A N I> A X 1) W ATK K 
Uccerhbor 30, 1915. 
^ 
?ncl fiun'; .things obsolete _and of no use. But you 
ia\t' always known — and we at last are learning — 
liat this i- Idle talk, and that as things were and 
IS the>- are, so must thf\- al\\a\s he : and that 
;ea-power rests as it always has, and as it alwavs 
.viil, with the largest fleet of the strongest ships, 
md with big guns well directed anfl truly aimed 
TUK TRICK OF THE SUBMARINE. 
It did not take you long to learn the trick of 
the submarine in war. and had things been ordered 
dii'ferentl\-, you might ha\e learned much of what 
you know in the \ears of peace. But \ou learned 
its tricks so well that it has failed completeh' 
to hurt the navy, or the army which the navy carries 
o\er the sea, and has found its onlv success in 
attacking unaimed merchant ships. These are 
only unarmed because the people of Christendom 
had ne\er realised that any of its component 
nations could turn to barbarism, pirac\-,and even 
nnu:der in war. It would ha\e been so easy,'b;^d 
this- utter lapse into deviltry • been expected; c. to 
ha\e armtxl e\-ery merchant ship— and then- where 
would the submarine have be-en ? But even \\3th 
the merchantmen unarmed, the- submarine success 
has-been greatly thwarted' by - yopr .splencjid 
ingenuity and resource, your slpepless, g.uajd,-your 
ceaseless activity, and the buccaneers of a ne\\- 
brutality have been made to pay a bloody toll.' 
• Take it for. all in all, never in the history ^of 
war. has organised force accomplished its pmfppse 
at so small a cost in unpreventable loss, or with such 
utter-thoroughness, or in face of such unantici- 
pated ' difficulties. - 
'* • "It was inevitable tliat tliere should be some 
failures. Not every opportunity has been. seized, 
nor eVery chance ofATctory pushed to, the. irtmQst. 
Wtio can doubt that there are a hundred "poin-ts, of 
detail in whii;h your material,, the methods. open 
to'you, the plans \vhich tied you, might have been 
more ample, better adapted to their purpose, more 
closely and wi.sely considered ? For, when so mucii 
liad changed, the di^tails of naval war had to differ 
greatly from the anticipation. In the long years 
of 'peace -that seem so ' infinitely far behind us 
now — you had for a generation and a half been 
administered ■ by a . departrrient. almost entirely 
civilian in its spirit and authority. It was a 
control that had to make some errors in ■ poHcy , 
in provision, in selection.^ But your skill counter- 
balanced bad policy when it could : your re.sources 
supplied the defects of material ; too few of you 
were of anything but the highest merit for man\' 
erroi-s of selections to be possible. 
And the nation understood you very little. 
^'our countrymen, it is true, paid you the lip 
service of admitting that you alone stood between 
the nation and defeat if war should come. But 
war seemed so unreal and remote to them, that it 
was only a few that took the trouble to ask what 
more \'ou needed for war than you already had. 
And you were too absorbed in the grinding toil 
of your daily work to be articulate in criticism ; too 
occupied in trying to get the right result with indiffer- 
ent means- because the right means cost too much 
and could not be given to you — to strive for better 
treatment ; too wholly wedded to yovir task to be 
angry that your task was not made more easy for 
you. Hence you took civilian domination, civilian 
ignorance and civilian indifference to the things 
that matter, all for granted, and submitted to them 
dumbly and humbly, as you submitted silent 
and unprotesting to your "other hardships ; 
you 
were resigned 'to this being so ; and were resigned 
without resentment.^ If, then, the pla-ns were 
sometimes wrong, if V"" ^^'^ V*^"'' ^<^'"^^ ^^^"^ ^^ 
other times cruelh' misused, if the methods avail- 
able to \ou were often inadequate, it was not >our 
fault -unless, indeed, it be a fault to be too loyal 
and too proud to make coniplaint. 
If we took little trouble to understand you, we 
took still less to pa\- and pr^nise you. There is surely 
no other profession in the world which combines 
so hard a life, such great responsibilities, such 
pitiful remuneration. But small as all the p?iy is, 
we seize eagerly every chance to lessen it. Let a 
man, after a brilliant career in youth, reach the 
rank of captain at an early age. I,et him. when a 
captain, spend a year or two on necessarj-, difficult, 
but most uncongenial work' on shore. Let him 
keep at this work not to please himself, but his 
superior, and do so, not 'for his own, but for the 
work's sake. Let his first command as a Captain 
be one that keeps him month after month at sea 
under conditions that make even a single night's 
rest an', unknown rarity. Let him stick to this ■ 
until flesh and blood can do no more at last. He 
breaks down. It is uncertain if he will ever be fit 
to serve again. If he does recover, he can com- 
plete his full time at sea, and reach the age of 
forty-five, he can retire, after serving his 
country with rare distinction for o\'er thirty years 
— upon the princely pension of £425 a year. But if 
he can be hustled into retiring before he is forty-five, 
and before the hill sea time is served, then his 
pension is less than half. We are well represented 
in the quarter where these things are. settled, and 
when so splendid an opening is thus given, our 
guardians can be trusted to save a pension of 
£225 a year — even if only to a man whose 
constitution has been ruined in our cause, and 
thus unlikely to be payable for long. 
WORK- AND PAY. 
We save in salaries too, sometimes. There 
are posts on shore that in time of peace ace gener- 
ally filled by Admirals. The work in w-ar is 
doubled and trebled in amount, and multiplied - 
by some factor I do not know — in responsibility 
and in importance. But, if in war these posts are 
filled not by Admirals but by Captains, then we 
can make another saving. We can pay the officers 
that do the trebled duties and bear the infinitely 
magnified burden, two-thirds — or less,- of what 
their predecessors received! If we waste our 
money, we do not waste it on you. But we fully 
expect you to spend your money in our service. 
The naval officer's pay is calculated to meet his 
expenses in time of peace. Now a very large propor- 
tion of the pay of cadets, midshipmen, sub- 
lieutenants and lieutenants necessarily goes in 
uniform and clothes. The life of a uniform can 
be measured by the sea work done by the wearer. 
Sea wprjk.in war- is.— what shall, we . say ? — three 
to six times what it is in peace. But we do nothing 
to help young officers to meet these very ugly 
attacks on their very exiguous pay. We do not 
even distribute the prize money 'that the fleet 
has'-^ftHtied.^" ... 
..Some day, when this -vyar is won itmay.be 
realised that it has been won because there is a 
great deal more water than land upon the world, 
and because the British fleet commands the use 
of all the water, and the enemy the use of onh" a 
tnjy_,/raption of all the land. If France can endure 
and if Russia can " come again," if Great Britain 
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