The committee had been formed to improve the opera, which was then performed at three different theatres: Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and Her Majesty's; so that the available talent was scattered. Sir Augustus Harris combined the three into one at Drury Lane.
In October, 1895, occurred the death of my brother, Lord Waterford, at the age of fifty-one. He had been for long completely disabled by a bad accident in the hunting field; and although his sufferings were constant and acute, he continued staunchly to discharge his many duties to the end. He was succeeded in the marquisate by his son.
My appointment at Chatham terminated in March, 1896; and a few days later I delivered at Birmingham an address dealing with the requirements of naval defence.
CHAPTER XLI
VIEWS AND REVIEWS
The three years succeeding the termination of my appointment at Chatham were mainly occupied with questions of naval reform. The task was of my own choosing; and if, in comparison with the life I led, the existence of the early martyrs was leisured, dignified and luxurious, it is not for me to draw the parallel. The chief difficulty encountered by any reformer is not an evil but a good. It is the native virtue of the English people, which leads them to place implicit confidence in constituted authority. The advocacy of a change implies that constituted authority is failing to fulfil its duty. You cannot at the same time both trust and distrust the men in charge of affairs. Again, reform often involves expenditure; and the dislike to spend money upon an idea is natural to man. And it is the custom of constituted authority to tell the people that all is well, in fact never so well. They have all the weight of their high office behind them; and people will believe what they are told by authority in despite of the evidence of their senses.
Moreover, there are endless difficulties and disappointments inherent in the very nature of the task of the naval or military reformer. The problems of defence are highly intricate; and although the principles governing them remain unaltered, the application of those principles is constantly changing. The most skilled officers may differ one from another; and a man who is devoting his whole time and energy to benefit the Service to which he belongs, will often be disheartened by the opposition of his brother officers.
The influence of society, again, is often baneful. Society is apt to admonish a public man, especially if he be popular, perpetually telling him that he must not do this, and he must not say that, or he will injure his reputation, ruin his career, and alienate his friends; until, perhaps, he becomes so habitually terrified at what may happen, that he ends by doing nothing, and spoiling his career at the latter end after all. Public life to-day is permeated through and through with a selfish solicitude for personal immunity. But it remains the fact that he who intends to achieve a certain object, must first put aside all personal considerations. Upon going into action, a fighting man is occupied, not with speculations as to whether or not he will be hit, and if so where, but in trying to find out where and how soon and how hard he can hit the enemy. Even so, he may be beaten; but at least he will have nothing to regret; he will be able to say that if it were all to do again, he would do the same; for he will know that on any other terms his defeat would be assured.
If, then, these pages record in brief the continual endeavours of those who made it their business to represent to the nation the requirements of Imperial defence, it is for the purpose of once more exemplifying the defects in our system which periodically expose the country and the Empire to dangers from without and panics from within, and involve them in a series of false economies alternating with spasms of wasteful expenditure. The remedy advocated was the constitution of a body whose duty it should be to represent requirements. Such a body was not created until 1912. In the meantime, more money was spent than would purchase security, which was not always obtained. Nor have we yet produced what is the first essential of national security, the feeling of the officers and men of the fighting services that they are being justly treated by the nation in the matter of pay and pension and proper administrative treatment.