really it is more, because from the 106,000 will have to be eliminated all who are not included in the vote as borne for 'sea service.' This will represent, instead of 4,500, nearer 10,500 men. Then we must allow of a reserve of 50 per cent. for the forces employed on active service, in war, i.e. half 110,500=55,250. Total reserves required, 65,750, say 70,000, officers and men. I have advocated this number in speeches and writings over and over again, and given my reasons for wanting them.

Space will not permit me here to go fully into the question as to whether these 70,000 men would be easily forthcoming under present conditions, nor shall I attempt to answer in a paragraph the figures of Mr. Gibson Bowles, M.P., which Lord Brassey quotes, but which the secretary to the Navy League has recently effectively answered in the Times. Mr. Bowles's letter is most valuable, as it will invite argument and help to elucidate facts.

The value of the fishermen reserve, if the men are passed through a satisfactory short service in the Navy, I fully appreciate. I agree with Lord Brassey entirely as to their worth if trained and disciplined, and all honour is due to him as the man who first thought of using this valuable material.

I cannot, however, agree as warmly with him in his estimate of coloured crews in the stoke-hole. The best authorities tell us that the 'European' British fireman shows far more stamina in the engine-room (in the Red Sea, for instance) than any inhabitant of the tropical zone. The European seaman is also more to be relied on than our British Asiatic when unforeseen contingencies arise, which may cause disaster.

Lord Brassey asks some pertinent questions as to the future of the mercantile marine which our ministers will do well to consider. Let us endeavour to answer them. It is proper,' just, and necessary 'that steps should be taken to place British subjects in a more favoured position than foreigners for employment under the national flag.' If we 'hesitate to exclude foreigners from our mercantile marine,' we must most certainly give subsidies to ships manned exclusively by British subjects.' Lord Brassey is perfectly right in saying 'it is vain to look to shipowners to assist the Admiralty to provide a reserve for the Navy at their own expense.' On the other hand, the First Lord is equally correct in deprecating national expenditure in this direction which is not justified by a certainty that when the time comes we should gain men proportionate in number to the expense incurred.' Or, again, as Lord Brassey puts it, 'clearly it is not the duty of the State to provide cheap labour for a favoured industry,' but it is the duty of the State to provide adequately for the defence of the Empire, and I regret that the statistics Lord Brassey gives do not 'show' to my satisfaction that we can increase the Naval Reserve to any required number without calling

upon the State for expenditure in the rearing of seamen,' nor will they, I think, convince anyone who has studied the question. At the same time, if the State for Imperial purposes, Imperial gain, and Imperial safety desires to subsidise any particular industry, such as the shipping industry, some care and discrimination should be shown. We ought not to see, as now, Government subsidised lines of British steamships giving foreign producers preferential rates of carriage to the detriment of the British manufacturer. We ought not to see British subsidised ships sold to foreigners.

The schemes of Commander Caborne, R.N., and Commander Honner, late R.N., to which Lord Brassey refers, and the scheme of Captain Crutchley, R.N.R., which he does not allude to, have this merit--they are definite proposals for a way out of the difficulty and not mere attacks on the present Reserve. I personally approve of Commander Honner's, and the main features of that I have embodied in a scheme of my own already extensively reported in the Press. All schemes which involve payments to shipowners and to boys for apprenticeships to the sea come within the category of the First Lord's condemnation which I have quoted. We do not get sufficient security that we shall get an adequate return in the number of men when the time comes. All money spent by the country in forming a Reserve should be spent on men trained under a short service system in the Navy itself, and should be spent (1) on training them when they leave the Navy, (2) on adequate retaining fees to keep them attached to the service, (3) on pensions after they have arrived at old age, (4) on subsidising shipowners who will employ these Naval Reserve men on their ships.

With regard to the officers, it is true, a temporary deficiency in the Navy was made good by entering 100 lieutenants and sublieutenants for the Reserve; but we are still dangerously short, and the Reserve of these officers is inadequate to our needs. With Lord Brassey's views as to the better training of these officers I thoroughly agree.

Nothing could be more valuable than Lord Brassey's remarks on our untapped supply of colonial seamen who could form a Reserve, and his advice that colonial boys should be trained for our Navy. I have long advocated that training ships should be stationed abroad, that Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, and the Cape should be invited to raise Naval Reserves who should be under the entire control of the Admiralty and trained by Imperial officers. I go further. Reserve ships should be laid up at naval bases in the colonies where Colonial Reserves could train on them, and together with the crews of obsolete ships on the station (kept in commission for economy) could man these reserve vessels in time of war. Unless this plan is adopted, we shall find ourselves with modern vessels in reserve at home for which we cannot find crews

when war breaks out, and obsolete ships on foreign stations which will have to seek refuge in harbour, and which can neither bring their crews home or be of use against a European foe. I must confess, however, that authority is now taking this question thoroughly in hand. Australia has many important naval bases where Reserves of ships and men would help to make the links in our chain of defence secure, and I thoroughly support all Lord Brassey says on this point.

