The point to be made here is that—­independently of strategic conditions, which will be considered later—­the difference in the supply of a given naval force in war and in peace is principally that in the former the requirements of nearly everything except provisions will be greater; and consequently that the articles must be forwarded in larger quantities or at shorter intervals than in peace time.  If, therefore, we have arranged a satisfactory system of peace supply, that system—­defence of the line of communications being left out of consideration for the present—­will merely have to be expanded in time of war.  In other words, practice in the use of the system during peace will go a long way towards preparing us for the duty of working it under war conditions.  That a regular system will be absolutely indispensable during hostilities will not be doubted.

The general principles which I propose to indicate are applicable to any station.  We may allow for a squadron composed of—­

   4 battleships,
   4 large cruisers,
   4 second-class cruisers,
  13 smaller vessels of various kinds, and
   3 destroyers,

being away from the principal base-port of the station for several months of the year.  The number of officers and men would be, in round numbers, about 10,000.

In estimating the amounts of stores of different kinds required by men-of-war, it is necessary—­in order to allow for proper means of conveyance—­to convert tons of dead-weight into tons by measurement, as the two are not always exactly equivalent.  In the following enumeration only estimated amounts are stated, and the figures are to be considered as approximate and not precise.  It is likely that in each item an expert maybe able to discover some variation from the rigorously exact; but the general result will be sufficiently accurate for practical purposes, especially as experience will suggest corrections.

A thousand men require about 3.1 tons of victualling stores, packages included, daily, We may make this figure up to 3.5 tons to allow for ‘medical comforts’ and canteen stores, Consequently 10,000 men require about 35 tons a day, and about 6300 tons for six months.  The assumed squadron, judging from experience, would require in peace time about 600 tons of engineers’ stores, about 400 tons of naval stores, and—­if the ships started with only their exact allowance on board and then carried out a full quarterly practice twice—­the quantity of ordnance stores and ammunition required would be about 1140 tons, to meet the ordinary peace rate of expenditure, We thus get for a full six months’ supply the following figures:—­

Victualling stores 6,300 tons. 
Engineers’ stores 600 "
Naval stores 400 "
Ordnance stores and ammunition 1,140 "
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Total 8,440 "

Some allowance must be made for the needs of the ’auxiliaries,’[96] the vessels that bring supplies and in other ways attend on the fighting ships.  This may be put at 7 per cent.  The tonnage required would accordingly amount in all to about 9000.