Note 3 — Chapter VIII · JONAH’S GOURD

One Sample out of Many.—“Lord Tweedmouth and Mr. Robertson, having tasted blood in their reduction of this year’s Estimates, are about to strike a blow at the vital efficiency of the Navy. But what are we to think of the naval officers on the Admiralty Board, men who cannot plead the blindness and ignorance of their civilian colleagues? No one knows better than Sir John Fisher the real nature and the inevitable consequences of those acts to which he is a consenting party. And we are not speaking at random when we assert that more than any one man, the responsibility and the guilt for those reductions lies at his door.” (The Globe, 21 Sept. 1906.)