If the doctrine of cruiser control be correct, then every cruiser attached to the battle-fleet is one withdrawn from its true function.  Such withdrawals are inevitable.  A squadron of battleships is an imperfect organism unable to do its work without cruiser assistance, and since the performance of its work is essential to cruiser freedom, some cruisers must be sacrificed.  But in what proportion?  If we confine ourselves to the view that command depends on the battle-fleet, then we shall attach to it such a number as its commander may deem necessary to make contact with the enemy absolutely certain and to surround himself with an impenetrable screen.  If we knew the enemy was as anxious for a decision as ourselves, such a course might be justified.  But the normal condition is that if we desire a decision it is because we have definite hopes of success, and consequently the enemy will probably seek to avoid one on our terms.  In practice this means that if we have perfected our arrangements for the destruction of his main fleet he will refuse to expose it till he sees a more favourable opportunity.  And what will be the result?  He remains on the defensive, and theoretically all the ensuing period of inaction tends to fall into his scale.  Without stirring from port his fleet is doing its work.  The more closely he induces us to concentrate our cruiser force in face of his battle-fleet, the more he frees the sea for the circulation of his own trade, and the more he exposes ours to cruiser raids.

Experience, then, and theory alike dictate that as a general principle cruisers should be regarded as primarily concerned with the active occupation of communications, and that withdrawals for fleet purposes should be reduced to the furthest margin of reasonable risk.  What that margin should be can only be decided on the circumstances of each case as it arises, and by the personal characteristics of the officers who are responsible.  Nelson’s practice was to reduce fleet cruisers lower than perhaps any other commander.  So small indeed was the margin of efficiency he left, that in the campaign already cited, when his judgment was ripest, one stroke of ill-luck—­a chance betrayal of his position by a neutral—­availed to deprive him of the decision he sought, and to let the enemy’s fleet escape.

We arrive, then, at this general conclusion.  The object of naval warfare is to control maritime communications.  In order to exercise that control effectively we must have a numerous class of vessels specially adapted for pursuit.  But their power of exercising control is in proportion to our degree of command, that is, to our power of preventing their operations being interfered with by the enemy.  Their own power of resistance is in inverse proportion to their power of exercising control; that is to say, the more numerous and better adapted they are for preying on commerce and transports, the weaker will be their individual fighting power.  We cannot give them