and
file to-day than ever in the past to equip themselves with the knowledge
necessary to enable them to record their votes aright.

It is from this point of view that this Manual should be read. It
epitomises the principles upon which success in naval warfare depends.
It shows how the moral factor in all cases and at every epoch dominates
and controls the material; how the "_animus pugnandi_," as Mr Thursfield
calls it, the desire to get at the enemy in "anything that floats,"
transcends every other weapon in a nation's armoury; how if that spirit
is present, all other difficulties can be surmounted, and how without it
the thickest armour, the biggest all-shattering guns shrivel in battle
to the measure of mere useless scrap iron.

This is the message of the book for the seaman. But--and this is of the
essence of the whole matter--for the landsman it has also a lesson of a
very different kind. His responsibility is for the material factor in
naval war. Let him note the supreme value of the moral factor; let him
encourage it with all possible honour and homage, but let him not limit
his contribution to the nation's fighting capital to any mere empty
lip-service of this kind. The moral factor is primarily the sailor's
business. The landsman's duty is to see to it that when war comes our
sailors are sent to sea, not in "anything that floats" but in the most
modern and perfect types of warship that human ingenuity can design.

How can this fundamental duty be brought home to the individual
Englishman? Certainly not by asking him to master the niceties of
modern naval technique, matters on which every nation must trust to its
experts. But, the broad principles of naval warfare are to-day precisely
as they were at Salamis or Lepanto; and to a people such as ours, whose
history from its dawn has been moulded by maritime conditions, and which
to-day more than ever depends upon free oversea communications for its
continued existence, these broad principles governing naval warfare have
so real a significance that they may wisely be studied by all classes of
the community.

Tactics indeed have profoundly altered, and from age to age may be
expected to change indefinitely. But so long as the sea remains naval
warfare will turn upon the command of the sea; a "Fleet in Being" will
not cease to be as real a threat to its foe as it was in the days of
Torrington; invasion of oversea territory will always be limited by the
same inex