6. The designing of a definite plan of Imperial defence, or plan of campaign; and the provision and equipment of such naval bases and stations abroad as should enable such plan to be put into effective operation.
It will be observed that all the aforesaid recommendations of my brother officers and myself were directed to the fulfilment of Sir Frederick Richards' great scheme of 1894-5, as already described. In the result, the Naval Works Bill, March 1897, showed that work was in progress at Gibraltar, Portland, Dover, Keyham, Portsmouth, Hong Kong, Colombo, Pembroke, Haulbowline; on barracks at Chatham, Sheerness, Portsmouth, Keyham, Walmer, the new college for engineers at Keyham and new magazines, the money voted being just under a million.
Writing from Cairo, in March, 1897, to the secretary of the Guildhall Club (the letter being published at the time) I said that Mr. Brodrick's speech showed that the Government had a definite plan of campaign, which was "proved by the proposal to fortify important strategic bases at present absolutely undefended; ... without such fortified bases it is palpable that no clear plan of campaign existed at headquarters; and a happy-go-lucky method must have prevailed in the event of war. The Government appear to me to have really begun to put our defences into business-like trim and to have looked into and endeavoured to make complete all those auxiliaries, any one of which being imperfect would jeopardise the defences of the Empire as a whole.... It is always very hard for authorities to make proposals involving large sums of money unless the public and the Press combine to show that they wish such expenditure."
There remained, and still remains, an essential reform to be accomplished. I have never ceased to advocate as a matter of elementary justice such an increase of the pay of officers and men as should bear some proportion to the responsibilities with which they are charged and the duties which they fulfil. In 1897, the increase of the officers' pay, the rate of which had hardly been altered since the time of Nelson, was an urgent necessity. As a result of the steady refusal of the Government to grant anything except the most meagre concessions, officers are now leaving the Service almost daily, and among those who remain there is considerable discontent. At that time, the pay of the men was, if not generous, still adequate. Owing to a variety of causes, it has since become totally inadequate; the concessions wrung from the Government in response to perfectly reasonable demands are ridiculously insufficient; and numbers of trained men are leaving the Service as soon as they can.
In view of the obstinacy of the Government upon this matter, it is worth recalling that, speaking at Newbury in May, 1897, I put the whole case for the officers as plainly as possible. It was pointed out that every condition of life had improved during the Queen's reign, except the pay and prospects of the officers and men of the Royal Navy, although their responsibilities had increased a hundred-fold. The lieutenant's pay was £15 a month; after eight years he could get £3 a month extra; and after twelve years another £3 extra. Except for specialist duty, such as gunnery, torpedo and navigation, he could not get another shilling. There were over 200 lieutenants then on the list of over twelve years' service, who were only getting £21 a month. They could get no more, although some among them had twenty-one years' service. Half-pay, often compulsory, was a shameful scandal to the country. It was not even half-pay, but very often barely a third. Rear-admirals of forty years' service were sent on shore with £450 a year to live upon. Captains were even worse off, often getting four years on compulsory half-pay at £200 a year.
That was sixteen years ago. The Government have done nothing worth consideration in the interval.
The case was again publicly represented by me in 1912. By that time, owing to the increase in price of the necessities of life and other causes, the pay of the men had become grossly inadequate. In order that it should be commensurate with the pay obtained by an equivalent class of men in civil employment, it ought to have been doubled. All that the Government did was to grant a trifling increase to men of a certain term of service. How long will the nation allow the Navy to continue a sweated industry?
Another measure of reform which is still far from accomplishment, is the manning of British ships by British seamen. The principle, as I stated in May, 1897, is that in dealing with the innumerable emergencies inseparable from the life of the sea, it is better to depend upon British seamen than upon foreigners. In May, 1897, it was estimated that of the total number of men employed in the mercantile marine, the proportion of British seamen was no more than three-fourths.
In the same year, 1897, the question of the contribution of the Colonies to Imperial Naval Defence, which, for practical purposes, was first raised at the Imperial Conference of 1887, was the subject of one of those discussions which have occupied the public mind at intervals ever since; and which have eventually resulted in the decision of Australia and New Zealand to establish navies of their own.
In a letter written in reply to a correspondent and published in the Press in June, 1897, I expressed the opinion that: