Revision of our methods of Signalling to be based on the class of Signals that will be used in war.
To abolish all systems and all Signals that are only of use in peace time.
The Signal and Exercise Books of the Fleet to be ruthlessly revised and cut down with this in view.
The present establishment of Signalmen on board all vessels to be reduced to the numbers that are necessary in war (present system of superabundance of Signalmen embarked in Flagships criminally wrong).
Defence of Naval Ports.
Modern conditions necessitate certain floating defences requiring seamen to manipulate them. Soldiers apparently can’t do it!
Divided control of defence of Naval Ports impossible between Navy and Army.
Admiralty must have sole responsibility that all our Naval Arsenals are kept open for egress and ingress of our Fleet in war.
Local defences should, therefore, apparently be under the Naval Commander-in-Chief.
But all these arrangements for any such transfer of responsibility from War Office to Admiralty must be so planned as to obviate all possibility of Fleet men being used for shore work in war, and there must be no risk of lessening the sea experience of the officers and men of the Fleet; hence it will be imperative that there should be an entire transference of the whole of the Garrison Artillery from Army to Navy, as well as the responsibility for all ordnance.