The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-05-19
|OPpONENTSOF HOME RULE ARE IN TROUBLE University Professor Puts
 Tories to Rout IMPROVING THE NAVY Churchill Inaugurates New Era in Admiralty Affairs-Union Labor
 Party Is Name of New Fusion Organization
IMPROVING THE NAVY
By PHILIP EvERETy

the British empire. The voters are no
 longer as easy to mislead as they were in the past, and the younger generation are well aware that the federal principle
 Is working smoothly among other great nations.
 There is. indeed, something that re-
 minds one of the Stone Age in the present phase of the resistance of home rule. Ar
 gument is practically exhausted. The
 fires of race and religious hatred burn very low and do not respond even to the most energetic stirring. But the prophets of the old time still go on calling on their gods and gashing themselves with knives, though they are convinced that their cause is lost and that 1t would be much more sensible to submit to the inevitable. They. doubtless, will eventually do so
 when they think they have fought long enough to surrender without dishonor
 The tory obstructionists in the path of
 home rule will not be able to resist any more speeches like the one recently made
 by Winston Churchill, when he introduced
 the government bill at the second read ing.
 From home rule one is naturally led to consider the prospects of another lib- eral government bill now before parlia-
 ment, that of Welsh disestablishment , Here, too, the government has also ef- fectually spiked some of the heaviest guns of the tory opposition. It looked exceed l ingly we'll to see the noble tories valiantly defending the sanctity of church property, but the position of the champions of the l church became an exceedingly awkward one, when a reckless London university professor turned the limelight of history on the courageous defenders of the ortho- dox church, especially the two AJaxes, Lord Robert and Hugh Cecil.
 As long as these two heroes had to de-
 pose Lloyd George only, nothing could daunt their valor, but Professor Rollard,
 their unexpected opponent, IS not mere liberal chancellor of the exchequer, sprung from humble ancestry. He Is professor of English history, a fellow of All Souls college, Oxford, and of the His torical society. He is a well known hls- torian. It is a little difficult to turn the edge of that peculiar Cecil insolence, that strange, unmannerly mixture of aristo- cratic and intellectual pride. on to man with so distinguished an intellectual rec ord.
 Lord Hugh Cecil is forced now to ad- init that his ancestors did receive lands from the plunder of the church at the time of the reformation. His latest plea
 is that he himself has no share of the proceeds, and that they have gone to the | ter.
 After all, if the Cecils had possessed a minimum of common sense they must
 have known that an exposure was un- avoidable, for every English school boy who knows anything about the history of his country is familiar with the fact that a vast new aristocracy was founded on the plunder of the church lands at the time of the reformation. In his famous
 History of England Froude writes of the times of Henry VIII:
 "The new owners of these broad do- mains were. for the most part either the rising statesmen-the .'novi homines" who
 had been nursed under Wolseley and grown to manhood in the storms of the formation-Cromwell Russell, Audley,
 Wriothesley, Dudley, Seymour, F'itzwil- liam and the satellites who revolved about them; or else city merchants, successful wool dealers, or manufacturers; in all cases the men of progress, the men Of the future, the rivals, if not the active ene- mics of the hereditary feudal magnates
 From that time dates the new aris- tocracy to which the Cecils belong.
 The story is a curious one. Henry VIII had intended to divert this property to the foundation of 21 new bishoprics, with as many cathedrals and as many new chap ters An act drawn up by Henrys own hand was passed to that effect. But the money was diverted to other uses, and II was an arstocracy and not branch, that grew out of the ruins of the old Catholic foundation.
 All this might have remained ancient history were it not for the descendants or the interiors of these lands, who had the audacity to take up arms In the front tank of those who began to accuse the present government of sacrilege.
 For what? Not for taking the whole revenues of the church. not Tor givlng any of these revenues to any private 1n- dividual, but for diverting them back from the uses for which they were never in- tended to their ancient purposes or giv- Ing relief to the sick and the poor and knowledge to the ignorant. On these lines it will be quite easy to vindicate Weish disestabllshment to the people of England. With the transfer of the office of first lord of the admiralty to Winston Church. i'll. new era may be said to have begun. Even the bitterest opponents of the gov ernment have not dared accuse the young secretary of the navy of lukewarmness or lack of vigilant patriotism. Hardly week has passed since without the ah- nouncement of the strengthening Of the | country's naval defenses. One or the most striking of these which has just come into force is the organization of an | | based on the idea of continuous patrol. | Under the old system both of the battle | squadrons of the home fleet had de- stroyer iotilla attached. and there were | reserved fotillas at Davenport, Ports | mouth and the Nore. Under the new | scheme there are no destroyers perma- nently attached to the battle fleets. ln- stead the whole of England available | forces are organized into eight hotiilas, | four being in full commission and four Ill
 reserve with cucleus crews.
 | Of the four active fiotillas, the first and second, 36 in all, will be based on Rosyth, l the third on Harwich and the fourth on
 Portland. The fifth (reserve) fiotilla will l have Harwich as its base, the sixth l Portsmouth, the seventh Davenport and
 the eighth Rosyth. This last will be sta | toned at Harwich until the necessary preparations have been made at the Scot | tish port
 l No fewer than 165 6estroyers are includ- ed in the new organization, besides eight l fast cruisers eight scouts and eight depot and repair ships. Each flotilla is~from l IS to "A strong. Sixty-eight will be in full | commission and 97 in reserve, the num-
 hers in the North Sea being 52 and 60 re- | spectively.
 l In addition to these 102 destroyers, there
 are f1otillas of 12 submarines apiece. based on Harwich and Dundee. With the ex- ception of the fifth fiotilla. all the North Sea destroyers are driven by turbines, and the majority burn oil fuel exclusively. | The change will quite double the effec- ! tive strength of our advance guard l ha aa rd If is