etter of the
British Navy. They were warned again and again. But they saw that
most of the People, who were not watching the coming German storm,
wanted most of the money spent on other things. So they did not like
to hear the expert truth; they feared to tell the People; and they
hoped the worst would never happen. But it did happen; and it found
many a weak spot due to the Government; though not one that was due to
the Navy itself. "Well, it's all going just as we expected," said Sir
Charles Madden to Lord Jellicoe in the conning tower of the _Iron Duke_
in the middle of the Jutland battle. So it did. Everything that
really mattered was foreseen by the real naval experts. You never
catch the Navy napping.

But you do catch governments, parliaments, and people napping very
often. Yet here we should not be unjust either to governments in
general or to those of our Mother Country in particular. Governments
of free countries depend upon the People; so we must all take our share
of the blame for what our own elected agents do wrong or fail to do
right. And as for the Mother Country; well, with all her faults, she
did the best of any. We cannot fairly compare her with the
self-governing Dominions, like Canada and Australia, because she had so
very much more to do. Her war work was more than twice as hard as
theirs, even in proportion to her strength; and she led the whole
Empire in making the greatest efforts and by far the greatest
sacrifices. But we can compare her with our Allies; and, if we do, we
shall find her stand the test. For if her Government made mistakes
before the war, so did that French Government whose Prime Minister,
Caillaux, had to be tried as a traitor during the war. So, too, did
that party in Italy which favoured the Germans against the true Italian
patriots. And how about the Peace Party in the United States that kept
the Americans out of all but the end of the war, gaining a whole world
of money and almost losing the nation's soul?

Great Britain gave the Navy what most voters think are needed for a
war, especially such things as the papers talked of most, like
dreadnoughts, guns, and torpedoes. But there was a lack of light
cruisers and destroyers to fight off the same kind of German craft,
guard the seaways, and kill the sneaking submarines. The docks in
which ships are built and mended make little show for the money spent
on them; so the Government never asked Parliament for e