Note 265 — Chapter XVI

There is no use hiding a fact which my experience on this Commission and elsewhere has too clearly revealed. It is this, that the officers of the Navy as a rule (there are exceptions) are much less inclined to the amalgamation, under any circumstances, of the seamen of the merchant service with those of the Royal Navy than the officers of the Army are to coalesce with the Volunteers. They desire, and it may be due to their patriotism, to have a large standing navy, as large in peace as in war if they could get it; while they do not care to be troubled with the drilling of relays of seamen from the merchant service when they can obtain young men expressly trained, solely at the expense of the State. They do not, or will not, understand the vast natural resources this country has within itself—far greater than any other countries,—or, indeed, than nearly all other countries combined, available in the hour of need.