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beds," in full confidence in a competent, a patriotic, and a watchful Admiralty. The net result is that whereas Germany, to whom a navy is a superfluous luxury and an instrument of aggression, has year by year increased her output of "Dreadnoughts," Great Britain, to whom her Navy is her all in all, has steadily dropped "Dreadnoughts" and neglected every other type of vessel. Urgently needed docks have remained unbuilt, stores have been scandalously depleted, while, worse than all, nothing has been done to develop the personnel of our Fleet, which in the near future we shall be unable to man. The position is so deplorable that the Admiralty dare not tell the truth, and Mr. McKenna shelters himself behind the wretched subterfuge that it would be contrary to public interests to state the respective shipbuilding capacity of Germany and Great Britain. Our readers may take it from us as an understatement that to-day Germany can build and equip ten "Dreadnoughts" per annum, while seven represents our maximum capacity. What is being done to redress the balance? Where are the watch-dogs of the Press? Mostly Mostly fawning on the Admiralty.

The Defence
Committee

EVEN now that there is no longer room for doubt in any sane mind as to the formidable and frantic preparations of Germany to secure the hegemony of Europe vid the downfall of Great Britain-which, as Lord Alan Percy points out in his admirable article, is not a purely naval problem -our counter-preparations continue to consist of verbiage. Both political Parties infinitely prefer belabouring one another over the Budget to the more momentous business of facing a crisis involving our national existence, for which his Majesty's Ministers and his Majesty's Opposition are alike, though not equally, responsible, because necessarily the greater burden belongs to the Government of the day. To onlookers it would appear as though national interests were permanently unrepresented in the House of Commons, where everything is sacrificed to the entrancing game between Ins and Outs, occasionally interrupted by emotional moments when the two Front Benches fall upon one another's necks, or upon the necks of the Boers, or whoever may chance to be passing at the moment. During the past month there have been two debates on matters connected with National Defence-one on the Navy Estimates, and one on

that dangerous and delusive fraud the Defence Committee, the ingenious device of astute politicians to fool a simple-minded public, some of whom seriously imagine that the Defence Committee is a quasi-General Staff which works out in peace time the problems of war, whereas it is merely a debating society in which the talkers have everything their own way. Its value to the nation may be gauged by the fact that its existence has coincided with a relative decline of British Sea-power from the two-Power standard to the less than one-Power standard. It claims infallibility, and flabby journalists concede its claim to immunity from criticism. Under happier auspices the Defence Committee might have become a useful factor instead of being a mere stalking-horse for Party politicians. The recent Report of the Sub-Committee is the first public service it has rendered.

Another
Conference

BESIDES the debates there has also been an Imperial Conference on Defence, attended by the patriotic Premier of New Zealand (Sir Joseph Ward), and distinguished delegates from Canada, Australia, and South Africa, whose deliberations have remained shrouded in impenetrable mystery, from which we are encouraged to expect miraculous results. We shall have no objection to the mystery provided the results correspond, but we confess to not being greatly impressed by the nods and winks of inspired paragraphists, or the cryptic utterances of Parliamentary gasbags. We all remember the epoch-making speech in which Mr. Haldane "adumbrated "he is the greatest adumbrator of this or any other age the forty-six Imperial Army Corps, twice the number possessed by Germany, which were to arise from the ultimate extension of his Territorial system to the rest of the Empire, and we can guess the value of the phrase "the co-ordination of all the forces of the Crown" which optimistic scribes invite us to anticipate as the outcome of the Conference. That blessed word Co-ordination like Charity covereth a multitude of sins, but co-ordination can only become effective when there is something to co-ordinate. The only hope of achievement lies in the robust determination of the Press, and a certain section of the people of Greater Britain, to arm and train their able-bodied manhood for war, but like ourselves, the Dominions suffer from a surfeit of windbags, who have already

wasted an enormous amount of time in futile loquacity, and time is the one thing we can no longer afford to squander. Let us hope that without further ado they will take the question of defence by land and sea seriously in hand, without excessive deference to the Mandarins of Whitehall. Our great War Minister's latest aphorism is the assertion that the evolution of Imperial Defence will deflect our thoughts from the problem of invasion, but if things remain as they are, there will be no need to worry about invasion or any kindred problem, because invasion will be an accomplished fact. Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers. Action is already long over-due, but of action there is no serious sign.

