ADMIRALS AT VARIANCE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 222, 12 September 1908, Page 4

ADMIRALS AT VARIANCE

(From ALA.J 1 .J Xot the deliylits of the season; nor the surprint's and possibilities of : t lie Olympic games; nur tin.' splendid change fur the better in the weather--not one of tiie.se or a score of others of the usual topics, has occupied so much of the gossip and discussion of Hit* week as the tight between the Admirals. Naturally it is not a subject into the merits of which J have the least notion of entering here. J note, at the same time, that this quarrel seems to dill'er from other service quarrels in the fact; that thcru is evidently a very well planned and organised press campaign—l rather think on the one side as well as the other, The Times seems to iiave taken the part of Sir John Fisher; the Morning Post and the Standard, as well as the Express, have, ranged themselves on the side of Lord Charles lieresford. Lt is evident that the feud, then, is very hotj anil of course it muat end in the disappearance of either the one or the other of. the two protagonists. .Mv humbler duty here is lo give some . iika of the personality of the two great olliccis. Lord Charles jteresford, naturally. 1 can describe better than the other; having known hint for many years as a member of the House of Commons. 2Je is almost ridiculously like what everybody's natural impression would «i----of a British Tar—especially if the Tar were, in addition, of Irish birth. There is not a single detail the image—J might say the eternal image—of the Tar as seen in a scon: of melodramas and as he presents himsell to all our imaginations. The face round and chubby, the complexion rough, ultr«t* ruddy, very like that of the typical 'binman and for the same reason, namely, constant life in the open air: (he frame is robust, taut, and alPrt, a little in- • clinetl to stoutness; the walk is somewhat bandy-legged, ;i"s is bound to be the ease where a man has to balance himself-for years on the rolling deck; the arms are held akimbo—also suggesting the. breezy Tar life; and linally the voice, is loud, hearty, and as .harmonious as a foghorn. Add to all the ordinary characteristics the friendly and eordiil manner of an Irishman—the love ot fun. the keen sense of the humorous, and the desire to be friendly to everybody - and you get a fairly good idea of the impression Lord Charles iiereslord makes upon people. He is not in the least the inarticulate creature the sailor is supposed to be; he can talk rapidly i and almost volubly on any subject hj" understands; and whenever Mie. Navy Estimates ealne along in the House ot Commons Lord Charles Jleresford was certain during his Parliamentary career to make his fair share of speeches. He spoke in such a *fay as you would expeet a bailor to speak, loudly, peremptorily—though there was always a redeeming gleam of tun in-his eye and a ready smile on his face, and with that foghorn voice pitched to such a high note that you could hear him down on the Terrace and even across the Thames in the words of St. Thomas's Hospital. Jjord Charles comes of a wild stock: wealthy, powerful, for some generations almost'the leading family in the AngloIrish aristocracy. 'The head of the family is the Marquis of Waterford. and owyier of innumerable acres. Usualiy also another nf them is enthroned in the Arehiepiscopal Palace of the See of Armagh, and of course with a seat mi the House of Lords in the old days before the disestablishment of the Irish Protestant Church, i remember we.l an miele of Lord Charles—Archbishop Hereford of Armagh—he took a prominent part in the Convention which settled the new constitution of the Church after disestablishment. A courtlier or more aristocratic or distiuguished-Jooking man J never saw. He had the aquiline features of the conquering race; his eyes—which, as iit the ease of all the iJeresfords i have ever seen, were a beautiful blue—shone clear and humorous and perhaps a little frigid, although, he was a man of something like seventy when I saw him; and his arehiepiscopal dress seemed always like some splendid uniform which got additional grace from the tine features and the stately bearing of the wearer, lie intervened but rarely in the debates, but always pertinently, sensibly, and with a judicious combina-. tiou of unpretentiousnes* and command, and managed to be a popular figure in an assembly where the majority of the lay delegates at least —being strong Evangelicals---were no friend of Bishops, were almost Presbyterian in their haired of Prelacy, which, like the stout (Protestants liiey were—thev regarded as savouring of Popery. There was another famous Beresford, who disappeared before my time—irresponsible creature who brought info the sober mid-Victorian epoch some of the pranks and the orgies of the eighteenth century or the early days of the nineteenth century, when Oeorge 111. was still King. Some of his exploit* made one think that, lie was just the kind of man Lord Byron would have liked to have a carouse with—through an all-night sitting in linj,' rooms in St. .lames s 'Street, in one of the intervals in which ]s.vron gave up eating potatoes and vinegar, an:l took to lobster and brandy. 1 remem ; ber as a boy hearing all kinds of stories of this mad Marquis here in London, where he rah the same kind of career —except that being an Irishman he made it funny instead of sombre—as the Marquis of Hastings, who was killed by the. loss of the Derby to Air. Chaplin's Hermit; and Lord Waterford wound up like the English marquis in an early death.

