TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE STATE OF THE NAVY.
WE publish in our issue of to-day the last of the series of letters on " The State of the Navy " con- tributed to our columns by "Civis." It is not necessary for us to say anything in vindication of those letters, for all unprejudiced readers who have the welfare of the Navy at heart must admit that they have handled with great moderation, as well as great force and knowledge, a subject of capital importance. Without desiring our readers to endorse " Civis 's " strictures in every detail, we confidently ask them to consider most carefully, the case he has pre- sented, and also his emphatic demaud for a close and impartial inquiry into the present state of our naval administration. We believe that even strong partisans of the present regime, if they are men of independent judgment, will admit that in the existing circumstances it will be wise of the Government to grant such an inquiry. If it is proved that all is well and that there is no used for inquiry, no harm will have been done, but rather good, for the present Board of Admiralty, and the schemes which it has adopted and the principles upon which it works, will have received an endorsement from an independent tribunal which will greatly strengthen it. If, however, the inquiry should prove unfavourable to the Admiralty, we shall be forewarned of a great national peril, for it is not too much to say that if, as " Civis " insists and as we believe, the present system of administration has reduced the efficiency, of the. Navy, no sane man could lie anything else but thankful that a bad system should be exposed and an effort made to set matters on a better foundation. We fully admit that these truisms in regard to inquiry must not be pushed too far, and that unless a good prima-facie case can be made out, it would be a waste of time and energy to take the course we are urging. You cannot be perpetually making inquiries at random to see whether things may not possibly be going wrong in the Departments of State. Unless there is prima-facie ground for anxiety, it is sound policy to go ahead without troubling as to fundamentals.
Our contention is that an overwhelming prima-facie case has been made out for inquiry, and that the refusal of such an investigation at the present moment would be a proof of weakness on the part of the Admiralty which must be considered most ominous. Any sign that an inquiry is feared would, in our opinion, be a trebly en- forced argument in its favour. We do not, however, wish for one moment to assert that there is any such dread, and we fully expect that Sir John Fisher—it is no good to blink the fact, that the inquiry must be into his policy, his schemes, and his methods of action—will welcome the fullest investigation as likely to vindicate him and to strengthen his hands. He is emphatically a man who believes in himself and his opinions, and who desires to have a free hand in carrying them out. But obviously an inquiry which endorsed his views would immensely strengthen his position. Opposition on the part of himself, or of those who have supported him, and still support him, so loyally in the Press and in both Houses of Parliament, would be a sign of weakness which we do not think he would be guilty of.
We will not retrace the whole of the ground covered by
" Civis " in 'order to show how strong is the prima facie case for an impartial investigation. We may, however, remark that that case is twofold. It is based both upon direct and indirect indications that we have done, and are doing, things which are not conducive to the welfare of the Navy. Of the direct indications we will choose two as typical. The first is the perilous policy of what we have termed a " practically ready" Navy, which received such dangerous development this autumn. The plan of keeping ships "in Commission in Reserve" with nucleus crews was a perfectly sound one as long as it took the form of bringing ships out of complete Reserve and giiing them a partial mobility. When, however, it took the opposite form of retiring ships from full commission and reducing their full mobility to half mobility, it became a matter of extreme peril. Now it was the latter plan that .was
was adopted in the autumn,—a plan whiCh was first revealed by the Standard, and then admitted by a semi-official communication to the Press. We hold now, as we held then, that the use of the words " practically ready " in that Memorandum involved a complete condemnation of the scheme. Britain has no use for a "practically ready" Navy, and we have no right to base our national security upon anything except ships absolutely ready and ,in full commission. Ships with nucleus crews cannot, without great national peril, be counted as the foundations upon which our command of the sea rests. The command of the sea might easily be destroyed in the three or four days which even the most confirmed optimists have to admit would be required to convert a ship " iu Commission in Reserve" with a nucleus crew into a fighting unit of the first class. We find, then, in the recent development of the system of nucleus crews a strong prima-facie argument for inquiry.
