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approved Anglo-Russian Agreement. It is perhaps this reverse which has tempted the Wilhelmstrasse to accentuate its activities in the Far East, where the unfortunate tension between China and Japan is deemed a fruitful field for sowing dissension, not only between Peking and Tokyo, but likewise between Tokyo and Washington, and even between Tokyo and London and Washington and London. Fortunately the Japanese are far too clever to be taken in by the crude mendacities of the German Press concerning the attitude of Great Britain towards her ally, and the series of illuminating articles of the Times Special Correspondent lately in the Far East constitute a valuable vindication of Japanese policy, which at the present time is in as wise hands as is the policy of any country in the world. But Englishmen cannot afford to ignore the ceaseless and malignant efforts of Berlin to generate friction between Japan and the United States, mainly with the object of driving the Americans and ourselves into opposite camps, and thus making Germany the arbiter of the situation. As we have said, the Japanese thoroughly understand every twist and turn in German diplomacy, but unfortunately the mass of Americans, while amazingly intelligent on all matters within their ken, are abysmally ignorant of foreign affairs, and thus fall an easy prey to intriguers. Their sole source of information consists of cablegrams, many of which are inspired by the Wilhelmstrasse, to which the American journalist falls an even easier victim than his British confrère. To take one example, if Americans seriously believe that we desire to thwart their commercial activities in China, they will believe anything.

The Tsar in
Western
Europe

IT goes without saying that the most important international event of the past month was the visit of the Russian Emperor and Empress to Western Europe, which was very gratifying to all intelligent lovers of peace, though such is the perversity of human nature that certain professional pacifists in France and England, who have their legs pulled from Potsdam, actually resented it. Our Labour Members, headed by Mr. Keir Hardie, made an egregious exhibition of themselves, which has gone far to discredit them as serious politicians. They are now seen to be mere Trade Union wire-pullers, without intelligence or sense of responsibility in large affairs. It is melancholy

that the British working classes, with their sound political instincts, should be misrepresented before the world by such ignorant charlatans. Happily, Mr. Keir Hardie's demonstrations, which would have been outrageous had they not been so idiotic, merely served to accentuate the general welcome accorded in this country to the Russian Emperor and Empress, who spent several days in the Solent after their visit to the President of the French Republic at Cherbourg, which was marked by the utmost cordiality between les nations amies et alliées, whose continued co-operation signifies so much for the peace of Europe. M. Pichon was able to affirm, as the result of this visit-in which, be it remembered, the Tsar was accompanied by his Foreign Minister, M. Isvolsky-that "there is complete unity of views between France and Russia, and complete unity of effort and of action, not only in the great lines of their international policy, but even in the most petty details, and even, let me add, with regard to possible eventualities." The visit of the Russian Royal Family to our Royal Family was in every way a most attractive event, which evidently caused the keenest enjoyment to hosts and guests. We may rest assured that the conversations between Nicholas II. and leading members of the British Government, and their exchange of views with M. Isvolsky, served to strengthen the friendly relations between the two Powers, which found their outward and visible expression in the tactful speeches of King Edward and the Emperor at the Royal banquet on board the Victoria and Albert (August 2), both monarchs making friendly references to the recent visit of the Duma. We have long maintained, and every day that passes confirms our conviction, that upon the evolution of a serious and practical entente between Russia, France, and Great Britain the peace of Europe primarily depends, always provided that these Powers maintain their armaments by land and sea at the requisite level. The spectacle of our Home and Atlantic Fleets, described by the King as "the most powerful and largest fleet that has ever assembled," cannot fail to have made a profound impression on the Russian Emperor, who returned home via the Kiel Canal, where he found the German Emperor lying in wait for him. The persistence with which Wilhelm II. pursues Nicholas II.

whenever his Russian Majesty goes abroad suggests the existence of serious misgivings in Berlin as to the wisdom of the cheap victory secured in St. Petersburg last March, when it will be remembered the German Emperor intervened in a quarrel not his own and offensively rattled his sabre.

