LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
A POSITION OF PERIL.
[TO THZ EDITOR 07 THU " SPECTATOR.1
Sra,—It would amount to a truism to say that the Empire owes you a debt of gratitude for your patriotic and successful endeavour to demonstrate what could be achieved during six months' training of men on sensible and practical lines. But that obligation is as nothing compared with what would be due were your journal to succeed in removing the scales from the eyes of his Majesty's advisers in respect to the "position of peril" dealt with in your able and unprejudiced remarks on this most serious subject on the 6th inst. It requires no naval strategist to see at a glance how ill prepared we are for a vigorous coup de main following a declaration of war, or (as would probably happen) without such declaration, by a strong naval Power. The Government in ease would naturally be held responsible for any preventable national disaster, but that, alas ! would be but a poor consolation for the irreparable ruin it would inflict on our country; and even regarding it from this Constitutional point of view, popular clamour
and indignation would, and justly so, I think, be visited upon the First Sea Lord for his culpable blindness, his want of judgment, and for the reprehensible advice he had given his Government. I fully share your opinion as to the danger of our position, but to judge by Lord Tweedmouth's recent speeches, I fear that something stronger than Press strictures is needed to open his eyes to the gravity of the situation. I venture to suggest that combined action might be taken by those organs of the Press which have advocated inquiry into the present working of the Admiralty, with the view to bring about a mass meeting at which our state of naval unpre- paredness might be reviewed, and a popular petition addressed to hie Majesty's Government.—I am, Sir, &c.,
EX-DIPLOMATIST.
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