o old that it is deplorable to see such
fatuous arguments as the necessity of equalling Great Britain's navy
adduced against any scheme of external policy. The annexation of
Hawaii, to recur to that, may be bad policy for many reasons, of which
I am no good judge; but, as a naval student, I hesitate not to say
that, while annexation _may_ entail a bigger navy than is demanded
for the mere exclusion of other states from the islands--though I
personally do not think so--it is absurd to say that we should need a
navy equal to that of Great Britain. In 1794 Gouverneur Morris wrote
that if the United States had twenty ships of the line in commission,
no other state would provoke her enmity. At that time Great Britain's
navy was relatively more powerful than it is now, while she and France
were rivalling each other in testing the capacity of our country to
stand kicking; but Morris's estimate was perfectly correct, and shows
how readily a sagacious layman can understand a military question, if
only he will put his mind to it, and not merely echo the press. Great
Britain then could not--and much more France could not--afford to have
twenty ships of the line operating against her interests on the other
side of the Atlantic. They could not afford it in actual war; they
could not afford it even in peace, because not only might war arise at
any time, but it would be much more likely to happen if either party
provoked the United States to hostility. The mere menace of such a
force, its mere existence, would have insured decent treatment
without war; and Morris, who was an able financier, conjectured that
to support a navy of such size for twenty years would cost the public
treasury less than five years of war would,--not to mention the
private losses of individuals in war.

All policy that involves external action is sought to be discredited
by this assertion, that it entails the expense of a navy equal to the
greatest now existing on the sea, no heed being given to the fact that
we already have assumed such external responsibilities, if any weight
is to be attached to the evident existence of a strong popular feeling
in favor of the Monroe doctrine, or to Presidential or Congressional
utterances in the Venezuela business, or in that of Hawaii. The
assertion is as old as the century; as is also the complementary
ignorance of the real influence of an inferior military or naval force
in contemporary policy, when such force either is