Another
Debate

DURING the debate on the Naval Estimates (July 26), Mr. McKenna's laboured and unconvincing explanation of the delay in executing the meagre shipbuilding programme already sanctioned by Parliament of which, so far as we can make out from his obscure observations only one "Dreadnought" has been laid down in four months-contained the tardy announcement that "after very anxious and careful examination of the condition of shipbuilding in foreign countries, the Government have come to the conclusion that it is desirable to take all the necessary steps to ensure that the second four ships referred to in this year's programme should be completed by March 1912." We have to be thankful for the smallest mercies, and this announcement is welcome as far as it goes, but it does not go far, and other portions of Mr. McKenna's speech were distinctly disquieting. He was painfully anxious to placate the No-Navy party, headed by that smug hypocrite "Stream of Facts," who, it will be remembered, was detected during the South African War advertising for information from Boer sources to be exploited against British officers. All that the Government proposed as regards the second quartet of "Dreadnoughts," according to Mr. McKenna, was to prepare plans, to get out specifications, to invite tenders, and "give orders," so that the ships may be completed rather less than three years hence! Mr. McKenna gratified the Radical rump by hinting a doubt as to whether "any demand will have to be made in the course of the present financial year." Ours is the only Government in

the world which pretends to build battleships without money. The Anti-Navy Party, which pace the Observer has won all along the line in the battle of the Estimates, roundly declares through the Manchester Guardian, the organ of Messrs. George and Churchill, that these additional ships constitute the whole of next year's programme. In other words, we propose to build four "Dreadnoughts" per annum to Germany's eight or ten, while her allies of the Triplice build four apiece. No wonder the German Emperor is enchanted at the victory of the Potsdam Party in the Cabinet, or that he should reward Mr. Winston Churchill for his invaluable services in keeping down the British Navy by a cordial invitation to the German manœuvres, where no doubt this halfpenny hero will be made much of, and whence he will return more wedded than ever to German interests.

An Appeal to the Tail

THE First Lord of the Admiralty pleaded pathetically with the tail of his Party, of which he and all his colleagues stand in mortal terror, to sanction their exiguous programme, pointing out that since the discussion last March "the development of shipbuilding in foreign countries has gone on apace. Two countries, Italy and Austria, have now declared a definite programme of four large armoured ships of the latest type." One of the Italian ships was already laid down, the second was about to be laid down, while the remaining two would be laid down in the course of the present year. That is to say, Italy, a subordinate member of the Triple Alliance, and a third-rate naval Power, is laying down as many battleships this year as Great Britain, while according to Mr. McKenna, both the declarations and the actions. of the Vienna Government "all point beyond doubt to the conclusion that the Austrian programme of four battleships of the largest size is, like the Italian programme, an actual reality." The rest of Mr. McKenna's speech, which was addressed to the disarmament-mongers, incidentally contained a crushing condemnation of the Government. "For three successive years the British Government did its utmost to convince the world of the futility of this race of armaments, and the desirability of curtailing construction. During those three years the British Government laid down eight large armoured ships-three in the first year, three in the second, and two in the third.

During the same period the German Government laid down eleven large armoured ships-one in the first year, five in the second, and five in the third." Of the five in the third year four only belonged to the programme of the year, the fifth was laid down last year under the programme of the current year. "That was an acceleration . . . for which the only possible explanation that can be given is that it was desirable, in the opinion of the German Government, to have the ships completed as early as possible. We have laid down, as I have said, eight large armoured ships in the last three years as against the German eleven" [our italics]. Strong language has been employed by many people to condemn Ministerial naval policy, but no one has succeeded in saying anything so damaging as this fatal confession of Mr. McKenna, that while talking two-Power standard, our so-called statesmen have deliberately and knowingly scaled down British construction below the one-Power standard in pursuit of the phantom of Disarmament.

Vox

MR. LEE, on behalf of the Opposition, condemned the utterly inadequate proposals of the Government, insisting that their only practical action since March was the formal abandonment of the two-Power standard as regards the most modern type of battleship, while it was now officially admitted that the bulk of our pre-"Dreadnought" battleships were older than those of our chief rivals, and would consequently become obsolete more rapidly than theirs-a consideration which should have convinced the Government of the necessity of establishing an unassailable superiority in the "Dreadnought" class, instead of which they were at best contenting themselves with a possible margin of superiority of only three ships over one Power in the Spring of 1912. Great Britain was actually spending less money on naval construction this year than Germany, there was no allowance for such contingencies as accidents or the possible acquisition of the Brazilian ships by our rivals, while the neglect of destroyers was "perfectly unaccountable." Mr. Asquith made his usual unimpeachable speech, which is, however, beginning to pall upon the public, who shrewdly suspect that the Prime Minister is vox et preterea nihil—an invertebrate politician with unabated powers of utterance, who is quite unable to cope with intriguing, disaffected colleagues, who will probably succeed

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