our
dispositions on the principle of close blockade. Distances will be greater,
but that is all.

Nor must it be forgotten that for a squadron to take station off a port in
the old manner is not the only means of close blockade. It may still effect
its purpose, at least temporarily, by supporting mining vessels or block
ships--"sinkers," as they used to be called. The latter expedient, it is
true, had little success in the latest experiments, but even in the
Russo-Japanese War its possibilities were by no means exhausted. We have
therefore to conclude that where the strategical conditions call obviously
for close blockade, our plan of operations will be modified in that
direction with the means still at our disposal.

If, however, our object is not so sharply defined, if in spite of our
desire to deny the enemy the sea we are ready to take risks in order to
bring about a decision, the case is not so clear. It will be observed that
the looseness which the new conditions force upon close blockade-increasing
as they are in intensity year by year-must tend more and more to
approximate it in practice to open blockade. The question will therefore
present itself whether it would not be more in accordance with the
fundamental elements of strength to adopt open blockade frankly for all
purposes. We should thus substitute a true defensive disposition for an
arrested offence, and, theoretically, that in itself is a great advantage.
The practical benefits, whatever the correlative drawbacks, are equally
clear, nor are they less great now than they appeared to Howe and
Kempenfelt. We avoid exhaustion of machinery, coal, and men, and this, at
least for the necessary flotilla screen, will be greater than anything that
had to be faced in former days. We have at least the opportunity of
occupying a position secure from surprise, and of keeping the fleet
continually up to its highest striking energy. Finally, assuming the
geographical conditions give reasonable promise of contact, a quick
decision, which modern war demands with ever greater insistence, is more
probable. In such a disposition of course contact can rarely be made
certain. The enemy, whom the hypothesis of blockade assumes to be anxious
to avoid action, will always have a chance of evasion, but this will always
be so, even with the closest blockade now possible. We may even go further
and claim for open blockade that in favourable conditions it may give the
better chance o