Mr. Baldwin and the Admiralty Was Mr. Baldwin last Tuesday
rebuking Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell, the First Lord of the Admiralty, or certain newspapers, which reported' British proposals for. the forthcoming Naval Conference, or The Spectator; which commented on both ? Mr. -Baldwin deprecated— and he is surely right—any " wide-spread premature public discussion of tentative proposals " put forward with a view to. the Naval Conference. But it was a member of the Government—Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell- speaking on the same platform as Mr. Baldwin, who put forward in public discussion the strongest possible plea for increases in the British Navy, and this at the very moment when reports were to hand from America giving explicit statements of British proposals. When such a pronouncement, at such a moment, comes from the responsible spokesman of the Government on naval affairs, how can comment be avoided ? The responsi- bility for any " premature " speech lies with the Minister, not with the critic. It would be reassuring to those who have been disturbed by the First Lord's statement if Mr. Baldwin would be even more explicit, and dissociate" himself from it, and explain that the First Lord was not expressing the mind of the Government.
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