Another matter to which he refers is with reference to that valuable corps, the Marines, who need to be strongly reinforced, and a reserve formed on the lines of the excellent scheme put forward recently by Major Gatliff, and to which Lord Brassey has alluded. They should take charge of most of our coaling stations, and so relieve a portion of the Army. Two years could be spent in barracks on the station, and one year at sea. Thus a formidable and valuable accession of strength to the manning resources of the Navy might be maintained, and in time of war they would form a valuable reserve for ships with a large number of sick and wounded to land, and the fleet would form the basis of supply creating a vast economy on the present system.

All that Lord Brassey says as to the necessity for raising the social life of our mercantile seaman, for improving his position, and making him, as in the old days, a real Reserve for the Navy, has my hearty support and sympathy. No one can overrate the work of that splendid lady, Miss Agnes Weston, for the Royal Navy, to which he refers, and other good women have laboured for the mercantile marine; but it needs many Miss Agnes Westons to help the merchant seamen, and the field of labour is perhaps more extensive.

In conclusion, let me point out that I possess no egotistical belief in the merits of my own opinions where they are opposed to the views of Lord Brassey or other experts. These great subjects are not to be settled off-hand by any one writer or speaker, but only in calm deliberation, and by carefully comparing the views of all who study these problems, can we hope to attain to a just and perfect solution of them. They bristle with difficulties, and because experts differ on points of detail, the outsider is too often prone to say nothing can be done. This is entirely wrong. Parliament could not exist if this were a correct and sound dictum, for no two parliamentary opinions ever agree upon a Bill before the House of Commons, and yet we see very good and workable Acts passed, compromises between those different views which seemed so irreconcilable. We may summarise the subject thus:

(1) The Reserve is the most important and not the least important part of our naval defensive forces.

(2) The present system is defective both as to numbers and

training, but the Admiralty have initiated an entirely new system which should be fairly tried before it is criticised adversely.

(3) We require a Reserve of at least 70,000 officers and men, because we have to fill up the difference between the limit at which we can put the active service ratings and the number required in actual warfare; and, above and beyond, we must form a Reserve to replace losses.

(4) It must be a Reserve which has served in the fleet, because a Reserve should always be the best men.

(5) It must not be a Reserve of blue-jackets alone, but of engineroom ratings and marines.

(6) The Government cannot expect shipowners to bear the expense of forming this Reserve. The State must do so.

(7) The State must see it gets value for its money if it pays. (8) We must utilise (by training them) the British seamen in the colonies.

(9) We must station reserve ships abroad and not trust to the crews being able to come home after war breaks out, or to the ships going out to find the crews.

(10) We must increase the marines, and give them the charge of 'some of the coaling stations, because these must be under the control of the Admiral in command of the station in war time and not under control of a General.

(11) The State must help to raise the status of the merchant seaman, and make him a Reserve for the Navy, because the majority of the present Reserve could not be withdrawn from the mercantile marine in time of war, as they form the best and largest portion of Britishers employed.

(12) Finally, the reserve will be wanted by the State in war time to man the mercantile auxiliaries, fleets of colliers, store ships, ammunition ships, workshop ships, ocean greyhounds for scouting, &c., cable ships, and other mercantile vessels which the fleets will require in time of war. Therefore the State must help to develop and train a larger body of British seamen to man British ships in the hour of Britain's danger.

I shall not be fair to authority if I fail to recognise that there is abundant proof that they have taken most of these matters into their consideration lately.

CHARLES BERESFORD.

TAMMANY

Children, the tiger affords a useful lesson for you. The exceeding agility of this creature, the extraordinary quickness of his sight, and, above all, his discriminating power in the dark, teach you to be active in your respective callings, to look sharp to every engagement you enter into, and to let neither misty days nor stormy nights make you lose sight of the worthy object of your pursuit.-Extract from Tammany's great speech to his thirteen tribes.

A FEW days after the inauguration of Washington as first President of the United States some patriots met in New York to consider public affairs. They found much to cause them uneasy foreboding. Indian tribes were doing great damage by raids in rural parts; an aristocratic league, the Society of Cincinnati, was attempting to perpetuate hereditary divisions among the citizens of the young republic; and it seemed possible that the results for which so many had bled and died might be whittled down to a worthless minimum. To prevent this, it was proposed that a new society be formed, 'to connect, in indissoluble bonds of friendship, American brethren of known attachment to the political rights of human nature and the liberties of the country.' The society was to be non-partisan, benevolent, patriotic, and anti-aristocratic. The idea was received with enthusiasm, and it was decided that, in order to conciliate the American Indian chiefs, and to prove the friendship of whites for them, the league should be formed on an Indian basis. Tammany, the most famous of all red men, whose courage and sagacity had for centuries been the theme of tales round every camp fire, was chosen as the patron saint of the patriots, and they called their society after him.

For some years the Society of Tammany confined itself to its self-chosen work. It organised feasts on each Independence Day; it provided a vault for the neglected bones of some men who had died in the war; it started a museum for the purpose of collecting and preserving everything relating to the history of the republic; and the members kept up their Indian character by occasionally dressing themselves in the aboriginal costume, with feathers, moccasins, leggings, painted faces, war clubs, and polished tomahawks. The museum was not a success, and afterwards formed the nucleus of Barnum's