Dec. 19.
Ar the present time the Naval Estimates for next year are, no doubt, in course of preparation by the New Board of Admiralty which a now First Lord, in the person of Mr. Winston Churchill, has cently appointed. We have dealt already with the developments which may be expected to result from the importation of new blood, and in particular with the Naval War Staff which has long been considered in naval circles as essential to efficiency and steady progress. In the present circumstances special interest attaches to the personality of the new officials because they represent, in certain res} a departure from accepted tradition and an experiment of an interesting nature, which should at least have the effect of stimulating—if in deed any such stimulant be needed—the energy and ambition of officers of the fleet. It need hardly be pointed out that no sweeping changes are contemplated in the wider aspects of naval policy. Great Britain's requirements, in respect of the navy, may alter in degree from time to time, but not in kind. They remain to-day what they have long been, unchallenged and unchallengeable supremacy. The change is rather in respect of the methods by which that result is to be achieved. Mr. Churchill hss ignored all cast-iron rules of senlarity, and the Navy passes under the supreme control of youth allied with experience. He himself is only thirty-seven years of age, the youngest First Lord on record. Experience of his present work, of course, he has not. But that is a customary defect or virtue, according to the point of view, of the British political system.
Himself a young man, he has appointed young men as his technical advisors, as youth is reckoned in e navy. The new First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman, is sixty-two, and is ninth down the list of Admirals. But there will be little inclination to quarrel with the appointment. For the new Ses Lord joined the navy as far back as 1862 and has held important which have given him
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.