Flag Wagging.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 194, 12 March 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Flag Wagging.

Lokd Charles Beresford, speaking at Grantham lately on the crisis, rru.y claim to have added a new word to iha vocabulary of politic?, which I have no doubt will "catch on" at once, an,i ho heard often onough in tho Hou«o of Commons debatos. He had nntie/'d (ho said) that when the late Chancellor of the Excheq jer resigned a numbor ot thorn thought thit (he Conservative pa>t> T u<>.° going to be divided. "Now,' they p.h<J, " i«> the timo to attack," and tho fu^nMi went up. The cxpre-"uon iit-O(i in tho navy was " flijx-wM^gJng."' (Lnu^htt.r.) Tht. Liberals cjmmonced this. They cv.llf.ii f'.r a re-uniting of their flag v.'a^ff»ntr t"r«o?. and they ran up the signal;?, "Piop'^o t" attack the f nemy immediai-ely.' But wh'-n they found the enemy - moaning the Conservatives -had not divided or altered thcii roursa of action, there wouM be no nn»o flag wagging to the effect, " ri-opoto to part noxrspaoy ogam." Speaking on the question of naval reform, Lord Charlop, after alluding to sown he regarded aa urgent, paid, "I feu- that we are on tho brink of a great (/o;.<n\;nt^l war ; and, though I do not believe tfn^'.and will be drawn into it, Ptill it bohovuP her to be prepared."