France, Denmark, Spain, Italy, and the United States) are identical in this matter, although opposed to those of the purely military Powers, Germany, Russia, and Austria.
4. A new idol has lately sprung up of too modern date to boast of a Latin denomination. It may be called the sea-lawyers' idol. It is of the amphibious tribe: it does not belong to the sea because the sea repudiates it; it does not belong to the law because its subject-matter is purely naval. It maintains that modern changes in naval warfare, especially the invention of shells, render convoy no longer possible; that the enemy (no more able, it is true, to capture English convoys than formerly) can, in spite of convoy, sink and destroy our merchantmen on the high seas; and it challenges the opinions of naval officers on the subject.
In spite of the well-known aversion of sailors to newspaper controversies, no less
