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¥ z . 4 4 | Marine Review — : _ May 1931 Canadian Pacific Liner Empress of Britain at John Brown’s Clydebank, Scotland (See Page 35.) BRITISH SEA POWER RITISH Sea Power, 1900-1930, is the title of an interesting paper prepared by Sir Archibald Hurd and pre- sented at the spring meetings of the In- stitution of Naval Architects. An abstract of this paper follows: Since the opening of the century British sea power has suf- fered an eclipse and this paper is intended to examine the character of that eclipse. At the time of the South African war there was no power or combination of powers prepared to try conclusions with the mighty naval forces which the British Empire supported. It led the world in the design and building and cheapness of construction of men-of-war even to such an extent that foreign nations ordered ships of this character from British ship- yards. In large armored ships the Brit- ish fleet was above the two power stand- ard which at that time meant the navies of France and Russia. At this period the author points out the British fleet pervaded the seas-.and oceans of the world. It was in fact so strong in ships and men that it could afford to dissi- pate its forces far and wide. The trader and the shipowner knew that nothing un- toward could happen without some British naval ship speedily coming to the rescue. The fleet was regarded as the support of diplomacy and trade. In this period the British fleet reached its maximum develop- ment, the author thinks, as an agent of civilization standing impressively on guard > on all the trade routes, supporting the standard of culture to which the country had attained, checking piracy, suppress- ing slavery, and charting the great mari- time highways of the world’s commerce. So the author believes the South African war was vindication of British sea power —the ship of war and the ship of com- merce. All this had its effect on United States, Japan and Germany. The race began be- tween Great Britain and Germany for na- val supremacy with the United States and Japan developing their strength outside of European waters. In the summer of 1914 the British fleet assumed command of the sea which in spite of submarine and MARINE REVIEW—May, 1931 19