OUR ACTIVE ADMIRALS.
Loa]) HARDWICKE performed a public service in following up the effort of Lord Grey to fasten attention upon the great difficulty which threatens to mar the efficiency of the Navy—the number of superannuated officers who encumber the higher ranks. Lord Hardwicke's immediate object, indeed, was to complain of the existing regulation, under orders in Council, that obliges officers who serve less than a certain time afloat to go into a class which is called the "reserved list," though it is practically a retired list. The plan, he says, excludes from service men of less advanced years than those who head the " active list." The brief and ex- tremely partial debate in the House of Lords would be dishearten- ing if we supposed that Ministers or independent Members of either House could stop where that discussion did. When the service in its higher ranks is essentially ineffective through the extreme age of the " active " officers, it is indeed painful to see the chief Minis- ter of the Crown justifying that state of things by explaining the regulations which have permitted such a result, or which check it very imperfectly ; and it is not less painful to see an honest and independent man like Lord Hardwicke suggesting small palliatives, or such reforms as to substitute purchase for the kind of promotion by growth which bears such greyheaded fruit, while some who are virtually officers with equal experience are nipped in the bud at fifty or sixty. But the truth is, that the necessity is not apparent to the civilian who presides over the Government, and professional associations actually incapacitate men like Lord Hardwicke for re- eOgnizing the true case.
The ultimate effect speaks for itself. We have in the van of the Navy-list twenty-two Admirals, nine or ten Vice-Admirals, and the same number of Rear-Admirals ; the minimum ages of these three ranks being seventy-five years and sixty-nine ; and Lord Hardwicke, it would seem, desires a relaxation of the rule, in order to add more veterans to that list which, like Spanish stock, is quaintly called "active." Now, so far from recruiting that list, we say that its very existence ought to be, ipso facto, an absolute impossibility. If any one who ought to deal' with this evil doubts the neces- sity, let the aged officers be mustered, bodily, and surveyed by the Queen ! Well do we remember the pain described at the sight of the old pensioners who were impressed as seamen into the service of Commodore Anson, and of whom so few returned. But if the corps of Admirals were mustered, Englishmen ought far more to grieve on reflecting that upon shoulders so bent is to be placed the heavy duty of sustaining, with the reputation which these men have attained in earlier years, the honour and safety of the country. In order to avoid the serious hazard' which would' result from permitting the service to continue thus greyheaded, it is not ne- cessary it pass any slight upon the veterans, or to exclude from active service any man that may be capable of serving. Excep- tional cases speak eloquently for themselves, and the faculties of a Napier, whether on shore or afloat, will secure ample recogni- tion. The point is not to exclude men from service because they are aged, but to discontinue a practice which virtually assumes that they are best for service because they have grown so very old. As a body, they must be requested to stand aside from the line of promotion, and to take their chance with other candidates for employment. If any of them are past work, let honour, let the rewards of long fidelity, be heaped upon them ; for assuredly it would be better, both for themselves and the country, that they should be rewarded to accept of retirement, rather than that they should be permitted to risk the fleets and the flag of England by trusting to failing senses and energies. The privilege of this spe- cies of barratry is certainly not the only or the best mode of honouring veteran services.
Amongst the excuses for the existing regulations, is the assur- ance that some experience is required to take naval command : and the presumption is not to be denied. But a man needs not wait to the age of sixty, still less to that of seventy-five or eighty, before he has experience enough to act as a general at sea. The same principle applies to ships as to armies : a man cannot com- mand a single vessel until he knows the routine of the evolutions through which it can be put ; nor can he command many, until he has had opportunities of observing combined action. But officers have proved how rapidly the commanding mind. can grasp this experience. Wellington and Marlborough on shore, Nelson and Parker afloat, have proved that men can bring to the prime of life all the experience needed for this mastery of armies, by sea or land, and that they need not wait to find it in the valley to which John Anderson and his wife descended. Even apart from war there have been opportunities for showing the energy of younger men. We remember that Flinders, who leaves his name indelibly recorded on the map of the world, was but a Captain ; that Frank- lin was but a Lieutenant when he received the command of his first expedition ; and that the officer now appointed to be second in the command of the North Sea fleet was but recently a Captain. We acknowledge the difficulty of dealing with the " active list " of honourable officers, who would receive superannuation as an in- dignity. They are the birth of a system not unnatural in grate- ful peace after a long and tedious war : but the progeny is most unsuited to a time of renewed war ; and, great as the difficulty has been rendered by deferring it, further delay would be danger- ous. Even in time of action "promotion" is too often claimed, and given, as the "right" of the officer; whereas it cannot justly be given save in regard to the rights of the country. One man may have earned a better claim than another to a place if the place exists; but he cannot have a claim that a place should be made or kept up for him ; nor should a single post be created be- yond the number that the public service requires. A natural sympathy with gallant service, aided by a sympathy not less na- tural for friends and connexions, has occasioned the creation of in- numerable posts that were not needed ; and now, at the beginning of a war, the State does not know what to do with its surplus stock of Admirals past use. A reform is imperative, both to free the service from a present encumbrance and to prevent a renewal of the difficulty in future.
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