Another Marquis belonged to my own (lavs/and 1 often saw him in the House of' Lords, lie also had had his day o! pranks. One of my recollections is of the day when the newspapers came out with tiic portentous announcement that he hail run oil' with the wife of Colonel Vivian, a. well-known member of the House of Commons, and. indeed, an undor-sccrctary at the moment in the ministry of l/nd l'almerston or Lord Hussell.' The career thus begun ended inure auspiciously than might have been expected, for the young lover proved faithful to the woman who had given np so much for him—this does not "1iviivs 'happen. They settled down al Ciirraglunore, the family seat at Waterford. and the new Lady Waterford proved so charitable, so devoted, and so Christian a woman that when she died she was deplored as a tragic loss by the wliole countryside, and especially by Ihe poor, all of another race and of another creed—though, I believe, she bacame a Catholic ill later years. Lord Waterford ended sadly, lie was always, like his family, a. great man after the hounds: kept the famous p:\ck of his county— Waterford has always been a great hunting county—got a bad fall, and never entirely recovered, lie used to speak often in the House of Lords when tile Land War was at its height, I remember the weird feeling I had when, one (.'veiling, on entering the House of Lords, I heard a voice, clear, penetrating, and rapid, and could not see whence tlie voice proceeded. 1 discovered som the reason of in.v perplexity; it was Lnrd Waterford speaking, but speaking from his and not standing: lie was allowed to (To in consequence of .is infirmity. In the end (he agonies which his malady created proved 100 much; aml he shot himself in his own palatial liouso. Hot blood, then, runs ill Lord Charles lieresford's veins: in his case mitigated bv long years of active service, by the hard discipline of the Navy, by great emergencies, out of which he came glorious, in battles by sea and battles by hind. 111. recent years he lias been even more alert than ever, and even younger tlian ever, all because, as he hiinslt pu.s it, he has had the courage to become ail ali-ijliito abstainer. And, barring his hot

Irish hereditary temperament. I cannot understand his doing anything very rash or very stupid. Though he is not Irish, there is a good deal of quicksilver—at least, lo judge front his appearance—ill Sir .lolin Fisher, 100. I had an opportunity of studying

him I'm- Unci' weeks sumo ,vonrs ago -when 111' was Inking the euro at Marionbad—he wns almost, as groat a lover of that delightful lieoltli resort as poor CM.!.: and was a devotee ol' it long t.efori- the King ever set his foot there. Here, again, was the typical sailor in appearance and manner. A ronml, bul-let-shaped lifinl, a robust, taut, alert hody, eyes dark ami somewhat protruding,' a sallow skill, a compresesd mouth, a 'ready laugh, a quick manner, sueli is 111 v recoiled ion of liis appearance. ITo

i,' what his looks suggest. T believe, a dynamic man. all motion, activity, and power—ready to get up and lie at his desk at five in the morning; masterful, clear-sighted, impatient of opposition, and frightened from no purpose by its difficulty ov its unpopularity. T know too little about, the Navy to pass any opinion on the changes he lias iniroiluced: but T gather that, they are of a revolutionary character; that steamships have been "scrapped" and thrown awav as old iron, with something of the splendid recklessness a great American manufacturer or a newspaper prolirietnr shows when tie throws out CIOO 000 worth of machinery from a mill ov a printing-office two years after lie has hoard of something faster or hotter. In all the old ideas of the, places

sun t ' f m '» Jlt C ' O,U " iUIU should therefore be always ready, Sir John I'isher, 1. also gather from the papers and speeches, has been quite as re vol ull o nary fi 11 iug u| , with'vessels spots which were left hare and leaving bare places where' there was congestion under the old regime. This policy finds, ot course, its crux in the regions in and about our own isles; for there it is that it there were to be an attempted descent on the United Kingdom the Navy would have to fight and win or die, and therefore the number of ships to be placed in this point, or that is 011 c of the vital problems of national security. Jt is no wonder that there should be hot difference ol opinion on problems so supreme; and that as men differ on points so cardinal, their difference should develop mole heat as the discussion goes on, 1 gather that Lord Charles lJcresl'ord differs fundamentally 011 this point from Sir John Fisher; that lie regards himself as deprived of the number of ships which are necessary for the safety of the-positions he has to defend; and that two masterful men, finding themselves at variance 011 such an issue, are lighting their battle with something like personal ferocity. How will it all end? A littlj; date perhaps will supply the key. Early next year the command Charles liercsford comes automatically lo an end; and it is obviously the desire of Mr. Asquith aud Mr. McKcnna to look to that date as relieving them from the painful necessity of going to extremes; and thus* the dispute will for the moment tie elided, but Lord Charles liercsford is an old elcctionccrer, and an old member'of Parliament, and it is possible that, we shall hear the next chapter unfolded at Westminster. May I be there to see!