94 



NATURE 



[March 25, 1920 



lay and fire all the guns of a ship, was made (in 

 Aug-ust, 1914, only eight battleships had been 

 fitted with this system). 



In the face of the disclosures made in connection 

 with the Battle of Jutland, it ma}^ well be asked 

 whether the deficiencies and defects to which 

 attention has been directed could have been fore- 

 seen in peace time and provided against. Little 

 doubt on the subject can be left in the minds of 

 those who read in a spirit of inquiry "Fifty 

 Years in the Royal Navy," the autobiography 

 of Admiral Sir Percy Scott 2; the matters 

 dealt with therein provide a direct answer 

 to the foregoing question. In many of the 

 pages of this autobiography will be found the 

 story of the striving, over a long period of years, 

 after progress and efficiency in relation to various 

 details connected with the Senior Service, and of 

 the obstinate opposition to all reforms which 

 was constantly met with by those who were in 

 pursuit of essential improvements. The remarks 

 of Sir Percy Scott on every subject the theme 

 of which relates to the attempt to introduce 

 into the public service some new idea or device, 

 or some improvement on existing apparatus, 

 machinery, or methods, have all the same ring 

 about them. In relation to every one of the matters 

 to which the distinguished Admiral refers, the 

 conduct of those in the controlling positions was 

 consistent ; -in every instance the advice and assist- 

 ance of the expert were ignored, either until it was 

 altogether too late, or until considerable harm 

 had been done and the waste of much public 

 money, if not also the loss of valuable lives, 

 involved. 



Sir Percy Scott tells us that it was so long ago 

 as February 10, 1909, that battle practice first 

 took place, at Tetuan, with extemporised director 

 firing. Yet it took the Admiralty two years to 

 come to a decision as to its introduction into the 

 Navy, and the Board waited for eight years — 

 indeed, until the nation had for nearly three years 

 been involved in a life-and-death struggle — before 

 it adopted the system generally. 



Another remarkable illustration of Admiralty 

 methods mentioned by Sir Percy Scott is that con- 

 nected with the depth charge, which ultimately 

 turned out to be the antidote to the submarine. 

 The design of a depth charge, actuated by a 

 hydrostatic valve, was submitted by Capt. P. H. 

 Colomb on October i, 19 14. The idea was so 

 simple that these depth charges could have been 



* Published by John Murray. Price 21^-. net. 



NO. 2630, VOL. 105] 



supplied in large quantities within a few weeks 

 of the date mentioned, but it was not until 1916 

 that a decision was arrived at on the matter; 

 meanwhile, the delay, it is stated, involved the 

 nation in a loss of 200,000,000?. 



A similar striking example of officialism 

 occurred in relation to the Pomeroy bullet, which 

 was eventually successfully used in attacking 

 Zeppelins. This bullet had been first tried in 1908, 

 and gave satisfactory results ; it was submitted to 

 the War Office in 1914, but rejected. ^In June, 

 1915, another trial was made of the bullet, and 

 again it proved satisfactory ; however, it was not 

 accepted and brought into use until the autumn of 

 1916 — that is to say, the country had to wait two 

 years for the adoption of an essential missile 

 which was urgently wanted, in spite of the fact 

 that the efficacy of the invention had been unmis- 

 takably proved many years previously. 



Instances of official ineptitude and bureaucratic 

 formalism similar to those referred to in the fore- 

 going examples, and others mentioned in Sir 

 Percy Scott's autobiography, are, unfortunately, 

 all too common in practically every Government 

 Department in this country, and arise all from the 

 same cause, the ignoring of the advice and 

 opinions of the technical expert and a fixed dis- 

 trust of him. Expression was given to this atti- 

 tude a few years ago by an official of the adminis- 

 trative branch of a Government Department during 

 an inquiry before a Select Committee of the House 

 of Commons into an important engineering con- 

 tract — a contract in which the technical staff had 

 been entirely ignored at every stage connected 

 with its negotiation. "I do not think," said this 

 official, "these gentlemen, the highly technical 

 experts, are suited, by their education or their 

 environment and line of thought, and all that sort 

 of thing, to decide very often what is the best 

 thing to do. They jump to a conclusion." Yet 

 the most superficial examination of the evidence 

 that exists in relation to the measures and steps 

 by which the technical expert has succeeded 

 in providing man with the material comforts 

 enjoyed by him, and by which there have been 

 placed at the command of the business community 

 the powerful aids to commerce and industry com- 

 prised in the domain of the public utility services, 

 affords the most complete contradiction of the mis- 

 chievous doctrine contained in the foregoing utter- 

 ance. 



It must not be imagined that it is alone in 

 relation to questions of high policy, such, for 



