[Not bad for an official telegram!]
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1904.
Feb. 1st.
... I really think it is of extreme importance that you should be on the spot daily just now as without doubt “wire-pulling” of the “Eve” order will be going on. When the other day I met those three ladies on the back stairs of the War Office all in picture hats and smelling of White Rose or some other beastly thing, I thought to myself “How about Capua?” for really they were very nice looking indeed. You know the story about them having the entrée to the War Office!
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1904.
Feb. 28th.
Best of Chairmen! Snatch a moment to look through enclosed ... as I am dead gone on starting the idea of a general list of officers, and general uniform and early entry and they will all go to sea, but I don’t want to mention that yet awhile; it will come of itself when ⅗ths of every man-of-war’s crew are soldiers; that’s not many years hence and will bring the income tax down to 3 pence in the pound! Mark my words! this will come, but it’s no use giving people premature shocks, so let me keep it quiet now. My idea is to acclimatise the chosen few to it first of all and then gradually spread it about, and when Kitchener comes home he will see it through. (He shares my view, I know.)
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1904.
(?) March.
... Campbell-Bannerman told me last night he intended to make a special point of the Secretary of State’s responsibility and power being unduly lessened, and he would not admit that the new order of things makes him the same as the First Lord of the Admiralty!... To avoid the slightest misconception that may arise as to the lessening of the parliamentary responsibility of the Secretary of State for War by the formation of the Army Council or of his supreme authority as the Cabinet Minister responsible for the Army, it’s only necessary to reiterate and emphasise the statement that he is absolutely in the same position as the First Lord of the Admiralty, the patent constituting the Army Council being absolutely similar to the Admiralty Patent and no question has ever been raised nor is there any doubt whatever of the reform and present responsibility of the First Lord of the Admiralty as the Cabinet Minister responsible for the Navy.