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The Press. Saturday, October 20, 1917. Nelson Day.

To-morrow will be tho 112 th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, and the anniversary, which will be kept to-day throughout -tho Empire, ig in future to 3-o known as Nelson Day. Before the ft-ar it was the custom to make Trafalgar Day tho occasion for reflection upon tho place of the Navy in the life of the I Empire. It was An annual rallyingpoint for those who realised that tho Fleet'was the most vital concern of all tho subjects of the King, and such a rallying point was very necessary in order to countcraot the steady pressure of an influential section of tho British nation against the. piling up of armaments and what they denounced as . tho wasting, in a mad and

unnecessary competition, of millions that -were required for social reform. Most Britons, even those who firmly believed' that war would never como in their time, were nevertheless haunted by thq feeling that'without a powerful Fleet the kingdom would bo at the mercy of foreign Powers. Their instinct was sound, but without the propagandist labours of patriotic and farseeing men tho nation might have been fed into , acquiescing in such a policy of naval retrenchment as one cannot now think, of without a shudder. To-day, after more than three years of war, it is difficult to imagine the frame of mind of the "Little Navy" men of those days. Thev have realised their error, and they see now that in building up an invincible Navy Britain was not simply safeguarding tho Empire, but was strengthening an instrument which was to prove tho salvation of human freedom throughout tho world. Day by day the peoples bear of terrible fighting on all the battlefields, but of the Fleet dvg hear nothing. But it is doing its 1

vital work as surely as the silent and invisible atmosphere which is neccssary

to life on the earth. It is the foundation, as Sir John Jellicoo said in a statement made for the American people on the third anniversary of tho war, "it is " tho foundation whereon all the efforts "of the Allies rest." Nohodv now asks the foolish question, "What is "tho Navy doing?" which used to b( asked by people who imagined that i Navy could not be doing anything un less it were actually engaging an enemj Fleet. But it is worth while to con sider what the Navy has done, and upor this point nobody can speak with a; much authority as Sir John Jellicoo: "What has it done? For a porioc of throe years it has robbed the Germans of all advantages which they expoctcd to reap from the possessior of a strong battle fleet. That forct was to have sallied forth from time tc time. The Germans calculated that they would strike at their selected moment, when their fleet would be at a maximum strength, and thai they would catch our Grand Fleet at a moment when, owi.ig to the absence of ships undergoing refits and repairs, tho odds were littlo, if anything, against them. They have not been ponnitted to carry out that scheme. . . . Only those "who are familiar with German naval literature —which preached the doctrine of the offensive—can appreciate the significance of naval events during tho past tlireo years. Tho Gorman High Seas Fleet was not created that it might remain inactive month after month. It is a great war engine. No greater mistake can bo made than to underestimate its strength. It is .far stronger, for instance, than the British Fleot was ten years ago, and in years before tho opening of the war it submitted to a very thorough intonsivo system of training." Despite the enormous difficulties ol containing an enemy fleet—"which has the vast area of the North Sea in whicl to operate, which can select its time and point of attack, which has no need tc discriminate betwoen friend and foe, since it has no friends on the seas—the Navy has kept the seas open for the wai activities of the Allies. Sir John Jellicoe tells us—and it is a matter for pride that it can bo said—that "the Britisl: "Navy's control of the nerve system o " maritime communications of the worlc " at this juncture is more complete thai "the control exercised by the army oi "the Central Powers on land." So it has been hitherto,. and so it will be to the end. The war has revealed to the British peoples a capacity for effort anc achievement that they hardly coule have imagined possible in themselves but it has also upset many illusions Success has been far less easy than wa.' hopod in August, 1914; there have beer failures and mistakes in the military operations and in the councils at Home though these have been repaired and turned into stepping-stones to successfu; endeavour. But the Fleet has been all. and more than all, that the British peoples hoped and believed it would be, The old skill and gallantry of the men who established British supremacy al sea 112 years ago are still the signa marks of our great Navy. Nelson Daj is one of the few great anniversaries ii which the remembrance of a great thinj of the past merges in the celebration oJ a living and present fact. The com memoration is not a proud look back ward to a name and a day that are done—a name and a day we can nevej see again. "We are celebrating the stil living Nelson spirit, the unchanged gaJ

lantry and skill of the Navy of Trafa]

gar. And on this day we may reflect with gratitude upon the labours of the Navy 'League and all those earnest men who would not let the nation forget that in the Navy lay the fate of the Empire—who strove, often in the face of unpopularity, to have the need for an invincible Fleet recognised through-

out the Empire, as it is recognised today, when the Fleet visibly stands, not merely betweon the Empire and dis-

aster, but between the world and the ruin of the world's civilisation. '

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19171020.2.65

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 16037, 20 October 1917, Page 8

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,023

The Press. Saturday, October 20, 1917. Nelson Day. Press, Volume LIII, Issue 16037, 20 October 1917, Page 8

The Press. Saturday, October 20, 1917. Nelson Day. Press, Volume LIII, Issue 16037, 20 October 1917, Page 8

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