I was once there myself."]
[ILLUSTRATION: ONE UP!]
Parliament has for once repelled the gibe that it has ceased to represent
the people in the tribute of praise paid by Lords and Commons to our
sailors and soldiers and all the other gallant folk who are helping us to
win the War. On the strength of this capacity for rising to the occasion
one may pass over the many sittings at which a small minority of
Pacificists and irrelevant inquisitors have dragged the House down to the
depths of ineptitude or worse. In the debate on the Air Force in Committee,
one member, if we count speeches and interruptions, addressed the House
exactly one hundred times, and it is worthy of note that his last words
were: "This is what you call muzzling the House of Commons." If we were
to believe some critics, the British Navy is directed by a set of
doddering old gentlemen who are afraid to let it go at the Germans, and
cannot even safeguard it from attack. The truth, as expounded by the
First Lord, Sir Eric Geddes, in his maiden speech, is quite different.
Despite the Jeremiads of superannuated sailors and political longshoremen,
the Admiralty is not going to Davy Jones's locker, but under its present
chiefs, who have, with very few exceptions, seen service in this War,
maintains and supplements its glorious record.
Save for an occasional game of "tip and run," as with the North Sea convoy,
enemy vessels have disappeared on the surface of the ocean; and the long
arm of the British Navy is now stretching down into the depths and up into
the skies in successful pursuit of them.
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