In case the enemy should inform us that he would reach the vicinity of New York at a certain time, and in case he should fulfil his promise, the fact that New York was properly strengthened would not be very important; since our fleet would go there, and the whole war would be settled by one “stand-up fight.”  But wars are not so conducted and never have been.  From the oldest times till now, and even among savage tribes, finesse has always been employed, in addition to actual force—­more perhaps by the weaker than by the stronger side, but very considerably also by the stronger.  A coming enemy would endeavor to keep his objective a close secret, and even to mislead us; so that our fleet would have to take a position out at sea, perhaps far away, which would leave our bases open to attack by the enemy fleet or at least exposed to raids.

The most effective local defense of a naval base is a combination of mine-fields and heavy guns, which also give protection to which the wounded vessels can retire, as the German vessels did after the North Sea battle.  Unless such protection be provided, swift destroyers can complete the work that guns began, as the Japanese destroyers did, after the artillery battle at Tsushima.

In addition to their value in defending navy-yards from raids, and in giving wounded ships a refuge, the military strengthening of home bases, if such home bases are wisely placed near large commercial centres, prevents actual destruction of those commercial centres themselves, in case an attack is made upon them, either in the absence of the defending fleet, or after that fleet may have been destroyed.  The line of engineering advance during recent years, although it has greatly increased the offensive power of war-ships, has increased even more greatly the defensive power of land works.  For this reason, it is perfectly possible to defend successfully almost any land position against attack by ships; and it is so easy, that not to do so, is, in the case of large commercial centres, a neglectfulness of the extremest character.

One important reason, therefore, for placing a permanent home base near a large commercial centre is the fact that the fortification of one is also the fortification of the other.

Assuming that New York is to be defended locally, we can state at once that the New York naval station can easily be made to be a permanent naval base of the highest order, and of the most efficient type.  In fact, it can be made into a naval base better than any other now in the world, because of the large sheets of water tributary to it in New York Bay, Hudson River, and Long Island Sound; the proximity of the sea; the untold resources in money, supplies, and men that it could on demand produce, and the ease with which it could be defended.  To make such a base, it would be necessary to fortify the vicinity of Coney Island and the entrances from the ocean to the Lower Bay, and Long Island Sound; to deepen the channel to the navy-yard, and to make clear and safe the waterway from the East River to Long Island Sound.  It would be necessary also to enlarge the navy-yard; and to this end, to buy back the land adjoining it, which the government most unwisely sold to private parties about twenty-five years ago.