BOOKS.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE NAVY.* AMONG the many volumes which have lately been written on the subject of the Navy, none is more modest and none more sincere than the posthumous record of a life's experience as a clerk in the Admiralty Office, written by the late Sir John Henry Briggs. Certainly few are more valuable. The author tells a simple, straightforward tale, which can be read without effort in two or three hours. He has nothing new to say, his object is merely to tell the truth, that is, to give as concisely and as emphatically as he can what he feels to be the essence and the moral of a long experience. The volume was dictated when its author was an octogenarian, at an age, that is, when a man is long past the possibility of assimilating a new idea from outside. It may therefore be taken as certain that his leading ideas were formed in his own experience, and are not borrowed from any recent literature on the subject of naval administration. The striking thing about the book is that the conclusions it conveys are absolutely identical with those that have been urged in other recent writings, inspired, not by any intimate knowledge of the interior of the Admiralty, but by the application to the naval defence of this country and of the Empire of a knowledge of the nature of modern war and of the administrative condi- tion essential to its successful management. These conditions, in brief, are, first, that the Cabinet shall regard preparation for war as one of its chief duties ; secondly, that they shall look for their definition of the needs of war to the best represen- tative they can find of strategy; that they shall follow the advice in regard to the Navy of their best Admiral, and in regard to the Army of their best General ; and thirdly, that the truth shall be told to the House of Commons, which means that the Estimates shall be accompanied by a plain statement of all points upon which the judgment of the First Sea-Lord or of the Commander-in-Chief has been overruled by the Cabinet. The system of which these are the main features has in recent years been advocated by outsiders, who for their pains have been attacked and abused both by the Admiralty officials and by those service-writers who enjoy the favour of the powers that be. The voice of Sir J. H. Briggs now un- expectedly comes up from the grave to testify in favour of these unpopular suggestions.

The author's first complaint against the British system is that the public is never told the troth about the Navy. He attributes this to the anxiety of both parties to pose before the constituencies as guardians of the public parse. It is worth giving in his own words his statement of this conclusion1 and the crucial instances by which he supports his case :— • Naval Adminiotrations, 1827 to 1892: the Eglerience of Sixty-five Years. By the late Sir John Henry Brigng, Rader to the Lords and Chief Clerk of the Admiralty. Edited by Lady Briggs. London: Sampson Low and CO.

"One of the most serious complaints that can be brought against our system of administration is that we do not tell the truth to the English people; the Prime Minster himself cannot get at it, however anxious he may be to ascertain it."

This is a very striking charge, but it is justified by the examples which the author gives. Here is the first :— "My official experience justifies me in stating that nothing is so difficult to obtain as really accurate information ; the country never gets it, the House of Commons very seldom, and it is doubtful whether the Prime Minister himself is honestly fur- nished with what he requires. There is so much political, so much professional, so much departmental, and so much personal feeling brought to bear upon all occasions, and such a desire to conceal what is known to be unwelcome, and to present every- thing in the most favourable light, to meet the exigencies of the moment, that the information sought after, when supplied, bears little resemblance to facts. During the adminis- tration of Sir Robert Peel some circumstances occurred which led to his inquiring what steam - vessels could be got ready for sea on the shortest possible notice, and he wrote a confidential note to a member of the Board soliciting this information. Private instructions were given to me to prepare the return. I included every steam-vessel in it which appeared to me could, by any possibility, be got ready for sea on short notice. When I presented the list I was told that that was not at all what was wanted. I was then directed to prepare another from the Board-room book, enumerating the names of every steam-vessel in the navy, with tonnage, horse- power, &c. This list was at once despatched to Sir Robert Peel. Half-an-hour afterwards his private secretary came to the Admiralty with the return in question, and explained what the Prime Minister really required. I was again sent for, and repro- duced my original return, which contained the information actually asked for ; but, in order to make a better show, I received positive directions to include not only vessels standing in need of extensive repairs, but several building upon the stocks, for which neither boilers nor machinery had even been ordered."

The second case is still more startling :—

" So impressed was Mr. Ward Hunt by the representations made to him, and with the result of his own personal inquiries as to the condition of the navy that, very shortly after his accession to office, he made a most unwelcome statement on the subject in the House of Commons, setting forth the imperative necessity of an increase to the navy estimates. There never was a more just or more inopportune demand preferred. Lord Beaconsfield had a short time hef"te been dilating upon bloated armaments, and advocating economy ; therefore for his incoming ministry, at first starting, to come down to the House with a demand for money was highly inconsistent and the reverse of agreeable. Mr. Ward Hunt was consequently compelled to back out as adroitly as he could, and make the best of a very in- significant addition as compared with the amount really required. He was forced to explain that perhaps he had been somewhat precipitate in forming this opinion ; for upon further inquiries he was gratified to find that several ships upon the stocks were in a more advanced state than he had been led to believe, and that many of the ships which had returned from foreign service were found with defects far less extensive than the dockyard officers had at first anticipated, and might be repaired at a moderate expense, and within a reasonable period He was further obliged to add that he had every reason to believe that the money now placed at his disposal, if judiciously applied (as he was sure it would be), would effect considerable addition to the fighting strength of the navy, and was sufficient to meet its immediate requirements. Mr. Ward Hunt soon found, like many other statesmen imbued with good intentions, that patriotism weighed but lightly in the balance compared with party and political con- venience" We shall also give in the writer's own words his opinion regarding the remedies to be adopted :— "It is by the Cabinet of the day, and not only by the First Lord, that this great question of national defence must be taken up?,

