HOW IT STRIKES AN AUSTRALIAN. . VI—THE SAILORS.

THERE is no lack of expert and informing criticism con- cerning the British Navy. Several talented gentlemen, having to do with the daily Press of England, have taken it, and all that belongs to it, under their several wings, and froth day to day and week to week we are kept aware of its progress and its backslidings. These gentlemen act as interpretetJs between the Admiralty and the public. Sometimes they sit in judgment. At 'all times they freely express valuable opinions as to matters which they may or may not know- all about. Belleville boilers, turbine destroyers, sulamarines; searchlights, gunnery, navigation, the birohing of boys, the retiring of Admirals, the awarding of pensions, the conduct of canteens,—each and every complicated matter connected with what they delight to refer to as "our first line of defence," Or the " senior Service," is at the ends of their pens. With an infallibility which is-no less admirable than surprising, they praise or they condemn,—just as a stern sense of 'justice, a lofty patriotism, or an idealistic enthusiasm may dictate. If a submarine sinks with its hatchway open, a breech-block blows out, or a destroyer buckles, they speedily let us know the why and the how, and the how-not-to, of each disaster. It does not matter that most of them have not been to sea. What really matters is that they have made naval affairs their "line," and the interpretation thereof their business. And so we are under an immense debt of gratitude to them, and there is no necessity here to venture one's opinions as to the structure of nautical engines of destruction. That has all been done. What this paper concerns itself with mainly is the man who " goes down to the sea in ships." He is almost all that is left for an outsider to observe at first hand.

England has many things about which she may justly pride herself, but it is difficult to remember anything that more justifies pride than her Navy, and the men who serve it. If you want to stir yourself into a respect for England's great past, go into Westminster Abbey, and read some of the names on the tombs. If you desire to realise her commercial and financial power, divide your time between the purlieus of Throgmorton Street and the Docks. But if you want to see, and understand, and admire the very best of England and the English, you must look all over the world, wherever there is water to float a warship, or any British interests to be served. Portsmouth, or Devonport, or Chatham will explain much to you, but it is really in the distant seas that England does herself most credit. In the great dockyards you see the preparation, the careful working out of the plan. On foreign stations you are best able to realise the results,—that is to say, so far as it is possible to realise them without the testimony of actual battle. At any rate, you are able to estimate the value of the man who is to fight the battle.

If you go South—by Port Said, Suez, Aden, Colombo, Fre-

mantle—and then East into Fairyland, which is situated to-day in the beautiful islands of the Pacific, you will find the Man of the Sea at some of his work. The ships be does it in are not very impressive craft as a rule—because the Australian station is more or less of a scrap-heap for the discarded ironmongery of European waters—but in the ways of the man himself you are sure to take delight. Here he is more or less "on his own" ; great responsibilities are his, and the exercise of a diplomacy which his training has made no specialty of is essential to the successful discharge of his duties. His mistakes may not matter very much here,—but they will make trouble in Europe. His successes count enormously,—but it is only here that they are appreciated at their full value. They are seldom reported for the benefit of the taxpayer, and hardly any one knows of them but the traders, and the missionaries, and the natives. Nevertheless, they often remain great and abiding landmarks in the history of this last quarter of the globe. The English Captains have done more for the Islands than has been, or will ever be, generally credited to the list of their good deeds. Time after time, in isolated places far from the telegraph- line, they have been called upon to settle questions which might have developed into momentous issues, to declare little wars on their own responsibility, or to restore law and order to communities that had fallen into anarchy. In that part of the world, at any rate, their record is one lone series of

successes, and it is 'hardly possible to meet with any man— black, white, or brown—who does not place implicit reliance in•their sense of justice, their ability, and their capacity for dealing with complicated cases.

::There was a certain little Captain commanding one of those old, square-rigged cruisers of twenty years ago—this story is told by a Coastguardsman in Bent—who, though diminutive in stature, was a lion of physical and mental strength. In a certain group of islands a missionary had been 'murdered, and so the little Captain brought his little ship into their midst to exact the usual penalties which are considered necessary in order to discourage the native pastime of missionary hunting. The chief man of the tribe responsible for the crime was a truculent person, indisposed to accede to the little Captain's demand that the actual murderers should be banded over to him. "'E come aboard," said the Coastguardsman, "an' e was a saucy laad, near seven foot 'igh, with a 'ead of 'air like a mop, an' them little scratchin' combs stuck all through it. 'Alf a dozen of 'is bucks come with 'im, an' the old man, dressed up to kill, waits for 'im on the quarter-deck. Well, me boy-o goes aft, up to where the

owner was standin', an' folds 'is arms an' chucks a chest ; an' when 'e's. told he must give up the murderers, 'e just laughs—

en' then spits•fair an' square in the old man's face. Fancy

that—spits in 'is face ! There was a guard drawn up along- side, an' if the skipper 'ad lifted 'is 'and that nigger was a

dead man. But 'e never. 'E just took down 'is pane o' glass —eyeglass I mean—put it away carefully in a little leather case, after carefully wipin' it with 'is angkerchef, wipes 'is face, puts 'is angkerchef away, 'an walks up to me brave

boy, who stood with 'is arms folded, lookin' awful proud and defiant. ' My man; 'e: says, very quiet an' slow, my man,

you'll never do that again—because,' e says, ' you won't be

able to.' An' with that 'e hauls off and lands that buck nigger. one on the jaw that knocks 'im slitherin' along the

deck—knocks 'im five yards along, I give you my word—an'

