THE NAVY.
Sir, —Public attention has l>eon riveted, and rightly .so, on what Lord Charles Ik'resford Mi-id ap Abbey Manor, Uvesham, on the ~th inst : "The constituted siuthoritit's and the Admiralty Press have bom looling the people (hie ol' the principal t!iliiuji3<^ijts is the Navy League." Wo has bit straight from the shoulder, and he is absolutely right. The Did Navy League went all to pieces soon after the advent ol ihe Liberal party to power. It refused to attack tho Liberals for their naval reduction.-;. Hence tho "great
| split" which commenced in WOO, I which culminated in May, 1007, and S the whole history cf which is recorded -in "The Passing <rf tlu> Great | |-'!«et; M and hence, also, the founda-
tion of that splendid fighting orpa::isntion, the imperial Maritime League. Tho old and much misunderstood shibboleth "Non-Party" was the cause of the Old Navy League's undoin£. Tho Imperial Maritime League interprets tho phrase in the only logical and intelligible manner, namely, that it is the duty of any League, professing to be a "nnn party" organisation, to attack any and every party (whatever its political complexion) which fails m its primary duty of safeguarding the National and imperial defences. This interpretation underlies, ana will continue to underlie, the every action of the Imperial Maritune
League. The Old Navy League, or. the "other hand, has. unfortunately. construed and perverted iV phru*c for ninny years past, in nt'h a man- j nor „» to make the Navy Lcagr- the , strongest bulwark of the Liberal Government in Great Britain in the neglect of our national ad Imperial { defences. For that League interIprets the term as meaning that, for very fear of being called a "party'' organisation, it must not attack any party. Not to attack a party when that' party neglects its primary duty of safeguarding those deforces, h to make the body, f,o refraining from attack, "particeps criminiV with that party in that neglect. That is exactly what the Old Navy League has done. The Old Navy League, in other words., has constituted itself throughout, hy its abstention from attack on the Liberal Government, the "particeps oriminis" with the Liberal Government in its neglect of the national and Imperial defences. The present crisis is but one result of that neglect. For that neglect, for that crisis, the Old Xavy League is, in very large part responsible. In fact and in effect it. has made itself a "party" organisation in support of the party officially responsible alike for that neglect and for that crisis. Yet, as if it bad dene enough evil already, it has now gon;further. For in its recent public manifesto (of the 24th ult,) it has 1 actually stated in terms that it (the I Old Na.vy League) " has recognised | gladly the maintenance of our naval strength until the present time." A more ill-informed position eon Id hardly ha possible, particularly in view of the admission in the self-same manifesto that the present is a "critical position," and that it "is largely the result of-a lack of cool, steady, methodical preparation, prolonged over a series of years." For had our relative naval strength been in fact maintained whether' by "cool, steady, mettyodiflal iprcparaiiior,'' or (\thc-r----wise, during tho past six years, there would have been no crisis to-day. Indeed, but for the Liberal reductions on tho Navy in 1906, 1907, and 190S —reductions made with the practical acquiescence of the Old Navy League —there would, in ,all human probability, have been no German .Supplementary Navy Acts of 1906, 1908 and 1912, throwing upon us the tremendous burden now to bo borne it national and Imperial security are to be restored. And the future will show —that is, if Germany gives it time—that the burden of the Navy FiStimates of to-day (heavy, indeed, ibut yet gravely insufficient for our needs) is nothing compared with the burden of those which mart follow if
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Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10712, 2 October 1912, Page 6
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651THE NAVY. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10712, 2 October 1912, Page 6
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