French and English.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXII, Issue 12796, 30 September 1905, Page 3 (Supplement)

French and English.

_ Fred. T. Jane, a well-known authoriiv on Navy subjects, writing of the recent Visit of a Fiench equadron to Portsmouth, says— They aie good material, fhese French sailors, though their discipline on shipboard is not beyond reproach—a fault, not of tbeir officers, but of the revolut sonaiy methods of M. I'elletan. the late Minister of Marine, who ruled the French fleet with a wholehearted disregard for tradition, custom, or any other of those things which one expects to find in a navy. The French bluejacket is not equal to the British one as an all-round sailor-man. He is a very good sort, easily pleaded, usually sad-eyed, generally intelligent-looking; but the British bluejacket has an indefinable something that, the Frenchman lacks. It is, I think, a'question of discipline. Ibe officers are another matter. The average French officer, so far as I have seta, is a great deal more efficient than we have been wont to believe. He is sharp as needles, keen, and a thorough master of anything that he specialises in. To sptai palinly, they do not seem over-impressed with some of our things. Our guns do not strike them as ideal, our dockyard machinery i* not regarded with much reverence. Jf there is a weak point the Fiench finger at onco goes, asking if that particular part- does not give trouble. It is almost, uncanny the way in which tbty grasp anything of this sort at once, and invariablv correctly. Tb»y are very polite about it, as all Frenchmen always are; but just as we assets them, noting "the good and the bad, so they assess os; and they do not asses British guns and British machinery as entirely without blemish. Our boilers, of coarse, or, at. any rate, the Belleville*, which are the «aly ones of much proved practical utility, are of French design; so here we score a point. But I have no hesitation whatever in saying that the "'Entente" is likely to affect the designs of future guns, and gun mountings, for the French are ahead of us here. It is somewhat a shock to cur irolar pride to discover how ahead of us the French are in matters mechanical However, if we have to use French brains Jo design our Belleville*, and perhaps our future guns, on* has only to be on bo«d a French ship under weigh to learn that Fiance returns the compliment in other directions. In the running of tbeir ships the English model prevails. So much is this the case that a French officer, wishing to slop hue ship, does not say " Arret ei."' Sot a bit of it. The word he uses is good AngloSaxon, ".Stop." You can b«ar "-Stoppeitla " on board any Frenchman. For all that pertains to the handling of ships we are the premier folk, but .in a! 3 that concerns machinery we have more to learn than to teach. As a scientific man the avetage French officer is beyond his British confrere—and beyond Jo "i degree hardly suspected before to-day.