British naval doctorine and pride

[Incubus]

I have a question- I have heard that one reason England didn't invest as heavily into submarines/ASW warfare early on was because British naval doctorine considered the concept of a submarine attack 'dishonorable'. I'm not really sure this is true or not.

I'm puzzled because it seems baffling how the submarine can be proven to be excellent for its intended role (sinking merchants) and through the use of inferior tonnage, manpower, and survivability still inflict amazing results. The sheer number of merchants sitting in the bottom of the atlantic is a testament to that. Sure the Allies beat the Germans, but I wonder how many lives were lost unecessarily, due to pride and misguided concepts of 'fairness' in warfare.

Tom Clany mentions this disparity of fairness in warfare in one of his books, comparing it to a man clubbing a baby seal. Sinking a merchant is kind of similar- usually the merchant doesn't have a chance. Just sucks for the Allies they were so crazy about battleships/surface vessels they didn't deal with it sooner.

Speaking of battleships, I find it really amusing how fixated so many nations were on them, when even in WWII they weren't terribly decisive (with a number of exceptions, many were sunk in port, succumbed to airpower, or simply rusted in the harbor, too fuel-guzzling and risky to send them under way without air support/adequate intelligence) and there were a surprising FEW battleship vs battleship fights despite the impressive number of warships that nations boasted.

My theory is that because battleships are so big and heavily armed, they seem good. I dunno, maybe there's something symbolic about it (phallic?). Battleships may 'seem' cool, but compare how many battleships are still sailing today vs the number of submarines, and time will demonstrate which is the better boat.