Coast Guard

June, 1906.

The Coast Guard Service was transferred from the control of the Commissioners of Customs to that of the Admiralty by the Coast Guard Service Act, 1856, in order to make better provision for—

and there is little doubt that at that time the Coast Guard force was required for these three purposes.

Since that date, however, these requirements have been greatly modified by the great developments that have taken place in steam, in electricity, and generally in the conduct of Naval warfare, and also as regards the inducements and facilities for smuggling.

It is now considered that about 170 War Signal and Wireless Telegraphy Stations in the United Kingdom are sufficient to give warning of the approach of an enemy’s ships, and that, as far as the use of the Coast Guard for Coast Defence is concerned, the remaining 530 Stations and their personnel are quite unnecessary.

As an Active Service force the Coast Guard is far from fulfilling modern fighting requirements, which are so exacting that a man’s efficiency depends upon his being continuously associated with highly technical duties on board ship, and employment in the Coast Guard (even with the arranged periodical training in the Fleet) is found to be inconsistent with these requirements.

Again, as a Reserve, though it fulfils the requirements of such a force, yet its cost (largely due to the heavy expense of housing the men and their families) is out of all proportion to that at which the efficient Royal Fleet Reserve can now be maintained.

The Coast Guard being treated as an Active Service force in the Estimates, the numbers are included in the number of men voted for the Fleet, and help to make up the total of 129,000; but as the 4,000 Coast Guard men are appropriated for duties away from the chief Naval ports, they are not available for the ordinary work of the Fleet, and the peace resources are correspondingly reduced, while the extra charges for the Coast Guard tend largely to increase the expense of maintaining the Active Service force.

If, on the other hand, the Coast Guard be treated as a Reserve only, the expense is still more disproportionate, as, in comparison with the small retainers, charges for a week’s annual drill and small prospective pension, which make up the whole expense entailed in the maintenance of the Royal Fleet Reserve, there are the Full Pay, Victualling, Housing, and numerous miscellaneous allowances and charges of a permanent force maintained in small units under the most expensive conditions.

Therefore, the maintenance of the Coast Guard by the Admiralty not only entails a reduction of the number of highly-trained active service ratings in the Fleet at sea, but also an unnecessarily large expenditure on a Reserve.

As regards the use of the Coast Guard for the protection of the Revenue, the arrangements made when the Coast Guard was transferred to the control of the Admiralty might now be considerably modified. A large proportion of the coast of the United Kingdom is still patrolled nightly by the Coast Guard as a precaution against smuggling, but looking to the increase in population and the number of towns and villages round the coasts, the development of telegraphic communication, and the great reduction in the inducements to smuggling, this service seems to be no longer required; and some other adequate arrangement for the protection of the Revenue might be made by a small addition to the present Customs Force, assisted by the local Police, in addition to the watch still kept at those Coast Guard Stations which would be maintained as Naval Signal Stations.

Even in the cases in which the existing Coast Guard may be considered to afford valuable protection to the Revenue, it must be remembered that in case of War or for Great Manœuvres, the men would be withdrawn to the Fleet from all stations except the Naval War Signal Stations.

In any case the employment of highly-trained seamen to perform simple police duties on shore cannot be justified, and the expense is much greater than it would be were a civilian force to be employed.

Certain other duties, principally in connection with life-saving and wrecks, under the Board of Trade, have also been undertaken by the Coast Guard; but these, however valuable, do not constitute a raison d’être for the Coast Guard, and it is quite feasible to make adequate local arrangements for carrying out these services, should the Coast Guard be removed. No more striking illustration of the feasibility of this can be given than the National Lifeboat Organisation, and to that body, aided perhaps by a Government grant, these services could, no doubt, be easily, economically, and efficiently transferred.

Owing to the growing naval armaments of other Nations, and the consequent necessary increase in the Navy, the Admiralty has found it necessary carefully to consider the whole question of the expenditure under the Naval Votes in order to eliminate therefrom any services which are unnecessary from the point of view of immediate readiness and efficiency for war. About £1,000,000 of the Naval Votes is diverted to services which only indirectly concern the Navy, and are not material to the fighting efficiency of the Service. Of this about half (£500,000) is annually absorbed by the Coast Guard.

From a Naval point of view the greater part of this heavy annual expenditure is wholly unnecessary, and it is also very doubtful, from what has been before pointed out, whether for Revenue purposes a force such as the Coast Guard is now required; while if it be still required in certain localities, it would be more economical to replace the present expensive Naval detachments by a Civilian service. By such a transfer the whole of the present expense of training men as a fighting force would be saved and there would be no deterioration in an important part of the Naval active personnel such as is now inevitable.

There can be no comparison between the cost of a Revenue force and that of a Naval force, the cost of Naval training, which is very considerable, being dispensed with in the former case. Therefore, there is no doubt that, from the point of efficiency and economy, the substitution of civilians for Naval ratings would be a great saving to the State.