Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1886 — NATAL AFFAIRS. [ARTICLE]

NATAL AFFAIRS.

How to Promote the Efficiency of the Navy—Admiral Porter’s Suggestions. Admiral Porter has submitted to tho Secretary of the Navy a report embodying suggestions for promoting the efficiency of the navy. He says that in rehabilitating the navy there is no subject worthy of more consideration than that of home defense, and regrets that the ironclads now laid up at City Point, which are so well adapted for this purpose, should be left in the condition they are to-day. He says the new cruisers have given no ev.dence of great speed, and it is feared by those most interested that they never will, which will render them useless as commerce-destroyers. The Admiral says we require for the navy the following classes of vessels. The first-class should be represented by vessels of not less than 6,000 nor more than 8,000 tons, and able to make for a lew hours a speed of nineteen and one-half knots. Tne second-class, to serve as flagships on foreign stations, should be vessels of not less than 4,500 nor more than 5,000 tons, able to make for a few hours a speed of nineteen knots. The third-class should be vessels of 3,000 tons, able to make for a few hours a speed of eighseen knots. Tne Admiral remarks that the proposed thirteen-knot gunboatwith four guns could not overtake anything, and a powerful Chinese gunboat would be more than a match for her. The United States is milking the same mi-takes as European powers have made in building so many different classes of vessels at the outset, without knowing whether any of them will meet the requirements of a cruiser of the present day. No nation, he says, can dispense with lorls, but it is better to depend upon a navy to protect our coasts. Instead of maintaining so small a force of ironclads as we have at present, every year we should construct three or four donble-turreted monitors, no matter if we do not build any cruisers in the meantime. Admiral Porter says that be has seen enough of torpedoes to know that two or three hundred pounds of gun-cotton exploded under a ship—no matter what her size—is bound to sink her or place her hors de combat. Yankee ingenuity, if stimulated by the prospect of a sufficient reward, would no doubt soon give us a superior torpedo. He commends the Ericcson torpedo, and says what we requ re to fire such a toipedo is the fastest vessel in the world—something that torpedo destroyers can not overtake. The report treats of the reorganization of the different branches of the navy, and especially of the Navy Department. The Admiral takes strong ground in favor of the Government encouraging tho private shipyards of the country by giving them all the work possible to enable them to improve the plants so that in time of war they can aid the Government in building and repairing vessels. He also advocates a Government iron shipbuilding yard.