Address at the Annual Meeting.

MR. CHAIRMAN, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, although this is the first time that I have spoken at your Annual Meeting, I am by no means unfamiliar with the work of the life-boat service.

It is eight years since I first became acquainted with it. That was in the Orkneys, when I named the motor life- boats at Stromness and Longhope. I do not suppose that there are many here this afternoon, besides Coxswain Dass and myself, who know those stations on the northernmost parts of our coast. Since then I have had the pleasure of naming seven life-boats in different parts of the country. I am very glad, therefore, to be able to renew to-day my connexion with life- boatmen of England and Scotland, and to meet for the first time life-boatmen of Ireland and Wales.

Exceptional Storms.

The exceptional storms of the past winter have brought to London an unusually large number of men to whom I have just presented medals for gallantry. But, though the storms have been exceptional, I think that these fifteen men would be the first to tell us that they themselves are not exceptional. You have heard the stories of their gallantry, and yet I do not doubt that you could go round the coast, and pick another fifteen men, and yet another and another, all capable when the time came of showing the same bravery and the same resolu- tion. We are proud of these men for what they have done, but our chief feeling of pride and gratitude is in knowing that their exceptional bravery, as it seems to us, is typical of the service to which they belong.

(Applause.) Completion of Motor life-boat Programme.

But if your men do not change, your boats do. I have seen something of these changes, and I have been able to discover for myself how ingeniously and carefully constructed the modern life-boat is. It is thirty years since your first motor life-boats were built, and during those years you have revo- lutionized your fleet. Thirty years ago you had three motor life-boats ; to-day you have 129. (Applause.} Those three motor life-boats were experi- ments. To-day you have no fewer than ten different types, all specially designed for the various needs of our coast. That is a very great achieve- ment. The process of mechanizing the life-boat fleet is now coming to an end.

It is the intention of your committee of management to speed up their programme, and I am asked to an- nounce that they hope that three years from now your fleet will consist entirely of motor life-boats. (Applause.) The Support of the Public.

Let us remember that this has only been made possible by the whole- hearted co-operation of your thousands •of honorary life-boat workers, and by the generosity of the British people.

I am sure you will agree with me that this generous support throughout the whole country is no less deserving of our admiration than the gallantry of the life-boat crews and the excellence of the boats themselves.

I should like to congratulate all con- cerned in the splendid work that has been done in the past year, and I hope that this work will be carried on as successfully in the future. (Applause.).