Victuals and ventilation and the health and efficiency of seamen.

The importance of good victuals and sound methods for ventilating ships to the maintenance of.health and efficiency of seamen is so well known thkt it may appear unnecessary to ask if the lessons and examples, with which British naval history abounds are given the full consideration they merit in modem warship design and operation. We are, however, at the dawft of a new age in naval 'development as in tnany other spheres of interest. In the same way as the coastal voyages of the slave-driven galleys of ancient times and the Middle Ages gave way, following the introduction of th'e mariners' compass by Prince Henry of Portugal, to the great navigations of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries and the maritimne wars of the eighteenth; so now may the steam and motor-driven vessels of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to which we are accustomed be replaced by ships of'new design, not only propelled at high speeds by new forms of power, but also greatly modified in structure because of the possibilities of future aerial, submarine, biological, and atomic warfare, and equipped to a high degree with complicated devices and weapons requiring skill, discrimination, and sustained concentration for their successful operation. Future developments cannot fail to affect the naval way of.life; and enough has been seen in recent years of what can happen when the gadgeteer is allowed to run wild, to warn those responsible for the welfare and health of the men to keep a weather eye on plans for the future, and to ensure that the leqsons of the past as well as those of the present are not neglected.