adopting the device "the Admiralty, right or wrong,' at the very time Whitehall needed vigilant criticism, because it was dominated by one of those men common in politics and not absolutely unknown in the Army-though, thank Heaven the type had hitherto been unknown in the Navy-who are prepared to sacrifice everything to gratify personal ambition. SIR JOHN FISHER might have made a good servant but he was the worst of masters. He has since received a peerage for his services to the Radical Party, and is now disDefence Loan guised under some other name, which we are glad National to have forgotten, but he remains a Member of the Defence Committee, with unlimited opportunities of mischief. Meanwhile, what can be done to repair the malignant neglect of late years? How can Ministers be compelled to do their duty? We publish elsewhere a letter from the Imperial Maritime League, which we commend to our readers' attention, advocating a hundred million loan, and a definite policy of National Defence, which has already secured the endorsement of more than three hundred officers of Flag and General rank. That is the least sum required to make good arrears and to meet the ever-growing expansion of the challenging Power, who, be it remembered, has largely financed her Navy by loans. Can a nation of forty million people (even if we accept Mr. Lloyd George's view that we are the richest people in the world, when he is not telling us that we are the poorest and most miserable) hope to compete out of revenue with the capital expenditure of a nation of sixty millions. That is the problem for practical men, and we cannot allow the pachydermatous pedantry of our DonPremier to lose the country in order that he may preserve a consistency which has been sacrificed in every other direction. Mr. Asquith denounced the wastefulness and extravagance of naval loans in the past, therefore there must be no naval loans either in the present or the future. Perish British seapower sooner than that he should eat another speech. Moreover, he is terrorised by his colleagues at the Exchequer, the Home Office, and the Board of Works. This precious trio abhor the British Navy, just as they abhor the British Empire. They have fought against the laying down of every British keel. They have encouraged the laying down of every German keel. What do the Georges, the Churchills and the Harcourts care about National security, so long as they can wipe off old scores, gratify personal malice, and feed political rancour? They expect to be out of office when the storm bursts, and they possibly count on being able to direct it against their successors. But they should consider their own skins. When once the eyes of an outraged nation are open to the deliberate and systematic betrayal of which they have been the victims for many years, they would hardly await the formalities of an impeachment in the hour of disaster and panic towards which we are rapidly drifting. Mr. Asquith has publicly and solemnly warned his colleagues of the fate in store for Ministers who neglect the Navy, though, unfortunately, he has ignored his own warning. The utterances of the trio are on record; their intrigues in the Cabinet and in the Press are notorious. There is still room for repentance, but time is no longer on their side. Quick-witted adventurers like Mr. Lloyd. George would be well advised to rally to the cause of a big Navy. A BIG Navy not only means big battleships, as some ignoramuses imagine, any more than a big Army consists of big guns. If the "Dreadnoughts" carry the artillery of the A Big Navy Navy, that artillery can only become effective through the existence of all the other units and accessories necessary to enable the "Dreadnoughts" to remain at sea. In the near future we shall find ourselves short of battleships. At present we are deficient in almost everything else. As was pointed out in an article in this Review last month, and as is emphasised in the letter of Mr. Wyatt and Mr. Horton Smith, we are perilously short of men owing to the fatal policy of " scrapping," of which the politicians were once so proud; we are lamentably lacking in Naval Reserves; there is a deficiency of cruisers, torpedo craft, docks, stores, coal, repairing-stations, and hospital ships, none of which can be improvised; while in light craft, such as scouting cruisers, available for use in home waters, and destroyers, effective for work in the North Sea, we occupy a position of inferiority to Germany. In the words of the Imperial Maritime League, "a great endeavour to regain national safety must be begun at once." The League has already memorialised 66 the Prime Minister to issue a loan of one hundred million pounds for National Defence. It is not a Party movement, and it cannot become a Party movement, as may be gathered from Mr. Balfour's vague assertion that "no well-informed person doubts that any scheme adopted by the Government for strengthening the Navy would have the hearty support of the Unionist Party." We trust that there is still sufficient patriotism to convince the Government of the folly of its ways. You can fool all the people for some time, and some people for all time, but you cannot fool all people for all time—at least that was Lincoln's judgment on the American people. The disillusioned are daily growing, and it will depend upon their efforts whether the Government realise that it will pay them better to float a big loan than to resist it. It is idle to appeal to anything higher than the line of least resistance. Propaganda is a costly business, but in spite of the cruel exactions of the Budget, which have fallen with peculiar severity on public-spirited and generous people, we trust that the munificent example of Mr. Walter Morrison may be followed, and that there will be no difficulty in securing the "other nine" donations of one hundred guineas stipulated by a generous donor who is prepared to make up the thousand guineas.