The Naval
Inquiry

OUR readers will remember that about four months ago, in consequence of a statement of Lord Charles Beresford, the retiring-or rather the ejected-Commander-inChief of the Channel Fleet, Mr. Asquith announced the appointment of "a Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence," presided over by himself, to investigate the points raised by the gallant Admiral. This Committee can hardly be described as either expert or impartial, consisting as it did of five civilian Cabinet Ministers: Mr. Asquith (chairman), Lords Crewe and Morley of Blackburn, Sir Edward Grey, and Mr. Haldane, all of whom may know a hawk from a hand-saw, though probably none of them could distinguish a battleship from a cruiser. They were in effect to sit in judgment on a policy for which they were jointly responsible with their colleagues at the Admiralty-Lord Tweedmouth and Mr. McKenna-both of whom had been content to act as the echoes of Sir John Fisher. In the circumstances, the results of this inquiry, which were published as a Parliamentary Paper on Friday, August 13, are somewhat remarkable, and remembering their impossible position-as judges in their own cause it must be admitted that Mr. Asquith and his colleagues have done better than most of jus dared to hope. Their experience on the Sub-Committee has evidently been an education to them, and it seems inconceivable that the Fisher régime should survive this scarcely veiled vote of censure. Needless to say the hysterical enthusiasts of the "Fishpond" Press, have after their wont thrown up their caps and claimed the Report as another glorious victory for the Grand Panjandrum of Whitehall, but when onee journalists, however able and honest, are palpably "nobbled," their opinion ceases to count. If the British Fleet were sunk to-morrow by the Germans, it would doubtless be claimed by the claque as a feather in the cap of our First Sea Lord.

Genesis
of Sub-
Committee

We do not complain of our confrères, in their misguided zeal, endeavouring to regard the Sub-Committee's Report as a triumph for their hero and themselves, but it is a strong order for great newspapers wilfully to misrepresent it to the public. It would be interesting to know whether Sir John Fisher himself shares the ecstatic enthusiasm of his newspaper friends over a document which there is reason to believe came upon him as a painful surprise, whether he will have the audacity to continue demanding an extension of his term of office after October, and whether the Prime Minister, in the face of what he now knows, will betray his trust by acceding to it. The genesis of the Sub-Committee was as follows: In March 1906, Lord Charles Beresford was offered the command of the Channel Fleet, then consisting of sixty-six vessels, which a few months later was reduced to twenty-one, a similar process being applied to the Atlantic Fleet, ostensibly in order to form the Home Fleet, under a separate Commander-in-Chief, but really in order to humiliate Lord Charles, who has the misfortune to excite the animosity and jealousy of Sir John Fisher, who as a Mud Admiral cordially detests every capable seaman. Lord Charles Beresford was strongly of opinion, and his view is endorsed by the Sub-Committee, that all ships intended for the defence of home waters should be under the control of one Admiral. He likewise stipulated for a strategical scheme on which to base his movements, as to the necessity of which we should have imagined there could be no difference of opinion among intelligent persons, and upon which the Sub-Committee had no difficulty in arriving at a sane conclusion. In July 1907, Lord Charles Beresford received a war plan from the Admiralty, which was in his judgment unworkable -and a year later, at the request of the First Lord, he reported generally on the strategical situation, and received a second plan, superseding the first plan, but of an equally impracticable character.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD's tenure of his command may fairly be described as one unceasing effort to induce the Admiralty to provide the Channel Fleet with the essentials of a seaA Petty Persecution going fleet, and it speaks volumes for his indomitable personality that in spite of the petty persecution to which he was systematically subjected by Whitehall, and the

disgraceful campaign conducted against him in the Whitehall Press, he was able by common consent to make his Fleet a splendid school of seamanship. It has never been explained by any of the numerous pens at the disposal of Sir John Fisher, why the First Sea Lord ever assented to the appointment of Lord Charles Beresford to a position for which he was totally unfitted, judging by the official treatment he received, which was evidently intended to provoke him to send in his papers. Of the many indefensible actions of the Abdul Hamid of the Admiralty during the last five years, this appointment is the most indefensible and the most inexplicable. Ultimately, as Lord Charles refused to play the enemy's game and throw up his command, Mr. McKenna was ordered by Sir John Fisher to summon the Admiral to haul down his flag on March 24, 1909, on the pretext that his tenure of office was only two years instead of three years, as he and the rest of the Navy had believed. This was a fatal blunder on the part of the Admiralty, as it unmuzzled Lord Charles, who, on April 2 addressed a long letter to the Prime Minister, complaining that

During the whole of my tenure of the command of the Channel Fleet proper, that force, owing to the number of vessels constantly withdrawn from it for purposes of refit, has never, even for a day, been equal to the force which it might have to encounter in home waters. During that period the fleets in home waters have not been organised in readiness for war, and they are not organised in readiness for war to-day.

All organisation for war on our part involved a relation to the organisation for war of the potential enemy (i.e., Germany), whose naval forces were organised upon the only sound principle, viz., that of concentration, which might be thus defined:

One large homogeneous fleet, complete in all units-battleships, armoured cruisers, protected cruisers, scouts, destroyers, mine-ships, mine-clearers, and auxiliaries, trained under the orders of one Commander-in-Chief, maintained at sea, and in full commission; the administration of the various divisions being entrusted to the Admirals in command of them.

The

As Lord Charles pointed out in his letter to Mr. Asquith, the equivalent to such an organisation upon our part should be a similar organisation with a margin of superiority, i.e., "such an additional number of vessels of all classes as will permit of a certain percentage of naval force being absent for purposes of refit and of repair, while

Desiderata

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