Another almost equally strong is to be found, in the manner in which the present Board of Admiralty has allowed repairs to accumulate. If " Civis's " figures are correct—and we note that none of the supporters of the First Sea Lord, though generally most anxious to rush into print in his defence, have seriously challenged themwe have allowed the efficiency of the ships of our Navy to be endangered through the failure to carry out necessary repairs with promptness. Unless repairs are executed promptly, our Navy tends to become not even a "practically ready " Navy, but a paper Navy,—a matter of boastful statistics rather than of hard facts. Let us take as an illus- tration the case of a man who boasts that he has thirty pairs of horses and thirty carriages in his stables and coachhouses ready to meet any call that can be made upon him. Suppose on hearing that boast we' went through his stables rand found that only fifteen pairs were really ready for work. That is, we found that in one pair of horses the off horse was lame, that another pair wanted shoeing so badly that they could 'not go on the road in their present. condition, that in the case of a third pair the essential parts of the harness were broken and would require a couple of days to mend, that in a fourth case one of the wheels was off the carriage, that in a fifth the pole was broken, and so on and so on. In such circumstances we should say that, instead of having thirty carriages-and- pairs ready for work, the ownet had only fifteen, and that this was the limit of his efficiency. We should admit, no doubt, that if be chose to :Tend a great deal of money and time he might eventually be able to turn out thirty pairs, but that till this was done he was deluding himself and those who relied upon his stable by talking about thirty pairs. " Civis " has shown that this is a by' no means unfair illustration of the present state of the British Navy. Owing to the neglect of the vital question of repairs, we are counting ships as efficient, and relying upon them to preserve the national safety, when in reality they are not fit for sea service, even though they might be able'to go to sea and do a certain amount of work. In our opinion—and we believe it will be an opinion endorsed by all men of business—the ships upon which we count to give us the command of the sea must, in the first place, be in full commission, and ready, not in a week, but in an instant, for action; and next, those ships in full commission must be kept in the utmost perfection as regards repairs of all kinds. Either our ships must be kept in repair or else struck out of the effective list altogether. An un- repaired ship is little better than a dummy. These are direct proofs that all is not well with the Navy. We find in many points noted by " Civis " indica- tions which, though indirect, give almost as strong ground for anxiety. We cannot believe that any institution can be in a really satisfactory or healthy state if it requires the support of the kind of Press campaign and advertise- ment, or we might almost say "puffery," which " Chris " has indicated as a feature of the present regime at the Admiralty. Mr. Bellairs lately showed how 'a pamphlet written by an outsider in praise and defence of the existing system has been, at the public expense, scattered broadcast throughout the Navy. In addition to this, it is notorious that the controlling powers at the Admiralty have availed themselves of Press advertisement and Press support in ways which can only be compared to the tactics adopted by a clever impresario intent upon persuading the public that his show is the greatest show in the world. That the Admiralty should give all possible information to the Press, and should throw down all obstacles that prevent the nation being acquainted with the Fleet which defends it, is thoroughly sound policy, and no reasonable man will do anything but rejoice in it. What is .to be condemned is not the encouragement of public sympathy with the Navy,'and of judicious comment and criticism upon its working, but that mixture of " secrecy and advertisement " alluded to by " Civic." Again, there has been, as " Civis " shows, an excitability—we had almost said an eccentricity —of purpose at the Admiralty which is a distinctly dis- quieting symptom. Plans have been hastily conceived and hastily carried out, and even more hastily modified in order to meet or avoid criticism. Lastly, a feeling, whether justified or not, has arisen in the Navy that those who are not for the present regime must be considered to be against it, and that, if not the victors, they must suffer the fate of the vanquished. This feeling may, of course, not be justified, but it certainly prevails, and it is most unfortunate that it should prevail.
As to the method of inquiry to be adopted, we are very strongly of opinion that the best plan would be that pro- posed by " Civis,"—viz., that of an inquiry by a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. No doubt, as the matter is essentially one of money—in essence all such inquiries tend to become attempts to answer the question, " Are we getting value for our money ? "—a Committee of the House of Commons might seem most appropriate. It happens, however, that there are several Members of the House of Lords (Lord Goschen, for example) who have very special claims to sit on such a Committee, and who would greatly increase the weight of any decisions at which it arrived. We do not in any sense desire that such a Joint Committee should be one composed of experts. On the contrary, we should greatly prefer to see it, composed of men of weight and judgment, and possessed of political prestige. The proper place for the experts is in the witness-box. If the experts on either side have a good case, they will be able to convert the men of impartial judgment who are conducting the inquiry.
In such investigations the question of the chairman is all-important. What is wanted is a man of wide political experience, of sound common-sense, and absolute im- partiality. For ourselves, we believe that the Duke of Devonshire would prove the ideal chairman, but we fear that it would be difficult in existing circumstances to persuade him to undertake a task necessarily so arduous. If he were not available, theie is a good deal to be said for asking the Leader of the Opposition to take the chair. If he and the representatives of the Government on a Com- mittee such as we desire once got into agreement, the greatest possible momentum would be secured for the decisions of the Committee. Here again, however, it is to be feared that Mr. Balfour might say he could not find time to undertake the chairmanship. Lord Rosebery would in many ways be an ideal chairman, and so would Lord Goschen, unless it were considered safer to place in the chair a statesman who could not be said ever to have taken sides in regard to the Admiralty controversies. That line of argument would also tell against Lord George Hamilton, though from many points of view he would, in our opinion, be the best of chairmen. At the present moment, also, he is not only not a Member of either House, but is engaged on a Commission which we fear fully occupies his time. His evidence, however, should be of the utmost value to any Committee.
But it is not for us to suggest names for the chairman- ship. If the Cabinet, as we sincerely trust they will, decide upon inquiry, they will no doubt be able to find a chairman who will secure the confidence of the nation. As to the reference to the Committee, it should be as simple and as wide as possible. What we want, in commercial language, is to take stock of the Navy and the Admiralty, to see whether at the moment the state of the Navy is or is not satisfactory, and to consider whether we are shaping our future policy on sound lines. In brief, what we want is an answer, and an answer based on the soundest and strictest investigation, to the question, "Is all well with that force upon which, under God [to use the words of the Preamble to the Naval Discipline Act] the safety and welfare of the Realm cloth depend?"
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