"One of the chief causes of the unsatisfactory state of naval and military affairs is not attributable to civilians being placed at the head of these great war departments, as some imagine, but in no small degree to the fact that there is no public record of the views and opinions of their professional advisers, which for the good of the service, ought to be brought under the considera- tion of the Cabinet, and afterwards come forward with the navy estimates for the final decision of the House of Commons."

"It is really for the interest of the country that some measure should be adopted by which the responsible naval advisers of the Admiralty should have their opinions made known ; either by embodying them in a report to the First Lord, to be submitted by him to the Cabinet with his views annexed, the final decision, of course, resting with the ministry, whose objections should be explained by the First Lord or Political Secretary to the House of Commons when the navy estimates are brought forward, or by some other method that would ensure their recommendation receiving proper attention. If some such oourse were pursued, it would lead to a more careful consideration of the real require- ments of the service by the naval lords, whose proposals would be duly weighed and revised by the First Lord, and again approved, modified, or rejected by the Cabinet, as the case might be, and then the responsibility would be thrown upon those who were really to blame." " Until the country is really made acquainted. year by year with the proposals of the naval members of the Board of Admiralty, and the distinct grounds upon which their sugges- tions are offered, there cannot fail to be, from time to time, those spasmodic panics which occasion mistrust and lead to hasty and injudicious expenditure."

The truth is that the Navy and the money spent on the Navy are but means to an end, and the object of organisation is to secure that the means should be subordinate and appro- priate to the end. The end is the destruction of the fleets of an enemy, or a group of enemies. The first necessary point

in organisation is to make it a specific duty of the qualified

authority to define the end. The catalogue of possible wars, that is, of possible enemies and their combinations, can be pre- pared only by the Cabinet. The effort needed in each possible case to crush the naval forces of the enemy can be made only by a strategist acquainted with this catalogue, that is, by a strategist acquainted with the most important of all State

secrets. This must be the First Sea-Lord. The only basis of a navy fit for its purpose is therefore a Cabinet attending with reasonable forethought to foreign affairs, in close com- munication with a First Sea-Lord or naval Commander-in- Chief, whose duty is the preparation of a series of projects for definite wars. The object of naval expenditure is to keep the Navy fully ready to carry to a successful issue at any moment its share in any one of these projects. This is the vital point in any organisation, either for the Army or for the Navy. There is absolutely no other theory by which it is possible for either service to be equal to and ready for its work, and what is even more important, there is no other theory by which the foreign policy of the country can be kept in harmony with its naval and military resources. Until this theory is adopted as the guide to practice, the Navy and Army will remain behind the time, and British foreign policy will continue to meet encroach- ment upon British rights by paper remonstrances destined to be torn up whenever the other side exhibits the intention to proceed to extremes. The theory here set forth is distasteful to Cabinet Ministers because it would compel them to. face their most serious responsibility, to the First Lord because it would destroy the fiction of his independence, and to the Admirals because they have not been trained in a school of strategy and cannot welcome an arrangement which would bring home to them the defect in their training. But it is the necessary conclusion of a syllogism, of which the major premise is the nature of policy and of war, and the minor premise the nature of representative government. It was from these premises that the conclusion was first de- veloped, and the interesting feature of the work of Sir John Briggs is, that he has reached the same conclusion by an altogether different process, consisting of practical experience of the failure of the present Admiralty organisation.

It would be a mistake to part with our author without quoting the conclusions to which his experience led in regard to the interference of the Treasury in the internal affairs of the Navy Department. He writes in one place :—

" It cannot be expected that either the Prime Minister or the- Chancellor of the Exchequer can spare the time to master all the numerous and complicated naval and military questions, and the solid grounds on which they are based ; but certainly it is not in order that the submissions of their respective departments should be refused upon the mere reports of suboadinates in the Treasury who are utterly ignorant of the importance of the recommendations, the rejection of which might seriously affect the best interests of the naval and military establishments of the country."

And in another :— "It is not this party or that party which is to blame, but successive governments, which, for so many years, have vied with each other in reducing the navy estimates to the lowest possible ebb, with a view to meet the popular clamour for economy and retrenchment; and, as each successive government passed out of office, there was a visible sign of depletion in one branch or

another of the naval establishments All these and other depletions, which might be adduced ad infinitum, were made to meet the demands of the Treasury, which, as far as the resources of the country were concerned, had no sense or reason."