Lord Charles Beresford and Lord Cross were the chief political
speakers at the Cutlers' Feast at Sheffield on Thursday. Lord Charles Beresford remarked that by the speeches of a few Members of Parliament and a few naval officers, the Government which denied in December that any new de-
parture in naval policy was required, had been compelled in March to propose to spend £20,000,000 in building seventy ships, said to be necessary to the Fleet. He further made the important statement that engine-room reform is now the most essential reform needed in the Navy. Speed is of the very essence of the new naval policy, and the autumn manoeuvres showed that we do not get the speed that we ought to get out of our ships. Stokers ought to be trained to their duty, as seamen were in the days of old. Stokers never break down in the merchant service, but in the Navy they do. Again, the inven- tion of new modes of signalling is essential. The modes of communicating between the merchant service and a British man-of-war are wholly insufficient even in the daytime, and in the night there is no mode of doing it at all. Moreover, every Coastguard station should be placed in immediate com- munication with the British Admiralty.
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