The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, MAY 15, 1888. War News

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 122, 15 May 1888, Page 2

The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, MAY 15, 1888. War News

There is nothing very startling in the way of war news, although recent telegrams show that the people of England have at last been allowed to discover that the British army is endangered through not being armed with better weapons, those now in use being the worst in the world, far behind the breechloaders in the hands of foreign soldiers. It is also asserted that along the coast line of defence the warships are practically without guns and ammunition, and the equipment is both deficient and defective. That Lord Wolseley should have made this unpleasant fact public has excited the wrath of Lord Salisbury who has censured Lord Wolseley for the speeches he has delivered on the state of the army which, Lord Salisbury says, were likely to cause a panic. In our view Lord Wolseley was quite right in letting the taxpayers know the rotten condition in which the defences were, for which they have paid so dearly. It is much better to know the worst now than to find it out after the country is involved in war. The Duke of Cambridge, a venerable fossil who ought to have been discharged on a pension fifty years ago, is also offended with Lord Wolseley, and the relatious between them " are said to be strained." We devoutly hope they will be strained until they break, when it will be all the better for the Empire. One re-assuring 1 item of news is that in the House of Commons Lord G. Frajtcis Hamilton, First Lord of the Admiralty, stated that the Russian Squadron in the Pacific was far inferior as regards numbers and strength to that of the Chinese Squadron alone, and that the commander of the latter was perfectly satisfied as to the strength of his fleet. The authorities intend expending the sum of £850,000 in building and arming a squadron for the Australian waters, the Colonies re-paying their several shares at the end of twelve years with three per cent, interest. Although late in the day, these ships may supply " a long felt want" in about two or three years when the war, which now seems so near at hand, will have become a thing of the past.