First of all Admiral Bacon disposed of the fallacy brought forward by one of the speakers, as to which is more effective in disabling the enemy, to destroy the structure of the ship or destroy the guns--the fact being that both are bound up together--if you utterly destroy the hull of the ship you thereby practically destroy the gun-fire. (This is one of those things so obvious that one greatly wonders how these clever experts lose themselves.) Then Admiral Bacon in a most lovely parable disposed of the “Bow and Arrow Party,” who want a lot of small guns instead of, as in the Dreadnought, but one type of gun and that the heaviest gun that can be made. This is Admiral Bacon:-- “I should like to draw your attention to some advice that was given many years ago by an old Post Captain to a Midshipman. He said, ‘Boy, if ever you are dining and after dinner, over the wine, some subject like politics is discussed when men’s passions are aroused, if a man throws a glass of wine in your face, do not throw a glass of wine in his: _Throw the decanter stopper!_’ And that is what we advocates of the Heavy Gun as mounted in the Dreadnought propose to do--not to slop the six-inch shot over the shirt-front of a battleship, but to go for her with the heaviest guns we can get; and the heavier the explosive charge you can get in your shell and the bigger explosion you can wreak on the structure near the turrets and the conning tower and over the armoured deck the more likely you are to disable that ship. We object most strongly to the fire of the big guns being interfered with by the use of smaller guns at the same time with all the smoke and mess that are engendered by them. The attention of the Observing Officers is distracted; their sight is to a great extent obliterated, and even the theoretical result of the small guns is not worth the candle.... The ordinary six-inch gun in a battleship is, as regards torpedo-boat attack, of just as much use as a stick is to an old gentleman who is being snow-balled: it keeps his enemy at a respectful distance but still within the vulnerable range of the torpedo. In these days the locomotive torpedo can be fired at ranges at which it is absolutely impossible even to hope or think of hitting the Destroyer which fires the torpedoes at you. You may try to do it, but it is quite useless. Very well, then; the six-inch gun does keep the Destroyer at a longer range than would be the case if the six-inch gun were not there, that’s all.... Then the problem of speed has been touched upon. I quite see from one point of view that to lose two guns for an extra five-knot speed seems a great loss; but there is one question which I should like to ask, and that is whether you would send out to sea a whole fleet, the whole strength of the nation, with no single ship of