EMPIRE DEFENCE.

Hastings Standard, Volume XIII, Issue 4312, 16 November 1909, Page 5

EMPIRE DEFENCE.

BERESFORD'S PESSIMISM. EVERYTHING WRONG IN THE NAVY. London, November 15. Lord Charles Beresford, speaking at the Dolphin Club dinner at Bristol, referred to the Navy, and emphasised the deficiency in ships, men and stores, the absence of a war reserve of coal, and the absence of a true war division at the Admiralty to direct the training of the fleet for war. He declared that the recent naval manoeuvres were farcical. The public were drugged with falsehoods. The business of the navy was always to be ready to meet attack. It could not be so unless it were continually under training at sea. The two-Power standard had gone, and could only be recovered with the help of the oversea nations, but they were only beginning, and it would be at least five years before they could contribute to the naval strength of the Empire. He concluded by urging every class of society to join together to put an end to the miserable weakness, vacillation and compromises which were jeopardising the supremacy of the sea and therefore the life of the Empire.