The second requisite for victory, that is, for winning a battle against a hostile fleet, is tactical superiority, or, as Nelson put it:  “The skill of our admirals and the activity and spirit of our officers and seamen.”  The only way to obtain this is through the perpetual practice of the admirals commanding fleets.  An admiral, in order to make himself a first-rate tactician, must not merely have deeply studied and pondered the subject, but must spend as much time as possible in exercising, as a whole, the fleet which he commands, in order not only by experimental manoeuvres thoroughly to satisfy himself as to the formation and mode of attack which will be best suited to any conceivable circumstance in which he may find himself, but also to inculcate his ideas into his subordinates; to inspire them with his own knowledge, and to give them that training in working together which, in all those kinds of activities which require large numbers of men to work together, whether on the cricket field, at football, in an army, or in a navy, constitutes the advantage of a practised over a scratch team.

If the practice is to make the fleet ready for war, it must be carried out with the fleet in its war composition.  All the different elements, battleships, cruisers, torpedo craft, and the rest, must be fully represented, otherwise the admiral would be practising in peace with a different instrument from that with which he would need to operate in war.

The importance of this perpetual training ought to be self-evident.  It may be well to remind the reader that it has also been historically proved.  The great advantage which the British possessed over the French navy in the Wars of the Revolution and the Empire was that the British fleets were always at sea, whereas the French fleets, for years blockaded in their ports, were deficient in that practice which, in the naval as in all other professions, makes perfect.  One of the complaints against the present Board of Admiralty is that it has not encouraged the training and exercise of fleets as complete units.

Another point, in regard to which the recent practice of the Admiralty is regarded with very grave doubts, not only by many naval officers, but also by many of those who, without being naval officers, take a serious interest in the navy, is that of naval construction.  For several years the Admiralty neglected to build torpedo craft of the quality and in the quantity necessary for the most probable contingencies of war, while, at the same time, large sums of money were spent in building armoured cruisers, vessels of a fighting power so great that an admiral would hesitate to detach them from his fleet, lest he should be needlessly weakened on the day of battle, yet not strong enough safely to replace the battleships in the fighting line.  The result has been that the admirals in command of fleets have for some time been anxiously asking to be better supplied with scouts or vessels