The “ruinous competition in naval armaments” so prated on by certain publicists was really little better than an idle phrase so far as the British nation is concerned; and there was never any real reason to regard future increases with apprehension. Now that the nation is at war this fact is being recognised. We must continue to recognise it. In trenches over the water we may attack. But on the British Navy depends our defence of home interests. V. SUBMARINES. The submarine as anything of the nature of a practical arm made its first appearance as a “submarine torpedo boat,” useful merely for harbour defence. As such it was eagerly embraced by the French Navy, and had a considerable vogue therein, besides being a commonplace in the United States long before the British Admiralty accepted it as serious in a way. As a matter of fact, till the invention of the periscope enabled it to see where it was going when submerged, the submarine was little if anything but a paper menace. The periscope altered all this. The first submarines for the British Navy figured in the 1901–2 Estimates. Five copies of the American _Holland_ were laid down at Barrow, the first being launched in October, 1901. These boats were of 120 tons submerged displacement, and used merely as instructional or experimental craft almost as soon as completed. [Illustration: SUBMARINES LEAVING PORTSMOUTH HARBOUR.] They were followed immediately by the “A” class, totalling thirteen boats in all. Displacement submerged, 207 tons. Those numbered from five to thirteen were given sixteen cylinder surface motors of 550 horse-power in place of the 450 horse-power twelve cylinder ones of the earlier boats. In 1904 A1 was lost with all hands under tragic circumstances off Spithead, being run down by a merchant steamer. This disaster led to the installation of double periscopes in later types. A3 was lost off Spithead in 1912, being run down by the _Hazard_, very near where A1 was lost. The B class which followed numbered eleven boats, of which B1 was originally known as A14. The remaining B class belong to the 1904–05 Estimates. The submerged displacement in these rises to 313 tons, and the surface speed to thirteen knots, instead of eleven and a half, though, owing to improved lines, the horse-power was little increased. New boats, completed in 1906 and later, though generally identical with the B class, were known as the C class, and totalled thirty-eight altogether. One, C11, was lost at sea from a collision. In 1907 the earliest boat of a new type (D Class) was put in hand. Displacing 600 tons submerged, she practically doubled her predecessors. Her surface speed rose to sixteen knots with 1,200 horse-power. Three instead of two torpedo tubes were fitted, also wireless telegraphy was experimentally adopted in her. She herself was never any great success, but the rest of the type were far more successful.