e officers and men of the
Navy itself the Grand Fleet was as nearly perfect as anything could be.
Sprung from the finest race of seamen in the world, trained for a
longer time than any foreigners, and belonging to what everyone for
centuries has known to be the first of all the navies, the British
bluejackets formed the handiest crews you could have found in any age
or country. Their officers knew how to handle men, ships, and fleets
alike; and every one had been long "tuned up" for instant action. The
gunnery stood every test, as the Germans know to their cost; and it
actually got better as the fight grew worse, partly because the British
keep so cool, and partly because length of expert training tells more
and more as the storm and stress increase. It was the same in the
engine room, the same in everything, right up to the supreme art of
handling a fleet at racing speed in the midst of a battle on which the
fate of freedom hung.

But when we come to those things that depended on the Government there
is a very different tale to tell, because no government can get money
for the Navy without votes in Parliament, and men cannot become Members
of Parliament without the votes of the People, and most people will not
spend enough money to get ready for even a life-or-death war unless
they see the danger very close at hand, right in among the other things
that press hard upon their notice. Looking after the country's safety
needs so much time, so much knowledge, and so much thinking out that it
has to be left, like all other kinds of public service, to the
Government, which consists of a few leaders acting as the agents of
Parliament, which, in its turn, consists of a few hundred members
elected by the People in their millions. Whatever government is in
power for the time being can, as the trusted agent of the People's
chosen Parliament, do whatever it likes with the Army and Navy. The
great soldiers and sailors, who know most about war, can only tell the
Government what they think. The Government can then follow this expert
advice or not, just as it pleases. Now, even in time of approaching
danger, the trouble is that governments are always tempted to say and
do what costs the least money and gives the least cause for alarm,
because they think the People like that best. This was the case with
the British governments in power during the fourteen years before the
war, when Germany was straining every nerve to get the b