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MERICAN

ELEPHONE

BELL

SYSTEM

AND ASSOCIATED

IT is not so long ago since people met in town hall, store or at the village post-office, to talk over matters of importance to the community. Then came the telephone to enable men to discuss matters with one another without leaving their homes.

With the growing use of the telephone, new difficulties arose and improvements had to be sought. Many of the improvements concerned the physical telephone plant. Many of them had to do with the means of using the apparatus to speed the connection and enable people to talk more easily.

This need for improvement is continuous and, more than ever, is a problem today. Speed and accuracy

TELEGRAPH

COMPANIES

in completing seventy million calls daily depends upon the efficiency of Bell System em

ployees and equipment as well as upon the co-operation of persons calling and those called and numerous private operators.

It is not enough that the average connection is made in a fraction of a minute or that the number of errors has been reduced to a very small percentage.

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company and its associated Bell Telephone Laboratories have practically for their sole task the making of the telephone more serviceable and more satisfactory-as a means of conversing with anyone, anywhere, any time.

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OUR CRUMBLING NATIONAL DEFENSE

II-Isolation Ended

BRIGADIER-GENERAL HENRY J. REILLY, O.R.C.

THE PREVAILING belief that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are barriers to successful invasion of this country is in reality the reverse of the truth. Instead of barriers, the oceans are pathways over which, thanks to modern inventions, it is, in many instances, easier to move an army than it is to move it the same distance over land.

As a matter of fact, the oceans have never proved a barrier to a people possessed of the necessary sea-power and determined to use its army to invade another country. History shows that a fleet strong enough to secure control of the necessary sea-routes and an army strong enough to whip the armed forces of the country to be invaded are the only essentials.

The British, French, and Spanish proved this even in the day when live stock or salt meat had to be carried because canning and refrigeration were unknown, when sanitation had never been heard of, and when "the white and rustling sail" bent "the gallant mast, my boys." By reason of Spanish sea

power, Spanish troops landed and conquered South, Central, and even a part of North America. The route around Africa to the Philippines was cut off, for the pope had given that half of the world to Portugal. Nevertheless the Spaniards conquered those islands, and maintained their garrisons there by the long route across the Atlantic to Vera Cruz, overland to Acapulco, and then across the broad expanses of the Pacific.

Great Britain and France fought each other in India and in the waters near-by, though the troops and ships had to make the long voyage around the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean. British expeditions captured Havana and Manila. And Wellington's army was landed in Spain and maintained there for years by the sea-routes from the British Isles.

In more recent times, the transport to South Africa of the British forces that fought the Boer War, the British overseas expedition to the Dardanelles, and above all the transport of our 2,000,000 men to France

Copyright, 1927, by THE CENTURY Co. All rights reserved.

513

in the recent war, are convincing examples of the fact that the sea is a pathway and not a barrier. In the four months from the first of July to the end of October, 1918, a million American soldiers were taken to France, 306,000 in the month of July alone.

With each succeeding year the world's total tonnage available for troop transport increases, while the means of insuring proper food, shelter, sanitation, and safety of passage are steadily being bettered.

The time may be some distance off when air transport across the oceans will be a commonplace, but it cannot be denied that we are making rapid progress toward that goal.

The military maxim, "Offense is the best defense," has often been mistaken for advocacy of aggression. It is true that an aggressor may avail himself of the policy of striking first. On the other hand, the nation that follows Mr. Roosevelt's advice to "speak softly and carry a big stick" is in a position to temporize until it becomes universally evident that its antagonist is the aggressor. Being the owner of a "big stick," or in other words ready, the first blow can be struck, thus starting the war in or near enemy territory rather than in its own. Nelson's dictum, always followed by Britain, "Make your frontiers the shore-lines of your possible enemies," is another way of putting it. Which means that the possession of a sufficiently powerful fleet keeps the enemy away from our shores and carries the fighting to his own. To use an Irishism, the time to stop an invasion is before it gets started.

Our possession of adequate sea

power to insure this will have another wholesome effect. For in this day of increasing democracy, any government will hesitate a long time before declaring war when it is a certainty that the fight will begin on its own territory.

There may be those who believe the possession of such power will lead us into aggression. But history shows that the desire to follow an aggressive policy leads to armament, rather than that armament leads to aggression. Though this may be debated, one fact is inescapable: when conflict comes we must submit to war upon our territory unless strong enough to carry it immediately to the shores of the enemy.

Our combat naval strength, in relation to that of other great naval powers, has been steadily diminishing since the Washington Arms Conference. It is a simple matter to trace the steps. The Washington Arms Conference is primarily responsible. First, because we gave up our naval supremacy without accomplishing the uniform adjustment of the naval powers to a given ratio— our expressed purpose at the beginning of the conference. Second, because, the results of the conference being imperfectly understood by our people, we have been lulled to a sense of false security. This has brought about an indifference to the steady decline of our naval power, caused by our neglect since the conference. As a consequence, we are to-day considerably below the strength authorized by the Washington Arms Conference, while other naval powers have materially increased their actual strength by building in the classes of ships not

covered by the limiting clauses of that conference.

When the conference met we had fifteen capital ships under construction. The naval lessons of the World War were incorporated in their design. They averaged thirtyfive per cent toward completion, and at the fairly rapid rate of construction then going on would have been finished in another two years. Ship for ship they were far superior in combat power to the best vessels afloat. They would have outclassed the capital ships of other navies in the same way that the British Dreadnought outclassed all other battle-ships afloat at the time she was commissioned.

Japan was building five new capital ships. Their construction was proceeding slowly because of the Japanese financial crisis. There was every indication that these five ships would not be afloat until long after our fifteen had been put in commission.

Great Britain was much worse off as to new ships, five years having passed since she had laid a single keel. Like Japan, her financial situation was such that it was extremely doubtful if any new construction could be undertaken.

Without going into details, it is approximately correct to say that a comparison of the fighting value of ships actually afloat would have put Great Britain and ourselves about on a parity, while it would be liberal to count Japan half as strong as either.

Thus it is readily seen that in ships built and building we were easily the first naval power of the world. While the ships actually

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Broadly, our proposal to the conference was that the limitation of actual naval strength of the different powers be based on the tonnage afloat, including both capital ships and auxiliary combat craft. By auxiliary combat craft is meant the various classes of cruisers, destroyers, submarines, mine-planters, and the like. The proposal did not include limitation of the collateral elements of sea-power—naval bases, aircraft, merchant marines, submarine cables, and radio stations, all of which materially influence the use to which a battle-fleet can be put. The lack of these collaterals made the journey of Rozhestvenski's Russian fleet from the Baltic to the Far East so dependent upon the goodwill of neutrals that undoubtedly he faced Togo's Japanese fleet in a much weaker condition than he would have, had the Russians been equipped with these collateral elements. Britain's possession of these elements throughout the world, and Germany's lack of them, played a very important part in England's ultimate elimination of the kaiser's raiders, at

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