THE BRITISH NAVY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2233, 3 July 1908, Page 1

THE BRITISH NAVY.

Deplorable as the recent naval disasters have been (remarks the London ■’Times”) they have shown conclusively that the officers and men of the Royal Navy have, at any rate, been trained to a discipline, a fortitude, a fearlessness, and an ingrained sense of comradeship, in the face of sudden and imminent death in one of its most appalling '■forms, which are beyond all praise. The truth is that life on board a man-of-war in cominision is beset with danger at every turn. A cable may carry away, a gun may hurst, a breach piece' may be insufficiently secured, a derrick may give way, a steam-pipe of a boiler tube may prove unexpectedly defective, a boat may capsize in a squall, a submarine may be run down or its appliances for submersion or emergence may fail at. a critical moment, an order may be misinterpreted, or in very rare instances, a wrong order may be given. as in the case of the Victoria, and tho result is death, it may be widespread, or it may lie individual, but alike inexorable, incalculable, ineluctable. All. these risks, and many others, have to be faced every day and every hour by all officers and men of the Royal Navy, and we all know that they are taken one and all, without thought or fear, as part of tlieir day’s work. Those who have relatives in the service know full well that, if they allowed their imagination to dwell unduly u]xm these tilings, they would never sleep peacefully in their beds. Fathers, mothois, brothers’ sisters,, sweethearts and wives, must all bear this burden, and perhaps it is harder for them to hear it than the sailors themselves. It is not from them, we take it. that the craven cry arises that the risks involved in training for war are too great to be run in peace. They have faced the situation, neither ignoring its manifold terrors nor allowing their affections to magnify them, and made up tlieir mi nils to endure it. Shall the nation at large be less ready to pay “the price of Admiralty” than they are?