AAA Coming of Age Dinner

s we know they wilrl ender agood account of themselves when calleudpon. There is another littlsetory which did not occur in war at all , but which happened the other day in the Channel Fleet . There was an accident down below in one ofour ships, an explosiontook place close to an open magazine where there wer2e7 cartridges. The commander of the ship was told that there was afire at the entrance of the magazine; he went down and found the wholpelace in a blaze, and the cartridges lying about . Down he went himself among the cartridgesand the blazing canvas, and put the fire out . He was simply doing his duty, and nothing more was said about it . Those are the sort of things done in theNavy, and you do not hear anything about them. Well , then, perhaps you will ask me: Is the Navy sufficient for the great duty whichdevolves upon it ? Well , that is a very seriouqsuestion. I said that our countryis in an exceptional position ; the whole worldat the present time is also in an exceptional position with regard to the feverish aste with which ships arebeing built on every side. Russia is going round from country to country, from France to America, froAmmerica to Germany, sayin'gI, have got all my slips occupied with ships, can' t you build a ship for me ?' France is recruiting every workman thecyan find, going about the streets of their great towns, saying, ' We have not sufficient workmen who can build ships. ' They have calculated it all out , and they say, ' We have not enough, cannot we enlist more?' Little Japan—I met to-day some of those sharp-faced little fellows—is sending her men roundour dock-yards to learn how to build ships. America is waking u;p Germany intends in a comparatively shorttime to ha.ve 33 first-class battleships. What is it all for? When Nelson had to negotiate with a certain Pasha, Nelson wanted him to make peace with Naples and Sicily; he wanted him to make peace with the Portuguese, and presently the Pasha said to him, 4 You want me to make peace with everybody, andthen if I make peace what am I to do withmy fighting frigates ?' I do not say the nations of the world are building altlhese ships to fight ,but it might come to pass, and if they sent these ships to sea to fight , then it seems to me they come in contact withour internal administration whichgoes on over all parts of the worl;d therefore, weought to be prepared. And I am going to ask you as tax-payers, I am going to ask you to put yourself in the position of that ideal athlete who is ready to pay, and I think the tax­ payers have obeyed loyally and paid, and I believe j 'ou will have to pay more. A very shoit time ago I was commandinogne of the biggest ships in the Squadron, and we had race, not a little race, for temn iles; itwas in the manoeuvres. We were running away, and wdeid not like running away. There were sixof us, little sisters of 15,020 tons each. We had three or four which we did not think much of. Now, why did we run away from the fourteen ? Because the Admiralty told us they were as good as we were. They were not . And after running away we all sat down and began to think itover. What are those fourteen worth ? And this is our conclusion. That the six ships of the 'Majestic' class would have fought the fourteen. They did not want to fight; they had the