* Lord Esher's No man has worked with greater ability or devotion to make a success of the Territorial Force than Lord Esher. Consequently no man's opinion is more entitled to be heard now that, as the result of a unique experience, he entertains doubts as to the efficacy of the voluntary principle. Not only is Lord Esher a member of the Defence Committee, but he has been an indefatigable Chairman of the London County Association, who has missed no opportunity of enlisting recruits. Moreover, as will be gathered from the valuable article he contributes to this number, Lord Esher regards Mr. Haldane as a great War Minister. There could be no more experienced or unprejudiced witness. As our readers are aware, we have been unable to applaud Mr. Haldane's efforts to form a garde mobile, not through any Party prejudice, because we have never discussed National Defence from the Party standpoint, but Vide the letter of Mr. Wyatt and Mr. Horton Smith. VOL. LVI 2 simply because we believed that, however excellent his intentions, Mr. Haldane was engaged in the impossible and useless task of trying to make an empty sack stand upright, and that he would waste several precious years in the process-years the country could not afford to lose. From the outset he encouraged extravagant expectations, both as regards the numbers, training and general efficiency of the Territorial Forces, while he has convinced a certain number of simple-minded soldiers whose capacity in the field happily bears an inverse proportion to their wisdom in council and their oratorical ability, that by changing the name of the old volunteers and giving them a good organisation on paper, he was creating a real Army which more than compensated for the criminal reduction of the regular troops to which the Army Council gave its adhesion and which remains the most definite act of the Haldane régime. We suspect also, that whereas in his public speeches Mr. Haldane denounces National Service with all the exuberance of Mr. Samuel, in his private confabulations at the War Office he has probably encouraged the same simple-minded soldiery to regard the Territorial Force as a half-way house to compulsion, and has secured their support on that understanding. Hence the astounding opinions to which distinguished soldiers have permitted themselves to give public expression as to the capacity of the Territorials to cope with " foreign conscripts." It is probably beginning to dawn on the Army Council how neatly they have been dished by an astute Chancery barrister. The Regular Army remains reduced; the expeditionary Dishing the force exists chiefly on paper, and could never Army leave the country on account of our military destitution. The new Army has never come into being, and though the voluntary principle has completely broken down, Mr. Haldane remains adamant in his opposition to compulsion. Soldiers have been inveigled into co-operating in the creation of a force, the serious training of which only begins on the outbreak of a war, at the outset of which, if they had anything to do at all, the Territorials would be called upon to meet the flower of the German army. Outside China such an episode would be impossible. We make no criticism on the Territorials, who have done their best, and in many cases their best has been remarkably good and is entirely creditable to their patriotism, but the conditions of their training make it impossible for them to become a serious factor in the defence of the Empire. No one knows this better than the Territorials themselves, who are sufficiently good soldiers to realise that a soldier can't be made in a few days. We are much less surprised at any failures among the Territorials than at their successes on recent manœuvres, which on the whole constitute a most creditable record, but facts must be faced. We have pretended too long. Lord Esher dwells on the spread of compulsion in every department of public life, and the disappearance of the volunteer, and he believes the Territorial Force, requiring as it does 60,000 recruits per annum, cannot maintain its voluntary basis. There is no sign that the required 60,000 will be forthcoming. "All the signs and portents are adverse. There is no steady increase, no advance, however slight. There is, latterly, in many cases retrogression." He is inclined to think that the higher standard of efficiency required from the modern soldier, the greater physical strain imposed upon him in peace exercises, and the fiercer commercial competition between his employers "act adversely upon the instinct . . . which induces the young civilian worker to practise the profession of arms. Or, again, it may be the sirocco of democracy withering within our people the spirit of sacrifice." While willing to continue working to make a success of Mr. Haldane's Army, "it would be cowardice and an act of treachery both to the responsible Minister of the Crown and to the Nation, ill-informed and lethargic as it is, if those engaged in this task were to shrink from speaking what they believe to be true, or from expressing candid opinions, however unpalatable they may be." Where is WHILE allowing for the possibility that the pessimistic view of the voluntary system may prove to be an error of judgment, on the other hand "the view that we have reached the limit of the nation's yield for the Territorial Force may be the true view, and if so, what graver decision lies before the electorate than to choose between leaving the forces of the country below the minimum admitted by every one to be necessary, and imposing by law upon our children the duty to bear arms in its defence." Truly we are at the parting of |