12 
LAND & WATER 
February 22, 1917 
of Inventions and Research, and doubtless many plans 
have been submitted to him. Has he compacted from 
these suggestions an articulated scheme, which he 
beUeves to be elTective ? Has he submitted this scheme 
to the authorities ? Have the authorities examined 
and tested it in the light of experience ? The public is 
entitled to answers. It is intolerable that a vague theory 
should be current that there is one man who could save 
the country, whom the government will not employ. 
If it is bluff, the bluff should be called. If there 
is anvthing in it, let the country know and let Lord 
Fishe'r be gi\en a chance to pro\e it. When Lord 
Cochrane claimed to be able to take the fortress of Kron- 
stadt. a Koval Commission, sworn to secrecy, was con- 
stituted to hear and consider his plan. It is really in the 
interests of a steady public judgment that this Insher 
question should be "treated in the same way now. A 
competent commission could hear what Lord Fisher has 
to say, be told the Admiralty answer, and report m 
ten days. It is much better that this should be done than 
that this wearisome propaganda should be kept up. 
The length to which it can go may be judged by the 
leading article in Monday's Daily Mail. This pajier has 
taken up an amazing position. It seems to admit that 
the whole Fisher talk may be a bluff, but it has. it says, 
got hold of the jx-oplc aiid unless the price of food goes 
down or the submarine campaign is stopped, the demand 
lor putting Fisher into authority will be irresistible. Now, 
it is c^^rtain that the price of food will go up ; it is equally 
certain that for two or three months the submarine 
campaign \\-ill not be suppressed. Are we conseciucntly 
to regard the return of Lord Fisher as a certainty? 
Sir Hcdworth :\leux was not exaggerating when he told 
his constituents that " it would be an absolute disaster 
to the navy if Lord Fisher w^ere brought back." He 
did not say that the na\-y would not stand it, because the 
navy will, in the future as in the past, stand anything ; 
But it will be mortified, and deplorably discouraged if 
Lord Fisher is restored to power. 
The "Fisher System" 
But the Navy's objection to Lord Fisher's return to 
Whitehall is not merely that he has been famed for the 
creation of discord. The chief vice of the Fisher system 
was this. The First Sea Lord was to be an autocrat. 
He was surrounded by advisers. Controller, Director of 
Naval Ordnance, etc. ; each of whom was an autocrat 
too, so long, of course, as he did not interfere with 
the major autocracy of his chief. The effect of 
this was to create a special caste quite distinct and, 
with one or two notable exceptions, quite foreign 
to the naval service. It could only continue by the 
suppression of all independent thinking in the navy. 
■ The Fisher system was then the flat negation of the staff 
system. There was a moment in the hrst few weeks of 
I(ji2, when it locked as if Mr. Churchill intended to replace 
the old irrational autocratic regime by a staff regime, but 
if he ever had any such intention, he was soon deflected 
from it, so that the old system survi\cd. At the outbreak 
of war, the na\'y found "itself without any staff organisa- 
tion for the study of the use of weapons, either for the 
discovery of the best methcd of employing them ourselves, 
or of counteracting their use in the enemy's hands. How 
appalling were the risks we ran through there being no 
harbour protected agains German submarines has been 
amply explained to us by Mr. Balfour. 
If "^ there had been any pretence of a real War 
Staff at Whitehall, wc should not have had to learn. the 
art of tackling the submarine attack on trade only after 
that attack had begun. We should have concentrated 
our attention, not on building submarines that would 
never ha\e a target to shoot at, but on developing m^jans 
of counteracting the enemy's submarines who would 
have our fleet and merchantmen as their daily prey. 
It win take a very long time indeed for the Navy to 
reco\-er from the system of absolutism and opposition 
to staff organisation which Lord Fisher instituted. 
