IN DEFENCE OF EMPIRE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIX, Issue 13107, 22 April 1903, Page 8

IN DEFENCE OF EMPIRE.

JOHN BULL’S LITTLE NAVAL BILL. THIRTY-FOUR MILLION POUNDS REQUIRED. [From Our CoiißEsroNi'.Kcr.] LONDON, March 13. We don’t ■want to fight, But by Jingo if we no, Wc -want mere ships, Wo want more men, Anti, we want more money too! is the variant of the old refrain that sings through the brain as one devours the Government policy in regard to the Navy for the financial year (which, more or. 1m appropriately, begins on April 1), and vv,hicii is disclosed in' the preliminary statement issued this week by the First Lord oi the Admiralty, Lord Stlborne. Last year our first line of defence cost the nation £31,255,000, and between April 1, 1905, and All Fools’ Day, 1904, Lord Selborne intimates that he will require, no less than £34,457,000, in order to do justice to the Navy. A matter of three millions, two hundred and two thousand pounds increase in the cost of defending' the Empire at sea is no mere fleabite, even to a wealthy country like 'Great Britain, and the Naval Estimates are sure to be discussed briskly in Parliament, especially corning so soon after the exuberant, financial claims of the sister, service. The Army wants £34,200,000 odd, and a burden: of close upon £70,000,000 for warlike purposes alone is a strain upon the taxpayer winch can only be tolerated in years of comparative plenty. Sixteen years ago John Bull growled furiously at a seventeen million Navy estimate, and since that time the expenditure on the “first line” has grown by leaps and. bounds. In 1898 our Navy cost us rather more than 23J millions, the following year saw an increase in outlay, no lefts than. million pounds being /spent; 1901 saw the figure rise to £30,875,000. We are all, of course, in favour of a. strong Navy, but the swift increase shown in the figures for the- last ten years gives one “furiously to think.” Apparently there is no finality to the demands upon the national purse for the purposes of Naval defence, and there is no sign yet that the colonics as a whole are preparing to boar a: fair share of the burden. Moreover, the present state of our Navy as a whole gives us no reason to believe that the vast sums blithely voted for the maintenance of our fleets have been well spent. The number of semi-obsolete vessels, still figuring in the, list and still costing huge sums per annum is large and “ lame, ducks ” are turning up every week among the ships that are presumed to be those we should really rely upon in the event of immediate hostilities. WHERE THE MONEY IS ' GOING. The enlarged cost of the Navy miring the ensuing year will bo spread over all branches, but it. is chiefly due to greater activity in -building.new-ships and “reconstructing ” old ones, and to the necessity for providing more officers and men. 'The additional personnel will be close on 5000, and tho active service force will, in round numbers, be 127,000 officers and men. The sum to be spent next year on construction of new warships exceeds £10,000,000. In. the current year the sum- expended is £9,000,000, and a notable fact, differing from the experience of previous years, is that all the money voted by Parliament, for new ships this year has been spent—there are no arrears. Next month the number of war vessels in course of construction will bo seventy-two! It shows ji condition of activity without parallel in the. naval dockyards and private contractors’ yards. The Admiralty has, accordingly, decided to allow private contractors who are building warships-to do- all the work that is needed to make them ready for service. Hitherto they were delivered in an incomplete state to the Naval dockyards, which finished them. The list of seventy-two new ships is divided as follows : 11 battlothips 3 sloops 19 cruisers (armed) 19 destroyers 2 cruisers (Class 2) S torpedo boats 4 scouts 3 submarines ■1 cruisers- (Class 3) The submarines are apparently giving satisfaction, for wo find that in the list of ships which will actually be commenced during the ensuing financial year, there are no less than ten of these under-wafer craft as compared with four laid dorm last year. The complete list for 1904 is as follows: 3 battleships 4 scouts 4 armoured cruisers 15 destroyers 3 small cruisers 10 submarines An attempt is to be made to raise the standard .of service. All able seamen in future are to be trained to have some mechanical knowledge of stoking, so as to be able to servo in' the stokehold. This follows naturally upon: the changes in the training of officers, whereby all officers are required to know how to handle machinery. Efforts are to be also made to encourage greater proficiency in shooting, by granting medals carrying with them bonuses.-The Naval Intelligence Department is ,to be strengthened in several directions, ’and a ■new squadron is to be formed, known as the South Atlantic Squadron, with its bases at Gibraltar and Sierra Leone. It will have charge of the west coast of Africa, and will cease to form part of tho Cape station. • THE ARMY. A HOPEFUL OUTLOOK. According to a comprehensive scheme which Mr Brodrick unfolded in the House of Commons last night, there would seem to be a chance that) in the future sheer merit will have more weight than petticoat favour, and! that the Army will he no place for these who look upon professional keenness as an unfashionable vice to be checked 1 by “ ragging ” and mock courtmartials. Those- who have talked of “petticoat favour” hitherto have been more- or less mocked at, but Mr Brodrick felt bound to admit, and -did admit in. the frankest possible fashion, that at present the service doe.t not offer sufficient inducements to able men to -devote their whole talent -and energy to their chosen profession, and that the olficcr most popular .in society has often, tho best chance of promotion, the bestopportunity of securing employment outside the regiment, as on the staff of a Governor with” a, pleasant billet for five years, while tho work of the Army falls on others. It is time, to put an end to all this, he declared emphatically, and the Commons said Hear, hear. But Mr’Brodrick. had a nasty knock in -store -for his approving 'audience. Nowhere more than in Parliament itself, said he,- had influence been brought to boar on. the War Office for the advancement of •relatives, friends and dependents. The scheme of tho War Office to bring about greater efficiency is very wide in its scope. It includes the appointment of a Special Board to a.vise Sir Henry Hildyard, the director of military education, and 5 provides for the remodelling of the -system of training at Sandhurst and-Woolwich. -Men who enter the Army through' the Militia will have to serve four months in a line , regiment, and a commission will depend- on r-ho report of ihe_ commanding officer. To raise the educational standard, a provisional commission is to be granted to university students who, spend six weeks with a line regiment. They must return to tho university, however, and take honours, and put in a further six weeks in the regiment. The higher tho place a .candidate takes the wider will bo his raame of selection. To infuse anew spirit of energy into the ranks of officers, it is to be made clear that in future no one who ■does not work at his profession will be in the line- for promotion. Mr. Brodrick woefully admitted that, to-day, after an officer lias passed his first two years without being adversely reported on by three senior officers, there is no power to stop (ho bad from going up stop by stop wit h tho good. For the future, all officers will be given an annual connse of field training to provide opportunity for commanders to weigh up each man for merit or criticism. Tho colonel and two senior officers will classify all officers of over one years service as “efficient” and ■’indifferent.” They may .also brino- to the notice of the brigadier

