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Admiral of the Fleet. Lord Fisher, in his " Records," page 73, risks the wrath of the good old British Chamber of Mines Press, and permanent exclusion from the South African party, by supporting as follows one of the planks in the Pact platform : - " Hereditary titles are ludicrously out of date in modern democracy, and the sooner we sweep away all the gimcracks and gewgaws of snobbery the better. The fount of so-called honours has become a deluge, and the newspapers are hard put to it to find room for even the spray of the deluge." There can be no place in Paradise for the great Admiral after that. Let me read from the Sun Pictorial what is happening in Italy - ROME, Tuesday. - Signor Mussolini, receiving the freedom of the city, said that he hoped that Rome would rise again to Imperial dignity, and become the glorious capital of thi; Latin world. The Government has issued a decree denning legal titles, causing 200,000 nobles to lose their status. These include 60,000 dukes, counts, marquises, and barons created by the Vatican, since 1870, and thousands who possess titles dating from the Middle Ages, but possess no documentary evidence of their creation. Persons were claiming titles to which they had no- right, and which they had wrongly used. The impertinence of it ! Titles are becoming extinct ; they are the last refuge of the conservative school of politics. New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa have requested that no titles be conferred in those dominions, and readers of history know that one Government in Denmark refused to take office unless the King would pledge himself not to confer any more titles. Titles have been abolished in Norway. I am glad that Amundsen, the only man who has been at both the North and South Pole, was honoured by the King of Sweden, although I cannot see what good has resulted from the sacrifice of lives in expeditions to the Polar regions. The honorable member for Ballarat (Mr. McGrath) spoke of the titles of the Minister for Defence (Sir Neville Howse). I honour the distinction of V.C. which he holds, for it shows that in the war he displayed great personal courage; but he will agree with me that it is almost impossible to find a labourer who first won the V.C. and then a knighthood. "When a working man performs a feat that would entitle him to a second V.C, he is given a bar to the V.C. he already has. I know of workers who have won that great distinction twice, but they have not been granted a knighthood. If any honorable member knows of one working man who has received a knighthood because he earned a V.C. twice, I shall be glad to hear of it. In the early days of Queen Victoria thousands of army officers had their promotion delayed because of the red tape in +he Defence Department of Great Britain, which required the Queen personally to sign all the commissions - a task that was physically impossible. I have no doubt that the right honorable the Prime Minister believed what he said ; but I ask him, when has a constituency in Australia voted on the question of the granting of titles? I speak with 37 years' experience of many public meetings, and I have never heard of a public meeting endorsing the conferring of a title on a member of Parliament or any other individual, or passing a resolution in favour of the granting of titles generally. If any honorable member can inform me of a public meeting that has done so, I shall be prepared to correct my statement to that extent when I speak again on this subject. The Prime Minister made a strong point about privy councillors, bat he did not metion a single instance of that distinction being sold. The Cabinet Ministers of England, by right and established custom, are members of the Privy Council. How' could they give the King advice except in council, and how could they attend the Privy Council unless they were privy councillors? The Prime Minister's argument is like a two-edged sword. He did not say that privy councillorships had been sold, and as they have not been sold they are, to that extent, purer than many other distinctions. Titles in England, including some of the highest, have been obtained by the vilest means, and men have even bartered their sisters and wives for them. I believe that the Prime Minister is a man of great ability; but I am sorry that he did not say that in a democracy like Australia no more of these paltry baubles, which have been used to purchase votes, shall be issued. ' It is said that " Britain honours the brave," but let us consider what happens to her heroes. Perhaps the bravest act in the awful European Avar was the attack on Zeebrugge, which was designed to prevent the German submarines from leaving that port. In the Guardian newspaper, published at Durban, South Africa, on the 2Sth May last, I read that 50 mcn who took part in that raid in 1918 were then almost destitute. No act of the British Army has been more loudly applauded than the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. How often has Tennyson's poem on that historic event been recited on public platforms, and how often has the recital of it been received with great applause? How did the majority of the survivors of that charge end their days? Do honorable members deny that over 100 of them died in the workhouses of England, and that it was only by the action of the owner of a great English newspaper in collecting money that the last remnant of fourteen was saved from that misery. One poor old chap came into St. Mary's Hospital, in London, when I was there. His legs had been amputated above the knees. He had undergone fifteen separate operations, as the disease from which he suffered crept up his body. I first attended him as a dresser, and he ultimately died after his eighteenth operation. The mighty Empire of Great Britain apparently could not provide that unfortunate man with a push-cart in which he could be wheeled about. The cart had to be purchased with sixpences collected from medical students. 1 have no objection to the conferring of marks of distinction on persons of great merit. Any person who saves life at the risk of his own is, in my opinion, entitled to wear a medal on the breast equal to any that may be worn by a general. I see hundreds of medals on the breasts of brave men who may have risked their lives in the war, but how many brave men and women are there who have risked their lives for others and are not decorated? On next Friday night, in Melbourne, there is to be a distribution of honours by the Royal Humane Society. These distinctions will honour the recipients and the society. One brave man, who at the risk of his own life rushed upon a lunatic who was shooting every one in sight, is to be given the gold medal of the society. A bronze medal is to be given to a little girl, Florrie Hodges. Her action was no less heroic than that of Grace Darling. Honorable members are aware that Grace Darling, a young woman of 21 years of age, living in a lighthouse with her father, saw a ship wrecked, and knew that possibly many souls were in danger of death. She wanted to go at once to their rescue, but her father, knowing the danger, was at first unwilling that she should do so. She said, " Father, if you will not go I shall go alone.'" Then both father and daughter went to the rescue of those in peril of their lives, and brought back five persons from the wreck. The boat returned to the wreck later, and saved the remainder of those on hoard. The brave action of Grace Darling has been trumpeted throughout the world, and every civilized nation has translated her story into its own language. She was given a gold medal, and £100 was subscribed for her, and another £100 for her father. The little Australian girl is only fifteen years of age, but is entitled also to be regarded as a heroine. When driven out of her house by a bush fire, she took her little sisters to a creek and threw water over them and over herself until the heat became too great for them. She then took them to the only clear space near them, on the tramway road to a saw-mill, and, as sparks were still falling upon thom, she placed her body over