January 7, 1899.|-
mined spirit that at Alexandria caused the signal "Well done Condor" to flutter from the flagship and that under a heavy and continuous fire patched the shot holes in the boiler of the Nile steamer in the first unavailing search for Khartoum will carry to a successful issue all that Lord Charles Beresford is doing for the Navy League, for the people of England, and for the interests of the Empire. (Applause.) I can only for my own part, gentlemen, now thank you most heartily for the manner in which you have received the toast of my health. (Applause.)
Mr. J. J. FRANCIS, Q.C., proposed "The Navy, Army, and Reserve Forces," coupling it, with the names of Lord Charles Beresford, Major-General Gascoigue, and Major Sir John Carrington, Hongkong Volunteer Corps.
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
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man who won the action was the old able sea- | man in the fore top. Now that is all altered; we have to do everything in a different manner, We have a thing called an electric button, by which we can handle the engines, handle the guns, and handle the helm, and now much more depends on the individuality of the Admiral or Captain than on the individ ual man. But the individual man still comes in, and we are very often prone to forget the man behind the gun. The man behind the gun wins the action, as the man in the old days did in the fore top-(applause)—but more depends now on the commander. By some miscalcula tion of the officer in command, with the ship going at a great pace, the action may be lost. No matter how good a man may be he is liable to make a mistake. Therefore you want 28 commanders, men of excellent nerve, men of excellent training, and you want younger men. A mau may think he is as good atififty or forty-five as at forty, but he is nothing of the sort. He may be very good for administrative purposes (laughter and ap plause)-but for executive purposes. you want young men who don't fear consequences, who go straight ahead. You must have, some sort of caution, some sense of proportion, but when you get to a certain age you know too much. (Laughter and ap- plause.) When you get to a certain age you are not disposed to risk so much. If I were in command of a fleet I should like to see all my vessels in the hands of young men, because they don't fear consequences, they don't know enough-(applause)-and they will very often pull an action through that looked absolutely impossible when it commenced. The men in the Navy at the present day I believe are second to none. (Applause.) They are of a far higher social position than when I joined the service. In those days there was a good deal of cat and very little discipline; now there is very little cat and very good discipline. (Applause.) The men have a readiness of resource and in- dependence of action which is essential for those who go down to the sea in ships, and at this moment I do not believe there are a better lot of men anywhere, both in char- acter and discipline, than the men of Her Majesty's fleet. (Loud applause.) Sir, I have to thank you very much for the kind re- marks you made about the Navy and I have to thank this assemblage most gratefully for the way in which they drank the health of the officers, seamen, and marines of Her Majesty's fleet.
Lord CHARLES BERESFORD in reply said- Captain Hastings, your Excellencies, and gentle- men, I am very proud to have been suddenly called upon to return thanks for the great service to which I have the bonour to belong. As Mr. Francis bas well said, our great Empire, which extends all over the world, rests mainly on the defence which. the Royal Navy can give, when speaking. of the Royal Navy we must never be led away by the idea that the Royal Navy is the only service that keeps the empire going. Some years ago the Navy was in a state of what I might term disrepair, it was not in the condition which our bands used to signify it was in. They used to play all over the world, Britannia rules the waves "-(laughter)-but unfortun. ately at that mo Jent Britannia did nothing of the sort. (Laughter). The people of the country, however, began to discover it was not in the condition it should be; but now I believe it is in the condition it should be. (Applause.) The Navy is not an arm for defiance, it is an arm for defence. Where it is useful for our empire is this. We live by water-borne commerce and water-borne food. Our empire extends all over the world; therefore we present a large area for attack, and it is the business of the Navy to prevent any other country landing munitions of war or troops to any part of the empire. When the Navy has, to put it in an allegorical phrase, knocked into a cooked hat all other navies, then the Army comes (Laughter and applause.) As far as I have been able in my
humble way, I have always declared against the Navy being treated as the only arm. It has its duty to fulfil, which is to ensure the command of the sea, but when we have to settle disturbances that is the business of the Army. But the first essential is to have command of the sea. (Applause.) In former times we had our old wooden walls, and we had a much larger navy then proportionately to our commerce than we have now. Our rate of insurance was much larger then than now, if you take the proportion between your water-borne commerce and the amount represented by the Naval estimates. The Navy has been strengthened of late years, bat there are still a certain number of things to be done to render your Navy efficient, and there are still a certain number of things-I do not like the word grievances-to be remedied in order to render the uavy perfectly happy and contented. It is the business of public men who have the ear of the public to bring those matters before the public. The public is always generous to the Navy and will undertake to remove any grier- ance that exists. (Applause.) Amongst other things that we wanted very badly some time ago were docks and repairing facilities. In the old days we were self-supporting. Vessels carried with them all the necessities for repair-spars, canvass, and the planking to mend the holes the enemy had been good enough to make in your sides. (Laughter.) Now you have to go to a dockyard. But the human element is what will win an action: (Hear, hear.) I believe at this moment our. officers and man are just as good aa they were in the old days--(loud applause) only in the old days, and even when I went to sea, everybody had a chance of doing something win the action. Here his Lordship gave description in nautical language of some damage sustained by a vessel in her rigging in the old days, which if it had not been observed might have proved fatal, but an old seaman in the tops saw it done and put the stopper on the sheet. Therefore, his Lordship continued, the
His Lordship resumed his seat amidst loud and long continued applause.
