pplies, so that the maintenance
of a stock at the place makes for convenience, provided that
the stock is not too large. The so-called 'secondary base' is
a place at which it is intended to keep in store coal and other
articles in the hope that when war is in progress the supply of
our ships may be facilitated. It is a supply, and not a repairing
base.

A comparison of the 'direct' system and 'secondary base' system
may be interesting. A navy being maintained for use in war, it
follows, as a matter of course, that the value of any part of
its equipment or organisation depends on its efficiency for war
purposes. The question to be answered is--Which of the two systems
promises to help us most during hostilities? This does not exclude
a regard for convenience and economy in time of peace, provided
that care is taken not to push economy too far and not to make
ordinary peace-time convenience impede arrangements essential
to the proper conduct of a naval campaign.

It is universally admitted that a secondary base at which stocks
of stores are kept should be properly defended. This necessitates
the provision of fortifications and a garrison. Nearly every
article of naval stores of all classes has to be brought to our
bases by sea, just as much as if it were brought direct to our
ships. Consequently the communications of the base have to be
defended. They would continue to need defending even if our ships
ceased to draw supplies from it, because the communications of
the garrison must be kept open. We know what happened twice over
at Minorca when the latter was not done.

The object of accumulating stores at a secondary base is to
facilitate the supply of fighting ships, it being rather confidently
assumed that the ships can go to it to replenish without being
obliged to absent themselves for long from the positions in which
they could best counteract the efforts of the enemy. When war is
going on it is not within the power of either side to arrange
its movements exactly as it pleases. Movements must, at all events
very often, conform to those of the enemy. It is not a bad rule
when going to war to give your enemy credit for a certain amount
of good sense. Our enemy's good sense is likely to lead him to
do exactly what we wish him not to do, and not to do that which
we wish him to do. We should, of course, like him to operate so
that our ships will not be employed at an inconvenient distance
from our base of supplies. I