THE NAVY LEAGUE DINNER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17246, 12 January 1924, Page 12

THE NAVY LEAGUE DINNER.

} | TRAFALGAR DAY. I SPEECH BY THE MAHARAJAH OF ALWAI). . Tho following speech was -delivered by hip Highness the Maharajah of _ jtar at x the Navy League dinner in i London on Trafalgar Day : I -f'Your Grace, fellow sisters and brothers of the British Empire,—As I • oso to-day in response to the cordial ■i jgbast which has been proposed and which you have been good enough to l- receive equally enthusiastically, 1 hear ? the words ringing in my ears—“Eng- | fgfrid expects that every man will do a St? duty.*’ Those solemn but inspiring f ffeords which were uttered when the j destinies of the British Isles hung in 7 the balance, appear to me, wh§n ap- ; plied in our days of so-called peace, to (Joe equally true to-day. Since that historical day, however, the British Kingdom has grown into an Empire, scattered as it is over all portions of the globe, and wielding as ""ft does, the destimee of nations and countries in the Eastern Hemisphere ..as well as in the West. Therefore, it would perhaps be as well if 1 presume • to make a slight alteration even in Nelson’s great utterance, as applied • 0© the present, and say that the British Empire expects that every man '* will do his duty. The heaven that was to descend upon earth as the result of the great recent • war to make this world of ours a paradise, appears to have sent instead its contemporary—though only tempor--,*U*ily—in order that those who put tho •"'furrow Into the ground and give it ♦heir life-blood as the seed, may be followed by those who will apply ‘themselves with equal vigour, energv jand co-ordination to gather the harvest of sustaining and bettering the life of humanity. In order to achieve that peace of hearts we each have our duty to fulfil ; and in order that Right, which is the Divine heritage of man may establish itself again and flourish unhampered, tho laws of nature have decreed it so that it must perforce have bejtiiafrl it Might. Might, certainly, is not Right; hut Right nevertheless, in its exercise, rests on ■Might. Now. gentlemen. Alwar is not a maritime State, and mv only experience on the sea has been during the nine voyages that I have performed under the tender care of the P. and O Company. But it does not require to be a sailor, or to live on the sea, to appreciate that the Might of our farflung Empire -we mav almost call it «**ir Oceanic Empire—which has to pro-"t-ect so many various countries—-nay. continents—has lain—lies to-da’y. and •.rill always lie. materially speaking, on the strength of the Navy. I understand that one of the principal objects of the Navy League, whose hospitality we are enjoying to da\ . is to enlist the support of all classes itv maintaining the Navy at fho requisite standard of strength You rightly explain that the expenditure upon this part of the State’3 duty in reality ati insurance for safety and peace. In old day?, the strength of the British Navy was fixed at a standard of two to one. In the war there came almost passion—not unnatural tor the reduction of naval and military lyrmaments. The sentiments expressed m this move were pious, and T have no doubt, were inspired by humanitarian

principles: but I must admit I have never been able to understand on what basis the naval strength of a far-flung Empire has been placed on the same standard as those of homogeneous States that have not many, if any, outlying territories. No one wishes more t*han I do to be at peace with all, with our neighbours and those beyond; but when you come to fix proportions, it must surely be on some logical basis. Suppose one of our dominions—and God forbid that such a calamity should happen—and, pray understand me right, as I am only speaking in supposition to illustrate my point—falls out of the Empire, it would surely lie entitled to maintain its own capital ships as an independent State; but being within it. its powers are circumscribed by the total fixed for the whole Empire. This is a logic which is beyond my limited capacity, and I accordingly leave it at that.

The mind of the conference might be summed up in a sentence of Mr Kipling's published in another connection than his St Andrew’s address: “There never was an Empire that offered such opportunities to all men as ours, and I sometimes think that there never was an Empire whose people took less advantage of those opportunities.” And that indeed is the gist of the matter. But the Navy League will, 1 feel sure, do- all that lies in its sphere, to see that the*Empire which has component parts within it, does not suffer from any arbitrary conclusions. Only then will Nelson have fought his great battle to victory for some definite purpose; only then shall we really commemorate his great name. India is not a maritime dominion; nevertheless she bears her share of contribution to the whole in the form of armies, of which it is not for me to speak, and of whose work in the war it is for you and others to judge. Being a landsman, perhaps I have transgressed from the sea;, but I hope it was permissible to this brief extent, and I will now return. Gentlemen, in the plethora of speeches that usually take place at such hospitable functions which I have had the pleasure of attending, I have learnt one useful lesson—namely, to be brief. If for no other reason than this, that otherwise hashed versions appear in the papers, and as they must ncessarilv be condensed when so many speeches are to be reported, they do not convey the sentiments of any one person, in’ full, with the result that they must confuse those who read them in a pruned form. But I will only say this much in the end. Your Navy League is a voluntary association. May I suggest, in view of the same growth which has taken place from Nelson’s day. that you might make a slight correction in the first line of your pamphlet. Why should it be merely “an association o'f the British people?” For remember i our Empire contains people other than your own nationality who are no less proud than you are. to belong to this true League of Nations within a much larger, but as yet phantom league. M ould you then not call your institution “ an association of the people of the British Empire?”—for that would embrace all. And now T will conclude. Few mottoes for an institution like yours can be more terse, more meaningful, and yet more concise than “For God lor the King, for the Empire.” Whether we talk of his Majesty’s forces—naval military or of the air—whether we tall; o i trauiy wealth or possessions, they are all Ur the Empire and its Knag. But the King and the Empire included are all for God. It each of us can fulfil that great duty when we return from this land of mrth and sorrow to our higher destiny and it depends a great desd ourselves what we make it -let us hope. that each one of us, not onlv inside thyLeague, but outsiri** ii ma' ; W t«. say that ,vc li.wl for G.-fan.i f„ r rijgreat purpose. ’