The Timaru Herald. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1885.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 3427, 22 September 1885, Page 2

The Timaru Herald. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1885.

When Bear-Admirals, Major-Generals and other naval and military officers of high degree pass off the active list into private life, they usually find it very difficult to kill time. In England some of them spend most of their waking moments at their favorite clubs, where they are apt to become rather wearisome to others from their incessant endeavors to prove to all and sundry that " tho service is going to tho dogs." Some of them, more laudably, plunge madly into local politics and become great lights on Boards of Gnardianß and m Courts of Petty Sessions. In both capacities they exhibit a tendency to talk very fiercely, but, as a general rule, it is found as soon as it comes to actual performance, that their hearts are many degrees softer than those of their tinwarlike colleagues. When these naval and military gentlemen find their way to tho colonies, as they occasionally do, their lot as a rule is even more forlorn than that of their brethren who stay at Home. There ore clubs, it is true, but busy go-ahead colonists havo little time to listen to melancholy grounings over the decadence of England's naval and military glory. There are no Boards of Guardians, and our Resident Magistrate's Courts arc business-like and prosaic m their surroundings, shorn of all tho pomp and circumstance which environ tho county magnates of merry England iv Petty Session assembled, and still inoro m their Courts of Quarter Sessions. To what these unfortunate gentlemen may be driven m these dispiriting circumstances is painfully illustrated by the melnncholy fate which has just befallen Rear-Adinirnl Scott, of Dunedin. This distinguished naval officer Laving apparently no bosom crQaieß m whom to confide

as to the doleful prospects of everything I iv general has actually had to take ' tv public lecturing m order to relieve : his pent-up feelings. A few months ago he delivered au address on the ' resources of the colony, saia address being mainly a p;yan ia praise of a ; protective tariff. Whether Admiral Scott converted the Government or not we do not know, but we are all familiar with the fact that the experiment was tried and that the public very emphatically showed its utter disbelief m the nostrum. More recently Admiral Scott delivered a lecture on the defences of the colony, m which he declared that we were ruining ourselves by an utterly unnecessary expenditure, and that all that was necessary was comprised m a few Hotcbkiss guns and submarine mines of simple and inexpensive construction. Except perhaps m Dunedin the lecture, however, did not excite much attention. The public knew that what was being done m defence was being done under the direction of ono of the most eminent living authorities on the subject, and were quite content to leave the matter to the judgment of His Excellency, esteeming themselves extremely fortunate m having the benefit of such skilled advice. We do not know, therefore, that any official reply was needed to the obviously loose and ill-considered statements put forward by the gallant Admiral who, it was evident, although doubtless very well informed m his own particular branch of the profession as it existed when he was m active service, knew very little about shore fortifications, or the more recent advances m the art of warfare. However, the authorities seem to have thought some reply was necessary, and accordingly Major Boddam has poured a broadside into the naval hero which has most unmistakeably shivered that gentleman's timbers to an almost unprecedented degree. It is hard, no doubt, for one : of England's Eear-Admirals to be told i that he "shows alack of knowledge of ' the elementary principles of gunnery ! or submarine mining," and it must be , still harder when, as m this case, the i statement is proved upon the evidence ' of his own words. We are sorry for the ' Admiral, but we cannot say his fate is undeserved. We are, of course, iv favor of tho fullest and freest criticism of public men and public affaire. When, however, the country confides a technical work, like defence^ to competent authorities to carry out, an outsider who ventures to intermeddle with opinions of his own does so at his own peril. If he chooses to criticise the design and execution of the work, he must be prepared to show both that t-> is himself competent to express aa opinion, and that his criticisms have some foundation m fact. Otherwise he runs the risk of being charged with impertinence and officiousness, and may get a snubbing for his pains.