On Tuesday Lord Charles Beresford, in a speech to the
Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, continued his agitation for a larger supply of men for the Navy. Outside agitation had forced the Government to provide ships, it must now force it to provide men. The number of men they required for the ships built and building, not including the forty-six projected ships, was 105,000. The First Lord said we had 88,850, but in reality we had only 81,508; and the number was really less.than that, because paper men ought not to be counted. " If he commanded a ship he wanted to muster his men at the capstan and see them, and they would find
ty the Navy Estimates that they had only 78 560 men." That was a deficiency of over 20,000 men. As to the Reserve, they wanted 70,000, and they had only 25,000. But the British Mercantile Marine all told had only some 60,000 men. So that if they were all in the Reserve there would still be a deficiency of 10,000 men. But the Navy was to protect the Mercantile Marine, not to render it useless. It was only by passing men through the Navy on short service that they could obtain a ,Reserve. No doubt many naval officers would object to short service and to turning their ships into schools, but it was necessary for the national safety to get a powerful Reserve. On the general question we are entirely at one with Lord Charles Beresford, but we do not see why a Reserve could not be formed without doing away with the long service. As we have often stated in these columns, we would devise a system of marine technical education which would annually pass two or three thousand lads through a sea training, in exchange for their entry into a Naval Reserve.
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