In all Nelson’s letters, memoranda, and sayings, he is haunted by the vital importance of swift decision and rapid and resolute action. The whole spirit behind the Trafalgar Memorandum is impatience of delay. When the Allied Fleet was seen, there was no time wasted in securing symmetrical formations or order. The Fleet was roughly grouped as Nelson intended it should be, and the only preliminary of action was not a race to get into station but a race to get to grips with the enemy. The cult of the close action was thus a direct outcome of the haunting uncertainty as to whether the fighting ship would be able to move or not. This has all been changed by steam. Admiral Sturdee, for instance, at 10:20, 11:15, and 12:20 knew perfectly well that he could have the Germans in his grip and finish the thing off in five minutes whenever he liked. If he played with them as a cat plays with a mouse, it was because he knew that he had time on his side. But time will not always be on the side of what is for the moment the stronger force. The enemy may be heading for protection or may be expecting reinforcements, or the light may suddenly fail altogether. In spite of steam, therefore, the desirability of a quick decision is really as paramount in modern conditions as in the old days. So that, had the problem of action never been complicated by the long-range torpedo, we ought, as soon as we began the cultivation of long-range gunnery, to have realized that it was useless to limit our skill to conditions in which the target ship and the firing ship were keeping steady courses. A further argument against closing the range in modern conditions has been put forward. Just as the change from sails to steam has helped the tactician of to-day, so the altered relation of the destructive power of the weapon and the resisting power of the ship has operated to his disadvantage. _Lion_, for instance, in the Dogger Bank affair, was knocked out by a chance shot that killed no men and did no vital injury to the ship at all. But it cut the feed pipes of an engine, and in two minutes the ship was disabled and for the purposes of that action, useless. Only small damage could be done to sailing ships by a shot amongst the masts and rigging. And when to a single shot there is added the risk of a torpedo, it must be admitted that the arguments against closing are stronger to-day than they were. A POINT IN NAVAL ETHICS