NATIONAL SERVICE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3693, 30 November 1912, Page 10

NATIONAL SERVICE.

LORD ROBERTS’ PLEA

APPEAL TO BOTH PARTIES

Lord Roberts’ striking denunciation of the British Territorial forces as cabled yesterday is of particular interest when road in conjunction with an important speech-which he delivered on September 23 at the annual meeting of the National Service League at Norwich. Lord Roberts urged the nation to give its most earnest attention to the danger which threatens Great Britain owing to the unsatisfactory condition of our armed forces and to the risk of invasion. “You are kept in the chirk,” lie said, “for political and party interests as to the weakness of our naval and military arrangements. . Whenever the question of defence is discussed, our difficulties and dangers are made light of and those of our possible opponents are exaggerated.

“For Great Britain to continue as an Empire, or even for the continued safety of our beloved country, the Navy must be considerably increased and the Army made sufficient in numbers and training to free the Navy from the necessity of being tied to our shores. Year by year the German Navy is adding to its strength, while the strength of our Navy, as compared with the navies of other nations, has steadily declined, with the alarming result that our fleets have had practically to be withdrawn from the Mediterranean and concentrated in home waters, in order to balance the German Navy in the North Sea. The Mediterranean.

“The bringii.'g home of our fleets from the Mediterranean is the heaviest blow which has been dealt us. Two-thirds of our supplies come to us from Southern Russia and India by its waters. Unless we are masters of the sea we cannot continue to hold Malta and Gibraltar, and our position in India will be seriously jeopardised. The remedy for the most dangerous state of affairs is simply to increase our Navy until it again reaches the Two-Power standard, and to have an Army sufficient in numbers and training to guard our shores in the absence of the expeditionary force.” Turning to the Army, Lord Roberts deprecated tho want of public interest in it, and urged that the only way to create such an interest was to introduce compulsory military training for all classes

“Whether we .make the change in time, or acquiesce in Colonel Seely’s foolish and unpatriotic dictum that we shall have to wait until disaster overtakes us before compulsory training is introduced, is for the country to decide. That the country would decide rightly I have not the slighest doubt, if the question were put before the people truthfully and honestly by the leaders of both political parties. “Prepared for war we cannot be so long as the defence of these islands is limited to a citizen army raised on the voluntary system—a principle which is unfair to oui patriotic volun teers as it is powerless to produce the numbers required or to produce the discipline and training that arc essential to efficiency.”

While expressing the most profound admiration for the patriotism of the Territorial Army, Lord Roberts went on to state that its number could not be raised about 300.000 with voluntary service, and with that form of service it was impossible to stive the training required in, war. With long-range weapons oi>?n order had become essential, and the strain on the mc-n iras far greater than of old. “The idea of Territorials being given six months’, training after war breaks o'nt is sheer nonsense.”

- “I do not know if you are aware that during the naval manoeuvres, off this very coast, it has been clearly shown that ir was possible for transports supposed to be the enemy’s to elude the vigilance of the defending fleets .and to land a considerable number of soldiers on our shores, though the circumstances were favorable to the defenders.