A great meeting summoned by the Lord Mayor to consider
the state of the Navy was held at the Guildhall on Wednesday. Lord Brassey, in a moderate speech, said that we could not rest content with our present superiority, but must look to the future. He criticised the expenditure on unarmoured classes as inadvisable, and declared that we should have been stronger to-day if we had concentrated our efforts more largely on ships for the lino of battle. He stated that the present Ministry had obeyed the mandate they received, a remark which evoked some dissent, and expressed the belief that Boards of Admiralty would in the future resist any reductions in building which could give reasonable cause to question our naval position. Mr
alfour took his start from Sir Edward Grey's admission that, in View of recent developments, we should have to reconstruct Oul..Navy. This admission involved the need for immediate action. We must increase the plant which determined our naval output to the height of our naval necessities and build ships at once to meet the present need. We could no longer be content to wait to see what type of battleship or cruiser was hud down by a foreign Power, and then lay down another of
a similar but superior type. Those days had passed for ever, and we could no longer delay getting this necessary Margin of strength in 'Dreadnoughts' until our Dreadnoughts' were perfected.
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