A SERIOUS DEFECT IN THE NAVY.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR.'
SIR,—While I agree with the general contention of " Sober Fact," I confess he seems hardly to justify his pseudonym by some of his statements. Tradition much governs the mind of the Naval Executive. Those not acquainted with its work- ing can hardly realise the repugnance to any change in the official relations between.the Executive and any other branch of the Naval Service. This attitude was established by circum- stances in the past, when any one and every one in a ship who could not go aloft was a landlubber" and an " idler " quite regardless of length of service at sea. Those who have served in rigged ships—even with steam power—remember that those officially classified as " idlers " did most of the hard work of the ship, hardly getting a moment's rest. As the locomotion and safety of the ship depended upon work "aloft," it is not surprising that a great social and official gulf was fixed " by the custom of the Service " between officers and men who only worked on or below.tbe deck and those who worked above it. The force of traclition remains in days when the locomotion, the safety, the light, the air, and the working of all weapons and appliances of the ship are provided for below the deck. There is no longer an " aloft," and the engineer branch of the Navy- really now occupies, in relation to the Naval Service to-day, the position of the executive, or seaman, branch in days for ever gone. Let me produce two unimpeachable witnesses. Admiral Sir Gerard Noel complains " that the seaman worthy of the name goes about envying the stoker, who has something useful to do," while Admiral Fitzgerald puts the finishing touch to the "sailor as we have known him" by declaring " there is no place for him on board a modern man-of. war." The influence of change in ship construction and mechanical appliances is broadly illustrated by the fact that in 1858,' when all her Majesty's vessels were rigged ships, with auxiliary steam-power, only 8 per cent. of the total personnel of the Navy, excluding boys under training, belonged to the engineer branch, while in 1898, the date of latest official returns, more than one quarter of the total personnel of the Fleet belonged to that branch. The " steam-man" is ousting the "Seaman," and it is time ideas born of the wind and cradled in hemp, tar, and canvas should follow masts and yards overboard. 'I am a firm believer in traditions, both naval and military, but when a tradition survives its own foundations, its proper name is prejudice. Beneath the apparently smooth surface of the Naval Service to-day there are follies, inconsistencies, and absurdities wholly irreconcilable with its economy and efficiency, incidentally producing in the minds of certain branches of it a sense of injustice and wrong. Your columns give expression to those feelings prevailing in the engineer branch, representing over a quarter of the personnel, while else- where we are constantly reminded of a wholly indefensible state of things relating to the marine, artillery, and infantry branch, which forms 20 per cent. of the whole naval force. They allinay be traced to the same source, tradition, which has degenerated.g into prejudice, resulting in official obliviousness of the fact r; that things are not as they were. Hence the principles of naval organisation and system of a wooden sailing fleet in days of yore are being rigidly adhered to in the fleet of floating iron boxes of complicated masses of machinery to-day. The engineer branch of the Navy is composed of experts requiring special training, and doing special work, just like Royal Engineers in the Army. All units of the Royal Engineers go through such preliminary training under their own officers as is necessary to produce individual capacity as a combatant, to maintain discipline and the chain of responsibility within the corps itself in the discharge of its special and peculiar func- tions. Executive rank and the exercise of executive functions
within the corps is an essential principle of efficiency. These conditions are wholly absent in the case of the engineer branch of the Navy, which is a collection of loose and unorganised civil units, though the most essential portion of a fighting Service. It cannot be said the formation of the engineer branch into a corps of Royal Naval Engineers —on the lines of the Royal Engineers—is impracticable because of essential differences between the Naval and Military Services. The most ancient organism in the whole Naval Service is that of the corps of Royal Marines, and the executive branch of the Navy, composed, as it now really is, of Marines disguised as bluejackets, is every day finding itself more and more compelled unwillingly to conform to the principles and system of the Marine Service, by reason of the changes forced upon the personnel by mechanical science, which have reduced the bluejackets to the level of Marines by confining their functions to the deck. " The serious defect in the Navy " is the present organisation. The fierce conflict of opinion now raging among executive officers as to what is a " seaman " and how he should be trained, and what they term the " growls of the greasers" and the " shrieks of the Marines," simply represent the disagreeable noises due to hot bearings and misfits in machinery in bad order.—I am, Sir, &&, [Sir John Colomb has, we believe, put the controversy on exactly right lines, and with his letter we must for the present close the correspondence. We recommend his letter to all engineer officers as showing that what they are suffering from is not any social or class disconsideration, but merely the tyranny of tradition. But let them remember that there can be no question as to the ultimate victory. The Atlantic always has beaten and always will beat Mrs. Partington.— ED. Spectator.]
Previous page
