ADMIRALTY POLICY AND NAVAL ENGINEERS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.”.1 Sin,—In last Saturday's issue of the Spectator a corre- spondent, "N. N. 0.," adds his contribution to the subject now under discussion under the above heading. For the sake of lucidity, one could have wished that " N. N. 0." had dealt with the serious issues involved in this question of interchange- ability of deck and engine-room duties rather than with the personal fitness of Sir John Fisher and his brother-officers now at the Admiralty. No one who is at all conversant with modern naval history doubts the professional capacity of the various officers mentioned by name by your correspondent, and if it were a matter of fleet tactics, gunnery, or torpedo warfare no one would gainsay the authority of the dis- tinguished gentlemen referred to.
The question of marine engineering is altogether upon a different plane from the above, and one on which an Admiral, be he as great as a Nelson, can hold but an academic opinion. What the Navy and the nation have a right to ask is : Who and what are the professional officers, and what their qualifications and sea experience, that have endorsed what Lord Goschen was compelled to call a "most revolutionary scheme,"—the abolish- ment on the one hand of the Keyham training for the engineers, and the substitution of stokers for engine-room artificers for watchkeeping duties on the other ?
Your correspondent refers to the fact that this change has received the imprimatur of the Engineer-in-Chief ; so, too, have all the changes that have taken place in the training of naval engineers without finality ever having been reached. Possibly this may be only another stage, and no more final than those that have preceded it. Is it that the Admiralty are going round a circle, and will eventually get to the starting-place, when the engineer was recruited from civilian sources, as the engine- room artificer is now ?
Your correspondent suggests that I should have signed my letter "Naval Officer (Retired)." This is a small point, which in no way affects whatever criticism I have, by your courtesy, been enabled to offer of this scheme. -Under normal conditions Sir John Fisher would have been retired some time ago, but just as he has kept himself closely in touch with naval affairs, so, too, has the writer of this letter. Your correspondent next takes exception to my statement about a "handful of officers" being in favour of this change. By that I meant a minority of engineer officers, who, after all, should be the arbiters in a complex question of this description.
So far as my own observation and experience go—and this I state unhesitatingly—there is a consensus of professional opinion against this scheme. Others besides myself share this belief. Lord Goschen, speaking on this question in the House of Lords on the 6th inst. (I quote from the Times report), said : "On his responsibility as an old First Lord of the Admiralty, he stated with regret that there existed in the Navy a wide- spread alarm, a deep apprehension and anxiety, with regard to this scheme of interchangeability which was to be the
foundation of the future officering of the Navy Many of these critics would command authority for their opinions, were their names to be made known, as thoroughly experienced men acquainted with all the necessities of the Service, and many of these opposed to a degree that he could not exaggerate, to the proposed plan."
Surely "N. N. 0." will not deny that Lord Goschen, like Lords Selborne and Cawdor, has established a claim to the con- fidence of the nation. "N. N. 0." then chides me for being inaccurate in stating that the "Admiralty's scheme, or anything like it, has been tried in the United States and proved a failure." Now, if your correspondent will kindly do me the honour to read my letter again, he will see that in the foregoing statement he does me an injustice. What I stated was this : "The American scheme of fusion of the two branches—deck and engine-room—had proved a very qualified success ; so qualified, in fact, that many competent authorities have not hesitated to pronounce it a colossal failure." That must still stand, not only as my verdict, but as the deliberate opinion of keen and unprejudiced eyewitnesses of the evolutionary movement in the American Navy.
"N. N. 0." also states that the Admiralty never decided that interchangeability was never to take place, and impugns my accuracy in stating the opposite. Let me quote Lord Selborne. In the House of Lords, May 8th, 1903, in reply to the Earl Glasgow, Lord Selborne stated : "It is proposed to make the division into the various branches definite and final"; and in a speech later on, which I regret I cannot for the moment locate, he stated : "As the scheme now stands, they [the officers] will not be inter- changeable." So much for "N. N. 0:8" charge against me of misquotation.
These contemplated changes in the personnel of the engine. room staffs are in the way of being a great experiment ; such being the case, why should not the preliminary inquiry have been of the fullest possible nature, and the evidence called for that of the most comprehensive description ? Whatever changes were necessary in the engine-room department, nothing short of the Board of Trade standard of efficiency should have been accepted for engine-room duties.
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