It is absolutely safe to predict that the Naval Officer of 50 years hence will smile when he reads that his forefathers had to have an officer of Commander’s rank appointed to a ship solely for charge of the main engines. Foreigners gasp when they hear that Lieutenants of two or three years standing command our destroyers; in other navies destroyers are usually commanded by Captains de Corvette; and then we smile when we remember youngsters like Lieutenant Rombulow-Pearse of the “Sturgeon,” who rescued the crew of the sinking “Decoy” in a gale of wind, with only his small whaler to help him, and with the loss of only one man, who disappeared nobody knows how.
The ideal complement of officers of the future therefore will be: 1 Captain, 1 Commander, 1 Lieutenant G., 1 Lieutenant E., 1 Lieutenant T., 1 Lieutenant M., 1 Lieutenant N., 1 Lieutenant P., and as many other watchkeepers as necessary.
Enough has been said in the meantime to show how completely the new system of entry and training of officers has remodelled the British Navy, and it is with the object of using the case of the officers as an argument in considering the case of the men, that it has been dilated on at such length.
State Education in the Navy.
(This Paper was prepared in 1902 under great obligations to Mr. J. R. Thursfield.)
Everyone must now feel that the new system of Entry and Education of Naval Officers must have a fair trial, and all reasonable people will hold that it deserves one.
There still remains to be faced an argument which is certain to appeal to democratic sentiment. Broadly stated, it is this—that the new system, as at present organised, must of necessity take all officers of the Navy from among the sons of parents who can afford to spend about £120 a year on their sons from the age of 12½ until they become Lieutenants at the age of about 20, or even over. In other words, the officers of the Navy will be drawn exclusively from the well-to-do classes.
Democratic sentiment will wreck the present system in the long run, if it is not given an outlet. But let us take the far higher ground of efficiency: is it wise or expedient to take our Nelsons from so narrow a class?
“The Dauntless Three,” Portsmouth, 1903.