'e lies in a heap, groanin and bleedin', for 'is jaw was broke, an', all stewed round. 'See to 'im,'. says the old man to the

doctor, walking into 'is cabin. Them other niggers let go a yell, an' went overboard, an' I tell you, under an hour's time we 'as three fine, 'ealthy murderers—brought off in canoes by 'all the village=safe an' sound in irons. I give you my word, there wasn't an island in that group, afterwards, where the old man's slightest wish wasn't law."

This "method of barbarism" is not quoted here as being an infallible and satisfactory method of subjugating coloured races, but only as instancing something of that promptitude in seizing the essentials of a situation which is nearly always characteristic of the English naval officer. Under the provo- eationof a loathsome insult, our little Captain kept his temper, and-did exactly the thing which was most likely to impress the native mind. He might have instilled into the under- standings of recalcitrant headmen, by other and more regular means, the knowledge that it is.not good publicly to insult the commanders of ships of war upon their own quarter-decks, but he would never have established his mana—his personal prestige—to half the extent he succeeded in doing by the course he took.

But it is not only in the South Seas. The whole world over the English Captains are always doing efficient things unobtrusively. Is there ever an emergency that they do not rise to, or a contingency to which they are not equal ? And so few of their achievements are ever recorded outside the official reports, which they must themselves make, that the world fails .to realise how really great they often are. For one thing that is perforce done "in the limelight " there are a. dozen that the public never hear of. For it is a truth that, as a whole, the Navy advertises very little.

Of course, the Naval Captain is not the whole Service ; but his is, one would think, the rank, and he the man, that stand most typically for it. He is neither too young nor too old.

He is a man in his prime., He has "been through the mill," and his higher responsibilities lie before him. He is the tested and tempered tool which has been passing through the .workshops all the years since he first went to sea as a Mid- shipman.. He has withstood the dangers attendant upon that early admission to manhood which the gun-room confers. Most boys are not called upon to go through the fire until at least eighteen or nineteen. He must face his ordeal long before. It is the same through all his successive steps. Great respontibility for himielf and others he has incurred• long before' men in other occupations have been trusted to stand alone. Failure has no excuses, and he knows it, and so by the time lie has his first independent command he has been tried 'and proved. The Captain may well personify the Navy, and it may be said of the Navy that it is worthy of its Captains.

Amongst such as the writer, who, not being quite of the English, yet seek to be in sympathy with them and to under- stand them, the difference in the personal element of Navy and Army is difficult to understand. One does not wish to make unhappy comparisons, and to mention such a difference is only to call up a subject which is often discussed by all who have seen anything of either Service. Why is the Naval officer so much better "all round" than his Army prototype; why is not Thomas Atkins the equal of Jack Tar ? The reason most often put forward is that in the Navy "they catch 'em young"; but behind this one cannot but believe there lies another. And it is surely the same by which, in considering the soldier, one attempted to account for the difference. The British people take their Navy seriously. It is a weapon which must be kept sharp. It is a gun which must be kept clean. It is no toy. Were the English to regard their Navy in the same light, as they, regard their Army, it is possible to believe that the grey ships of to-day would be painted gaudy colours, would have their funnels pipeclayed, and plumes of horsehair dependent from the tompions of their guns. Instead of his neat and serviceable "rig," the bluejacket might be clad 'in a steel cuirass and wear spurs. Torpedo-boats, instead of being black, might be polished until they shone dazzlingly in the sun, and reflected the starlight' 'at night. But in amazing contrast to the lack of sense which he displays in the matter of his soldiers, the Englishman sees to his sailors with a discernment and a wisdom than which he has no better attributes. In these days of huge armaments, when peace is only secured by the display of competence for war, the sailor is England's saving grace. Europe may laugh and wonder at her Army—ruled by amateurs, and armed efficiently as a result of the efforts of newspaper correspon- dents—but she must take the Navy seriously ; 'she ninst remain respectful of England whilst England has such ships and such sailors. While the ideal of the sailor with "the man in the street" remains what it is England is safe. It is to be hoped that that great power in the land shall never come to look upon him as lie does upon his brother of the Army. Or perhaps it would be to put it better if one were to hope that some day the soldiers might be as intelligently regarded by

the English as are the sailors. J. H. M. Anuorr.