cases, of special merit and recommend them for accelerated promotion. A wide knowledge of languages will be an important consideration in this respect, and a man who gets two bad reports of his work in two years -will be requested to Send in his papers. 'Between'promise and performance there is a great gulf fixed, but, if the intentions of iMr -Biodriok’s scheme is honestly observed by those in power in the Army itself, we shall, at all events, leave behind us the day when a. full purse and highly-placed relations enable an incom--petent soldier to gain promotion over the heads of those who have merely professional aptitude and energy to commend them. Perhaps tho most promising of the foreshadowed reforms is that which affixes a. stigma, to incompetence by removing an inefficient of two years’ standing from the colours. It can hardly become! “good form,” even' in a “ crack ” -corps, to be discharged from the King’s service as useless.

Mr .Brodrick, however, has a long and hard row to hoe before tho reforms he contemplates become, so to speak, visible to the naked eye. Every detail of his scheme of regeneration will have to be pressed home with vigilance and energy, for everywhere will be found, deterrents and obstructions. He has, for instance, decreed an end to favouritism, bub to make his intentions effective he will have first of all to convert or remove the men with whose administrative methods favouritism has been intertwined, and who- will be hard to persuade, no doubt, that those acts they have deemed- as harmless tokens of friendship and good nature are, in reality, grave treacheries to the public interests, of which they are trustees.