Had there been more experimental work before the outbreak of the Boer War our army would have probably finished its task sooner and with less loss of life. Questions such as the employment of heavy field ordnance, of telescopic sights, of shields for guns and rifles, of motors, of electricity, &c., will have to be considered when the war is over, but they should have received attention before hostilities commenced. If every nation would agree to maintain the _status quo_ and to make no effort to keep its navy and its army abreast of the advances of modern scientific progress and invention, then the policy of our Admiralty and War Office would be excellently suited to our needs. As it is, however, Germany, France, the United States, Russia, and Japan are much more ready to improve their services than is Great Britain, whose officials, for the sake of peace and quiet, snub the inventor and smother their consciences by repeating that all is well in our army and navy. Only when great pressure is brought to bear on them will they stir themselves. Admiral Sir E. Fremantle recently suggested that there ought to be a committee on inventions always sitting, and Mr. Laird Clowes has appealed for readier official interest in certain recent inventions. The experiments with the British submarines must be carefully watched in order that we may arrive at a well-reasoned opinion concerning their future. It may be that it will be decided that for our purposes a means of destroying the submarines of the enemy will be of more value than the boats themselves. On the other hand, the conclusion may be reached that for certain purposes this type of craft will be a useful adjunct to our fleet. Whatever the decision may be it is quite certain that the submarine boat will continue to receive improvements at the hands of inventors, and that as practical applications have been found for the Röntgen Rays and wireless telegraphy, so uses will be found for the submarine of the future which may be as great an improvement on the submarine of to-day as the _Deutschland_ is over the _Savannah_, the first steam-packet that ever crossed the Atlantic. Those who discuss submarine navigation as if it were quite a new development are apt to forget that the earliest use of the torpedo was in an under-water vessel. Bushnell and Fulton, no less than the Confederates of a later day, saw that their best chance of success lay in attacking by stealth, and though the modern Whitehead is a very different weapon to the cases of explosive used by Bushnell and Fulton, or the spar-torpedo employed by the Confederates in their _Davids_, there are still the same advantages to be gained by a submarine attack.