No other course but that now in progress would have done it. I don’t mind personal obloquy, but it’s a bit hard to undergo my friends’ doubts of me; but the clouds will roll by.... I’ve got all my “working bees” round me here of the Royal Commission [on Oil and the Internal Combustion engine]. We shall stagger humanity!
1912.
July 6th. Kilverstone Hall.
... Really all my thoughts are with my Royal Commission. I expect you will see that the course of action will inevitably result in what I ventured to indicate if only the Admiralty will keep their backs to the wall of the irreducible margin required in Home Waters. The only pity was that dear old —— said we were sufficiently strong for two years or more, which of course is quite true, but his saying so may prevent Lloyd George being hustled (as he otherwise would have been). Luckily I prevented —— saying even more of our present great preponderance—but let us hope “All’s well that ends well.” Ian Hamilton came in most effectively with his witnessing the armoured Cruiser “Suffolk” laden with a Battalion of the Malta Garrison being twice torpedoed by a submarine.
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1912.
July 15th.
... This instant the news has come to me that there are 750 eligible and selected candidates for 60 vacancies for Boy-Artificers in the Navy at the approaching examination! When I introduced this scheme 8 years ago every man’s hand was against me, and the whole weight of Trades Unionism inside the House of Commons and out of it was organised against me.... We were dominated by the Engineers! We had to accept Engine Room artificers for the Navy who had been brought up on making bicycles! Now, these boys are suckled on the marine engine! and they have knocked out the old lot completely. Our very best Engine Room artificers now in the Navy are these boys! Not one of my colleagues or anyone else supported me! Do you wonder that I don’t care a d—n what anyone says? The man you are going to see on Wednesday—how has he recognised that we are at this moment stronger than the Triple Alliance? The leaders of both political parties—how have they recognised that 19 millions sterling of public money actually allocated was saved and the re-arrangement of British Sea Power so stealthily carried out that not a sign appeared of any remark by either our own or by any Foreign Diplomatists, until an obscure article in the Scientific American by Admiral Mahan stated that of a sudden he (Mahan) had discovered that 88 per cent. of the Sea Power of England was concentrated on Germany? But the most ludicrous thing of all is that up to this very moment no one has really recognised that the Dreadnought caused such a deepening and dredging of German harbours and their approaches, and a new Kiel Canal, as to cripple Germany up to A.D. 1915, and make their coasts accessible, which were previously denied to our ships because of their heavy draught for service in all the world!
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1912.
August 2nd.
At the Defence Committee yesterday ... we had a regular set-to with Lloyd George (supported by Harcourt and Morley chiefly) against the provision of defence for Cromarty as a shelter anchorage for the Fleet, and the Prime Minister adjourned the discussion to the Cabinet as the temperature got hot! As you know, I’ve always been “dead on” for Cromarty and hated Rosyth, which is an unsafe anchorage—the whole Fleet in jeopardy the other day—and there’s that beastly bridge which, if blown up, makes the egress very risky without examination.... Also Cromarty is strategically better than Rosyth.... Also Lloyd George had a row about the airships—Seely’s Sub-Committee. We must have airships.
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