GREAT MEN'S BLOOMERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 273, 8 April 1911, Page 10

GREAT MEN'S BLOOMERS.

GETTING INTO HOT WATER BY INDISCREET SPEECHES. One of the difficulties of 'the man who represents his country abroad —either officially or unofficially—is that lie lias to lie very careful in expressing a personal opinion on matters which hear on international polities. Many a man has ruined his career before now by too frankly saying what he thought. Commander Sims, who has lately been publicly rebuked by President Taft for too outspoken a speech at the Guildhall, has got off more lightly than have some former delinquents. There was the famous case of Lord Sackville, for instance, who in 1888 was our Ambassador to the United States. On the eve of the Presidential elections there a letter came from California requesting him to advise the writer, a naturalised 'Britisher, as to how he should vote. ''Which party, did he think, would be the more friendly to the Old Country ?" Lord Sackville replied sympathetically, giving it as his opinion that from England's point of view President Cleveland's party was the more desirable. This letter was at once published in several newspapers. A storm of popular feeling arose. The President summoned a special Cabinet Council to consider the matter of the Ambassador's interference. A message was sent to England that Lord Sackville was no longer acceptable as Ambassador, and he was promptly recaller. '•■ President, Cleveland afterwards said that he could not understand how anyone could have failed to understand the full intention of the letter of enquiry, as it contained a trap every time. And a trap it -was. It had been sent by a young Californian reporter. An earlier British Minister to the States was recalled for a similar reason in 1854. Relations at the time were somewhat strained on the question of Britain's recruiting soldiers in the States, under the Foreign Enlistment Act. This conflicted with America's own enlistment law, and the British Minister was unwise enough to state his own private opinion on the difficulty. The United States Government promptly asked for his recall. Feeling was so embittered already that this step might easily have brought on war, but the official letter to the British Government wag .so tactfully cordial that no offence was taken. A very recent case of lack of discretion was that of General d'Amadc, the brilliant' French soldier who was compulsorily retired about a year ago. As the General who had brilliantly conducted the French operations in Morocco, he was, during Spain's war with that country, interviewed by a reporter from Le Matin. He was unguarded enough to say that France should intervene and prevent Spain from getting far enough south to interfere with the highway between Algiers and the Atlantic coast. The Prime Minister, instructing the Minister of War to put him on half-pay, remarked that he had seldom had so painful a task to perform, 'but that discipline must be maintained. Tt was in 1903 that the famous Admiral Dewey got into hot water over an indiscreet speech. After the annual manoeuvres he declared that they were an object lesson to the Kaiser, and that the efficiency of the German Navy had been greatly over-estimated. As in no country are the army and navy permitted to make political speeches, Germany was angry. One leading German newspaper enlarged on the "infantine maladies" of America, and declared that "there wag .something inexpressibly immature about the impertinence of the leaders of the United States navy." The German Government formally protested, and the incident only closed when President Roosevelt, after summoning the Admiral to a private interview, publicly expressed regret for the speech. Only a few months ago there was the case of Commander Roper, the distinguished naval officer lent by the British Admiralty to Canada to act as chief of staff of the new navy. In a public speech lie vigorously defended the Government's policy and critieisid the opponents of a Canadian navy. The matter was discussed for an hour in Parliament at Ottawa. Everybody agreed that Commander Roper had done wrong, buf* that it would he inadvisable to blame him too much for one lapse from the ways of discretion.