1. The necessity of obtaining the requisite number of personnel for active service, long service ratings, such number to be definitely specified by the Board of Admiralty as being necessary to fulfil stated requirements.
2. A thorough reorganisation of the Royal Naval Reserve. A scheme of reorganisation, founded on the proposals of Captain Joseph Honner, Royal Navy, Captain Crutchley, R.N.R., and others, was explained by me to the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce. In order to meet the emergency, it was suggested that 5000 men should be annually joined for five years, after which they should pass into the first-class Reserve; at the same time, 5000 men should be annually joined for two months' training, after which they should pass into the second-class Reserve.
Such emergencies periodically occur, because the authorities neglect to look ahead.
3. Seventeen old but useful ironclads to be re-armed with modern guns.
A list of these was drawn up; the proposed alterations in each vessel were specified in detail, together with their cost; a task which took me some three months to accomplish.
The principle of the suggestion was that the invention of the quick-firing gun was actually a far more important revolution than the change from muzzle-loading to breech-loading guns. It was calculated that the older vessels were strong enough to withstand the increased strain. The proposal was not made in order to avoid the necessity of building new vessels, but as an expedient to make up a deficiency in ships. Building new vessels was the preferable course of action, which the Admiralty rightly decided to adopt.
4. The advisability of eliminating altogether from the number of ships in commission or in reserve those vessels which could neither fight nor run away, and of replacing them by modern vessels.
The scheme was carried into effect by degrees. Such an elimination should take place periodically, upon the industrial principle of replacing obsolete plant with new machines. In later years, the elimination of old vessels which was carried into effect by the Admiralty, was effected without replacing them by new ships, a course of action which contravened the very principle upon which it was ostensibly based.
5. The advisability of holding annual manoeuvres in combination with the Army at all naval bases of operation.