The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

by Baron Charles William De la Poer Beresford Beresford

The efficiency of the whole Service was, in my view, bound up with the efficiency of the Intelligence Department; because that department was created for the express purpose of estimating and reporting what was required to enable the Navy to fulfil its duties. It was in view of the main question of the necessity of strengthening the Fleet, that I decided to resign my position upon the Board of Admiralty, and to declare publicly my reasons for so doing. On the 9th January, 1888, I sent my resignation to Lord Salisbury; who, courteously expressing his regret, accepted it on 18th January.

In making my decision to take this extreme action, I was influenced by the conviction that nothing short of the resignation of a member of the Board of Admiralty would induce the authorities to reorganise and strengthen our defences. Whether or not I was right in that belief, I do not know to this day; but, as the strengthening of the Fleet was shortly afterwards carried into execution in precise accordance with my recommendations, there is some evidence in my favour. My constituents in East Marylebone were strongly adverse to my course of action. Many of my friends begged me not to resign. General Buller, in particular, pointed out to me that no good was ever done by an officer resigning his post, because the officer who resigned ceased by his own act to occupy the position which entitled him to a hearing. I daresay he was right. At any rate, I was well aware that I was jeopardising my whole career. For an officer to resign his seat upon the Board of Admiralty in order to direct public attention to abuses, is to commit, officially speaking, the unpardonable sin. When, three or four years later, Sir Frederick Richards, the First Sea Lord, threatened to resign if the Government would not accept his shipbuilding programme, although I am certain he would have pursued exactly the same course had he stood alone, he had the support of the rest of the Board. I had the rest of the Sea Lords against me. That is a different affair. A united Board of Admiralty can generally in the last resort prevail against the Government. A single member of that Board who attempts the same feat, knows, at least, that never again will he be employed at the Admiralty. But when Sir Frederick Richards and his colleagues threatened resignation, they were in fact risking the loss of employment and incurring the possibility of spending the rest of their lives in comparative penury. A later Liberal administration has dismissed one Naval Lord after another, without a scruple.

In my case, I had the advantage of possessing a private income, so that I was independent of the Service as a means of livelihood. It is necessary to speak plainly upon this matter of resignation. It is most unfair to expect naval officers to resign in the hope of bringing about reform, when by so doing their income is greatly reduced. If the British public desire it to be understood that a Sea Lord is expected to resign should the Government in power fail to make what he believes to be the necessary provision for the national security, then the public must insist that the Sea Lords be granted an ample retiring allowance.

In the following February (1888) Lord George Hamilton made a speech at Ealing, in which he dealt with my protests in the most courteous manner. He stated that I had resigned because I objected to the exercise of the supreme authority of the First Lord over the Board of Admiralty. I had certainly objected to its exercise in a particular instance. And at that time I was constantly urging that Parliament and the country had a right to know who was responsible for the actions of the Admiralty. My theory was that there should be some means by which Parliament and the public should be assured that any given course of action was founded upon professional advice. That no such means existed was notorious. It was within the legal right of a First Lord to announce a policy contravening or modifying the views of the rest of the Board.

My view was, and is, the view tersely stated by Admiral Phipps Hornby, who said that it was the right of the Cabinet to formulate a policy, and that it was the duty of the Sea Lords to provide what was required in order to carry that policy into execution; but that the Cabinet had no right whatever to dictate to the Sea Lords in what the provision should consist, for that was a matter of which the Sea Lords alone were competent to judge.

But if the Board of Admiralty be placed under the supreme jurisdiction of the First Lord, a civilian and a politician, the country has no means of knowing whether or no the recommendations of the Sea Lords are being carried into execution. I said at the time that some such means should be instituted; afterwards, perceiving that no such demand would be granted, I urged that the Cabinet at least ought to be precisely informed what were the requirements stated by the Sea Lords to be necessary in order to carry into execution the policy of the Government.

In claiming supreme authority as First Lord over the Board of Admiralty, Lord George Hamilton was legally and constitutionally in the right. The Royal Commission on the administration of the Navy and Army, over which Lord Hartington presided, reported in 1890 (when I was at sea) that the Admiralty had long ceased to be administered in accordance with the terms of its original Patent, and that "the present system of administration in the Admiralty is the result of Parliamentary action upon what was once in fact as well as name an executive and administrative Board. The responsibility, and consequently the power of the First Lord has continually increased, and he is at present practically the Minister of Marine." In other words, by slow degrees the politician had transferred the powers of the Board to himself, where they remain; the other members of the Board becoming merely his advisers. The result is that there is nothing, except the personal influence of the Naval Lords upon the First Lord, to prevent the Navy from being governed in accordance with party politics, without reference to national and Imperial requirements; a system which produces intermittent insecurity and periodical panics involving extravagant expense.

The Commissioners also found that there was a difference of opinion among the Naval Lords themselves concerning their responsibility with regard to the strength and efficiency of the Fleet. It was, in a word, nobody's business to state what were the requirements of the Fleet. The First Lord might ask for advice, if he chose, in which case he would get it. If he did not so choose, there was no one whose duty it was to make representations on the subject. Admiral Sir Arthur Hood stated that never in the whole course of his experience had he known a scheme comprehending the naval requirements of the Empire to be laid before the Board. He also stated that the method of preparing the Navy Estimates was that the First Lord stated what sum the Cabinet felt disposed to grant for the Navy, and that the Naval Lords then proceeded to get as much value for their money as they could.

No wonder the Sea Lords were expected to sign the Estimates without looking at them. When I was junior lord, responsible for the provision of coal and stores among other trifles, a clerk came into my room with a sheaf of papers in one hand and a wet quill pen in the other.

"Will you sign the Estimates?" says he.