636 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 



prepared with definite suggestions and advice which cannot be ignored and 

 put aside. I have not the slightest faith in the mere formation of a committee 

 which will content itself, let us say, with the mere offer of its services, 

 even to a Government department, and the mere pious expression of certain 

 opinions. If a committee does not want to become ridiculous, it must show 

 that it is in earnest. To show that it is in earnest it must take care that its 

 reports have a practical object, can be at once grasped by overworked 

 Ministers and officials, and are of real value. Of course thero are incompetent 

 people in public departments, possibly even in the Admiralty and War Office, 

 and many good proposals and suggestions are turned down — or, let us rather 

 say, have been turned down in the past — because they happened to pass into 

 the hands of such people in the first place, and there was not enough driving 

 force behind them to follow the matter up. 



When I first used to attend meetings of the British Association there 

 was a gallant officer (Captain Bedford Pirn) who had commanded various men- 

 of-war, and was patriotically concerned with the state of the British Navy. I 

 remember well his formula, which I heard on many occasions, as follows : 

 ' The British Navy, sir, rotten — rotten from stem to stern, from truck to keel.' 

 Such a sweeping statement about a service of which we are all proud only 

 served to raise a prejudice against him, in which I shared myself, and excited 

 the suspicion of undue bias or twist of mind. As a matter of fact, as it turned 

 out afterwards, and has since been admitted over and over again, he was 

 essentially right, and now that we realise our obligations to the British Navy. 

 and that it has really saved this country, one trembles to think what would 

 have happened if it had then been called upon in the same way as in these 

 days. The above officer was afterwards made an admiral, though I am afraid 

 it was not as a reward for his candour, or even to head off his criticism, because 

 nobody seemed to take much notice of his warning. The moral that I have in 

 mind is that if our committee is going to be of the slightest service, while 

 formulating its proposals in temperate language, it must unflinchingly follow 

 them up, and not allow them to die unless they are proved to be worthless, 

 but to see they are seriously taken up and carried into operation. 



Fortunately the British Association is a powerful body with great tradi- 

 tions, and will be listened to if such work is carefully and energetically done. 

 Think, for instance, there are many eminent men who have supported this 

 particular Section in times past, and many of them in the chair, such as Robert 

 Stephenson, Scott Russell, Lardner, Moseley, Willis, Whewell, Whitworth, 

 Vignoles, Fairbairn, Rankine, Hodgkinson, Sopwith, Babbage, Hawksley, 

 Hawk.'^haw, Barlow, Armstrong, Froude, Bramwell, Baker, Douglas, Osborne 

 Reynolds, White, and many others. Think of the mark that these men, now 

 passeld away, have loft on the history of the British Empire, and let us see 

 to it that this So:iion does something worthy of its past history. We can at 

 least congratulate ourselves that whatever the evils of the War, the country 

 as a. whole has been moved from its usual attitude of self-complacency, and 

 that the numerous new departments and organisations are showing a desire 

 to utilise every force and agency for the service of the State, and to grapple 

 with the great problem of its more efficient organisation. It will be no small 

 work of a British Association committee if it can supply sound ideas and 

 recommendations on the many thorny problems which must be solved. We 

 cannot all of us be, as so many would like, in the fighting line, either in 

 France or the Dardanelles, but we shall be just as deserving of contempt 

 as those who, having had the opportunity of service, have shirked their 

 responsibilities, or the giving up of their sons, and are even thinking of the 

 War as a matter of personal gain, either in purse or reputation, if we content 

 ourselves with mere offers of service, and having as we think shelved responsi- 

 bility by leaving initiative to others, we pass along our way sheltering ignobly 

 behind those men and women who are doing their "duty to their country. 



