Moreover, the nations which have the skill and ingenuity to manufacture new weapons of self-defence belong to a higher class than those which only acquire advanced warlike munitions by purchase. One of the early international movements of the twentieth century will be directed towards the prohibition of the sale of such weapons as magazine-rifles, quick-firing field guns, and torpedoes to any savage or barbarous race. It will be accounted as treason to civilisation for any member of the international family to permit its manufacturers to sell the latest patterns of weapons to races whose ascendency might possibly become a menace to civilisation. As factors in determining the survival of the fittest, the elements of high character, bravery, and intellectual development must be conserved in their maximum efficiency at all hazards.
Another potent element in the safeguards of civilisation may be seen in the increased effectiveness of weapons for coastal defence. The hideous nightmare of a barbarian irruption, such as those which almost erased culture and intellect from the face of Europe during the dark ages of the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, may occasionally be seen exercising its influence in the pessimistic writings which are from time to time issued from the Press predicting the coming ascendency of the yellow man.
However the case may be in regard to nations which are accessible by land to the encroachments of the Asiatic, there is no doubt that those countries which are divided off by the sea have been rendered much more secure through the rapid advances which have been made in the modern appliances for defending coasts and harbours. In naval tactics, also, it will be more and more clearly seen that to possess and defend the harbours where coaling can be carried out is practically to possess and defend the trade of the high seas; and the essence of good maritime policy will be to so locate the defended harbours that they may afford the greatest amount of protection, having in view the harm that may be done by an enemy's harbours in the vicinity.
The most effective naval weapon in the future will undoubtedly be the torpedo, but, like the bayonet, it requires to be in the hands of brave men before its value as the ultimate arbiter of naval conflict can be demonstrated. Much fallacious teaching has arisen from what has been called the lessons of certain naval wars which occurred on the coasts of South America and China--international embroilments in which mercenaries, or only half-trained seamen and engineers, were engaged. On similar fallacious grounds it was argued that the magazine-rifle had put the bayonet out of the court of military arbitrament, and the South African war has proved conclusively how erroneous was that idea. The use of the torpedo-boat and of the weapons which it carries must always demand, like that of the bayonet, men of the strongest nerve, and of the greatest devotion to their duty and to their country.