Major-General GASCOIGNE also responded to the toast on behalf of the Army, and Major Sir JOHN CARRINGTON on behalf of the Auxiliary Forces.
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The CHAIRMAN said-Your Excellencies and Gentlemen, the toast of the evening "Our Guest," which I have now the honour to pro- pose, needs few words in an assemblage like this of Navy Leaguers-or in any gathering in the world of British men, when that guest is Lord Charles Beresford. (Loud applause). It falls to the lot of but few men to do in their day and generation what has been done by "Our Guest." Nineteen years ago, Admiral-then Capt.-Lord Beresford roused our country to a sense of her deadly peril. As an Irishman, he was a born orator. As a distinguished naval officer and seamen, he was listened to as an expert. He showed the people of Great Britain that their fleets were insufficient and obsolete, that their reserves of seamen were non- existent, that their Naval dockyards were incapable of coping with the strain of ..a great war; in short that our world wide empire, our very existence as a nation was trembling in the balance, whilst we slumbered in a fool's paradise, and had forgot ten the deeds of our great grandsires in 1800 and wartime. Moreover, there were not want ing signs and tokens that there were plenty of hungry eagles, sharpening bill and talons, to shred the old lion's carcase and carry off the young whelps. The Press patriotically co-oper- ated and then-it is unnecessary to recapitulate after a Navy League dinner what followed. It is directly due to Lord Charles Beresford that the country was roused and the first naval programme formulated and carried out. (Ap- planse.) Great, however, as had been his achieve
ments, the hardest part of his task yet to keep the strain up, the
t remained the screw on. After the
the old lion was inclined to go to sleep again, first spurt, the big grasp at the twenty millions,
forgetting that time was not standing still for the birds of prey. Then " Our Guest” showed his grit; throughout the length and breadth of Britain, he preached to his countrymen, show- \ ing them that the old order had changed, steam and steel were not as wind and wood. When we fed ourselves, and fought the world, Dutch- men and Dagos had no place in our Merchant Navy. However, gentlemen, the League, to which you belong has taught you the gigantio nature of the task undertaken by Lord Beres ford, and how loyally and gallantly he bore the brunt of the battle. Three years ago ouri: League was born, of which, if he was not the founder, he is surely the foundation and corner stone, and our great oracle. Purely patriotio as are our aims, with no party platform, still, our propaganda has not spread as widely or as rapidly in Great as in Greater Britain. The reasons are not far to seek we have fewer parish politics (though we can do a fair wrangle here, too, on occasion) and we are daily stared in the face with what would be our fate if Britain lost command of the seas, not the narrow seas only, now mark you, gentlemen, but all the seas that girdle the earth. In Hong- kong to-night we number 331 Leaguers, nearly half the adult civil male British population. Gentlemen, we are no better nor wiser than our fellows at home; we are not all, nor nearly all, dilletanti out here for the good of our health, or to wear out our old clothes, but we see. what the bulk of our countrymen at home hardly hear of- what Britain has to face, and we know locally what it has to be faced with. We are only
not utterly selfish, it is not of our own skins of which we think. We are a portion of the tent acles of that great octopus (as our dear friends across the channel call Great Britain) that are spread over the earth gathering in the fulness thereof to the Homeland. We are guilty of the folly and iniquity of affording a fair field and no favour to each and all alike, German or Britisher, Turk or in- fidel-worse still, despite this crass ignorance and imbecility, the old ootopus gets her share (more than her share, so think and say some of our dearest friends) of this world's goods and waste lands. Living here, by this door, we know there are other doors, in Africa and else where, but this particular door, the Chinese door, was opened some fifty odd years ago by British words, and the hinges, albeit a bit rusty, have since then; from time to time, been lubricat- ed with British blood, so through this door, for these reasons, we think we have a right of entry. (Applause.) If two missionarias equal Kiao- chau, pro rata, how much of China should be British ? These, gentleman, are doubtless some of the causes which induce much of what is best of the youth and maturity of the colony" to roll up and join the Navy League. If the vital necessity to the Empire of a strong navy - could be as vividly impressed on our countrymen at home as it is patent to us, there would be no necessity for our League: the stems of British battle ships would be everywhere in evidence wedging open the doors of trade, and the nation would see to it that the supply of trained men to man those ships was not wanting. (Applause.) As business people we would underwrite the concern at a fair book value. This evening is unique in the annals of the Hongkong branch of the League. We are honoured to-night by the presence of the Grand Master of our cult, the man whom our children will hold hereafter as the saviour of his country who roused their fathers to a sense of their duty, and thus secured to them their heritage, which they their fathers in their sloth and ignorance had imperilled. As Leaguers, gentlemen, you are all the disciples: of “ Our Guest," Admiral Lord Charles Beres ford, whose health I now, call upon you to drink.
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The toast was enthusiastically received. Lord CHARLES BERESFORD-Captain Has- tings, Your Excellencies, and Gentlemen, I have to render you my most grateful thanks for the most distinctive compliment you have paid me in this colony by asking me to be a guest at a Navy League banquet. I think the honour is the more distinctive because I see at this table certain gentlemen who are of other race than British,
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