Mr. Childers was our Attila! He was the “scourge” of the Navy in many ways, but most of all by his disastrous and frightfully costly retirement schemes. The secret of efficiency lies in large lists of Officers! You have then a large field of selection, and a great flow of promotion, and also no Officer considers it a stigma to be passed over in company with forty others, and so not to pose as a solitary monument of ineptitude as he appears at present to himself and his friends when passed over with the present small lists of Flag Officers.
Also “Selection by non-employment” goes so easily with large lists (and with large lists is accepted as a necessity, and not resented as a personal affront!).
Purging the Navy of Obsolete Vessels.
Out of 193 ships at present in commission (not counting destroyers) organised in fleets, 63 only are of such calibre as not to cause an Admiral grave concern if allowed to wander from the protection of larger ships. There are among these several ships which should be paid off as soon as possible, being absolutely of no fighting value. And there are, further, several ships having trained naval crews doing the work usually performed by small merchant tramps. Further still, there are in our Home Ports many ships taking up valuable berthing space, requiring maintenance and repair, which never under any circumstances whatever would be used in war time.
The above useless vessels being in commission means awful waste of money.
Every ship that has defects taken in hand, and which would not be of use in war, is a waste of money to the country.
Of course objections will be raised, and it will be shown that the Navy cannot be run without them, but wipe them out, and in a year no one will remember that they ever existed.
It is well to review generally our distant stations and the composition of their squadrons.
The Navy and the country have grown so accustomed to the territorial nomenclature of our distant squadrons that their connection with the sea is considerably obscured, and their association with certain lands has led to a tacit belief that those particular squadrons are for the protection of the lands they frequent, and not generally for the destruction of the enemy’s fleet wherever it may happen to be. Of course no such idea is accepted by the Admiralty, but, in spite of the broad principles of strategy involved, certain fleets are composed largely with a view to work in restricted waters, which vessels would be a source of danger and weakness on the sudden outbreak of war with a combination of Powers.
Take the combination of ships on each of the following stations: North America, Cape of Good Hope, East Indies, and Australia. Remember the “Variag.” What happened in the small area of the theatre of operations in the present war will be repeated in the larger theatre of operations of a conflict of European Powers when the whole world will be involved. What will happen to our “Odins,” “Redbreasts,” “Fantomes,” “Dwarfs,” etc.? aye! and what will happen to our “Scyllas,” “Katoombas,” and “Hyacinths,” if caught sight of by first class cruisers of modern armament on foreign stations?[7] Lucky if they can reach a neutral port, disarm, and have their crews interned for the remainder of the war. Lucky, indeed, if a far worse fate does not befall them. At all events, such wholesale scattering of the British foreign fleets would lead to irreparable loss of prestige among the smaller States where these little vessels were usually located.