Now war has, against everybody's will, made sensible 
inroads into this system. As we saw last week, the 
submarine war has at last been definitely put upon a 
staff basis. Wc may, I think, safely assume that every- 
thing to do with the command of the Fleet is on a similar 
basis. Perhaps some day gunnery methods, raining 
methods, torpedo methods, even naval tactics and naval 
strategy may be made the subjects of staff study ! There 
is no road to infallibility. But staff methods, at any 
rate, promise immunity from the grossest form of error. 
The fact that the number of submarines at work is 
now multiplied, not by two but by three, and that the 
whole campaign is far more highly organised and elabo- 
rated than it was, has forced two new considerations 
upon our notice. An entirely new value now attaches 
to any information of whatever sort that we give the 
enemy. Whereas in former times \he publication of the 
sinking of any particular ship might mean \'ery little, 
in present conditions such publication may mean a great 
deal. Next, apart altogether from what one may call 
the direct military \alue of information, if we set out the 
success of the (lerman submarines in their completeness, 
the Germans will quote tliese ligures, not as representing 
the maximum of their effort, but as the minimum that 
we grudgingly admit, just as they quoted unauthorised 
exaggerations as authoritati\e before. 
Results of PubHcity 
If we can get rid of the Fisher agitation once and for all 
we shall ha\e removed one of the things that has been 
used to unsettle the pubHc mind. The next measure 
that should be adopted, is one which can only be ado])ted 
with safety if the public mind is steady. It is the entire 
suppression of all news of the sinking of ships in this 
country for the next month or six weeks, ■ publication 
after that to relate only to events at least a month old. 
On the face of it this is very inconsistent with what I 
have previously urged in these pages. But my case has 
hitherto been publicity in the interests of educating and 
steadying British public opinion, and of preventing the 
enormous harm done by the ignorant exaggerations of 
our losses that Were possible, so long as those losses were 
not authoritatively announced, totalled and tabufcted. 
My chief reason, therefore, for proposing this delay now 
in publication of lists of ships sunk is as follows : 
It has often been pointed out that, when the number 
of submarines engaged is suddenly very greatly increased, 
it is improbable that there will be a proportionate increase 
in the number of ships sunk, but exceedingly probable 
that there will be mucli more than a proportionate increase 
in the number of submarines sunk. 
It is quite possible, for instance, that between Sep- 
tember and February ist there were seldom, if ever, 
more ♦than forty submarines at work in the main theatres. 
It is also possible that these have been increased, say, 
to 120 now. If we suppose that the forty got on an 
average three ships a day, it would be extremely unlikely 
that the 120 would get nine ships. We should expect them 
to get five or six only. But if, with forty boats at work an 
average of one submarine was destroyed every fortnight, 
with 120 submarines at work, we should expect two or 
even more to be destroyed every week. It is this increase 
in the number of U boats destroyed that gives a new 
significance to the announcements of ships sunk, and for 
this reason. It is credibly supposed that each (ierman 
U boat or pair of U boats has a certain area of the sea 
allotted to it on each cruise. The utmost efforts are 
made to get information from every part of the world of 
the dates on which ships leave, of their destination, and 
of their probable course. We are to imagine, therefore, 
the staff in Berlin passing models of all the ships known 
to be at sea from area to area, according to the dates of 
their sailing, their speed and whatever other information 
is available. Now let us assume that f/50 and (751 
have been sent to square 177, and that ships A, B, C, 
D, E, F, iG, etc., are believed to be severally due in this 
area, in the course of any given week ; A on Monday .^ 
B and C on Tuesday, D on Wednesday, E, F and G on 
Thursday, and so forth. Now on Tuesday evening it i^ 
announced in the London papers that A. has been sunk 
and the crew rescued and brought into a certain port. 
On Wednesday there is no news of B and C, on Thursday 
none of I), on Friday none of E, F and G. It is an obvious 
inference that something has happened to ('50 and P51. 
Let us further suppose that I'^o and f/51 have, in fact, 
been sunk on Monday evening. What is the probable 
course for the Berlin staff to take ? Obviously to order 
L'70 and Uyi to go to ^'50 and f'^i's cruising ground. 
Observe then that the publication of the loss of A, and 
