"Big Lizzie" (the _Queen Elizabeth_) was for many months queen of the
waters round Gallipoli. Her tongue boomed louder than any other, and
it was always known when she spoke. She was the latest thing in
dreadnoughts then, just commissioned, and the largest ship afloat.
Though since that time the British navy has added several giants that
dwarf even her immense proportions. The boys in the trenches and on
the beach at Anzac never failed to thrill with pride as they heard her
baying forth her iron hate against the oppressor. We knew that
wherever her ton-weight shells fell there would be much weeping and
gnashing of teeth among the enemy. We readily believed all the stories
told of her prowess, no matter how impossible they seemed. No one
doubted even when we heard that she had sunk a boat in the Sea of
Marmora twenty-seven miles away, firing right over a mountain. She was
there before our eyes an epitome of the might and power of the British
navy that had policed the seas of the world, sweeping them clear of the
surface pirate and also confining the depredations of the underwater
assassin, so that all nations except the robber ones, might trade in
safety. How true it is that the British navy has been the guarantor of
the freedom of the seas, so that even in British ports over the whole
wide world all nations should have equality of trade! Never has this
power been used selfishly: take for instance, the British dominions of
the South Seas, where American goods can be sold cheaper than those of
Britain, for the shorter distance more than compensates for the small
preference in tariff. The almost unprotected coast of the American
continent has been kept free of invaders; its large helpless cities are
unshelled, because "out there" in the North Sea the British navy
maintains an eternal vigilance.