch 26-ton, 9 2-inch 18- ton, 8-inch 11-ton, 6-inch 4-ton, 5-inch 36-cwt., 4-inch 22-cwt. The Gatling gun is ten-barrelled revolving. It throws bullets of the same size as the rifle. An improved feed has just been tried, and with it the gun is capable of discharging 1000 rounds a minute. To guard against the attack of torpedo boats a rapid-firing gun of sufficient power to penetrate their sides was necessary, and for this purpose a four-barrel gun, invented by Mr Nordenfelt, was adopted, and is now supplied to all ships. Quick-firing 6-pounder guns are now under trial capable of firing shot or shell. Cost of the Navy. Sir Thomas Brassey says, " In considering the Cost of general question of our naval expenditure, it is necessary, in justice the to those to whom its administration has been entrusted, to look navy, back over a series of years, and to compare the fluctuations in that expenditure with the growth in the value of the trade for the protection of which our navy is maintained. In the year 1858-59 the effective expenditure for the navy was 7,106,100, and non- effective 1,334,000. In 1870-71 the effective expenditure was 7,308,000, while the non-effective had increased to 1,705,000. The estimates for the ensuing year (1881-82) provide for an effective expenditure of 8,434,000, while the non-effective expenditure amounts to 2,063,000. If we compare the expenditure of the army in the same interval, we find that the effective expenditure