to forfeit the attainment of the essential for fear of risking the unessential, to base our plans on an assumption that war may be waged without loss, that it is, in short, something that it never has been and never can be.  Such peace-bred dreams must be rigorously abjured.  Our standard must be the mean of economic strength—­the line which on the one hand will permit us to nourish our financial resources for the evil day, and on the other, when that day comes, will deny to the enemy the possibility of choking our financial vigour by sufficiently checking the flow of our trade.

III.  ATTACK, DEFENCE, AND SUPPORT OF
MILITARY EXPEDITIONS

The attack and defence of oversea expeditions are governed in a large measure by the principles of attack and defence of trade.  In both cases it is a question of control of communications, and in a general way it may be said, if we control them for the one purpose, we control them for the other.  But with combined expeditions freedom of passage is not the only consideration.  The duties of the fleet do not end with the protection of the troops during transit, as in the case of convoys, unless indeed, as with convoys, the destination is a friendly country.  In the normal case of a hostile destination, where resistance is to be expected from the commencement of the operations, the fleet is charged with further duties of a most exacting kind.  They may be described generally as duties of support, and it is the intrusion of these duties which distinguish the naval arrangements for combined operations most sharply from those for the protection of trade.  Except for this consideration there need be no difference in the method of defence.  In each case the strength required would be measured by the dangers of interference in transit.  But as it is, that standard will not serve for combined expeditions; for however small those risks, the protective arrangements must be sufficiently extensive to include arrangements for support.

Before dealing with this, the most complex aspect of the question, it will be well to dismiss attack.  From the strategical point of view its principles differ not at all from those already laid down for active resistance of invasion.  Whether the expedition that threatens us be small or of invasion strength, the cardinal rule has always been that the transports and not the escort must be the primary objective of the fleet.  The escort, according to the old practice, must be turned or contained, but never treated as a primary objective unless both turning and containing prove to be impracticable.  It is needless to repeat the words of the old masters in which this principle lies embalmed.  It is seldom that we find a rule of naval strategy laid down in precise technical terms, but this one is an exception.  In the old squadronal instructions, “The transports of the enemy are to be your principal object,” became something like a common form.