A "PRACTICALLY READY" FLEET. [To THE EDITOR Or THE "
spun...ma:] Sin,—Your leading article of last week under the above title was a patriotic duty splendidly performed. The country owes you a debt of gratitude for raising this warning cry, and expressing the amazement of all thinking Englishmen at the bewildering silence of the Opposition leaders and of the Unionist newspapers,—with the honourable exception of the Standard. Those of us who realise the paramount import- ance of the Navy find ourselves in the unhappy position of sheep without a shepherd,—our leaders in some strange way bare been silenced or led away. The voice of the naval alarmist (which, though tiresome at times, was yet useful and stimulating to a people given to sleepiness) is no longer heard. Judging from the statements of the Government and the actions of the Admiralty, we might be nearing the millennium of universal peace. Like all millenniums, this one exists solely in the imagination, for if we look abroad we see prepara- tions for war on every side, and Japan and Germany, in particular, building battleships with a fury of determination. But one nation is our ally and the other our friend, say the peace-at-any-price people. Yes, for to-day, perhaps even for to-morrow ; but if England looks no further than to-morrow in international friendships and the maintenance of her Navy she has already sealed her own doom. The naval situation cannot be left in this dangerous state. Those "whose charge is the strength of our ships" must be compelled to give the nation something more open, more directly concerned with the truth than the shuffling, involved, unsatisfactory " state- ment " with which they have tried to obscure the facts. Mean- while one fact, that of the 'Dreadnought' being tied up at Sheerness instead of in full commission, is at once too big and too startling to be successfully bidden under any cloud of official "explanations." It is much to be hoped that the Spectator will receive every possible support from the public in this patriotic crusade.—I am, Sir, &c., A MEMBER OF THE NAVY LEAGUE.
Previous page
