January 3, 191S 
LAND & WATER 
in the comiiig critical months ? That is the dominant con- 
sideration. The answer is obvious for the following reasons : 
1. They can only be constructed and equipped now at abso- 
lutely abnormal cost. There is a positive dearth of labour 
and materials for the present private establishments. 
2. They must compete with the existing yards for machinery, 
plant, tools, and requisites. 
3. They must draw skilled labour from private yards, anrl 
already Clovernment officials have been making overtures. 
.(. J^abour can only be obtained for the national to the detri- 
ment of the private yards, a course oi action which will react 
on, and retard the output of the whole industry. 
The Government say the national yards shall not proceed 
until private yards are working at full pressure. It may be 
said, if it prove true, the national yards are not likely to pro- 
ceed at all. The pri\atc yards could employ from twenty to 
fifty thousand m^ more than at present. Where then exists 
this great untapped reservoir of labour for the national yards ? 
It simply docs not e.xist. That condition, therefore, cannot 
be fulfilled. German prisoner labour can well be used for 
reclamation, road making, rough construction and similar 
semi-skilled work, but building ships is tout autre chose. It is 
hardly to be supposed that the Germans recruited their army 
from tiieir shipyards. 
At the new national yards, everything lias to be created. 
Imagine a bare piece of land to be turned into a shipbuilding 
establishment !' On the Clyde and on the Tyne there are 
buildings, there is plant, there are generations of accumulated 
skill and experience — skilled managers, skilled' foremen, 
skilled workers. Surely if unskilled labour is to be profitably 
utilised, it must be directed by men competent in their trade, 
who can only be found where the present shipyards exist. 
Time is national life. Ships bring food, and without food 
the nation cannot live. The Government should retrace its 
steps, acknowledge the error afnd negative the" policy. To- 
err is a failing not common only to War Cabinets. It is 
betti'r to admit mistakes than waste national energy. Saving 
face will not secure ships. Let the private yards be aided, 
encouraged, supplied with men, materials, if need be money, 
to accomplish their fullest possible output at the speediest 
jjossible moment. It is not a question of private profit. 
The private shipbuilding yards are controlled establishments 
and their profits regulated. What the nation wants is ton- 
nage and that quickly. The line must be cleared for ships. 
If Government yards would output tonnage faster than private 
yards, let us have tiiem by all means. Somehow our obser- 
vation teaches us that Government concerns — to put it mildly 
— are not wholly concerned for efficiency. Most j)ri\ate 
businesses run as a Government business would be ruined in 
a year. 
An illustrative incident happened at Portsmouth quite 
lately— last December 15th. At a war meeting the Junior 
M.P., a well-known Admiral, exclaimed : " We must have^ 
more men. How are we to get these men ? " A \oice from 
the crowded audience. " From the dockyard." Where- 
upon there was such vociferous applause that the Mayor had 
to intervene to stop it. Portsmouth is our largest national 
dockyard. Comment on this incident was superfluous. Only 
by those who desire to place our great shipping industry under 
Government control, can the policy of establishing these 
national yards be approved. To them I would commend the 
words of Lord Inchcape at the last P. and O. meeting held on 
the I2th ultimo : " If it is the intV;ntion to turn the British 
mercantile marine into a State department, managed by 
officials tied up with red tape then . . . we shall make 
our bow and let the curtain fall on what has hitherto been tht 
supremacy of British mercantile shipping on the Seven seas.' 
From such a consummation, let us pray to be saved. 
The First Sea Lord 
By Arthur Pollen 
WHEN" I returned to England at the end of last 
week after having sjwjnt nearly six months in the 
Inited States, learned that \\dniiral Sir John 
Jellicoe had left the Admiralty to receive a Peer- 
age, and that Sir Kosslyn Wemyss had been appointed First Sea 
Lord. These events constitute what the DailvTclcgraph quite 
accurately described as a " sensational " announcement. But 
judging from such public comments as I have had the oppor- 
tunity of perusing, a great variety of sensations seems to have 
l)een excited. A good many people are plainly at a loss to 
understand the significance of what has occurred. 
Sir Kosslyn Wemyss, save for his appointment as Second 
Sea Lord six months ago, and his more recent promotion to 
acting as Sir John JcUicoe's deputy, appears to be almost 
unknown to the press or to the general public. This mav 
account for a certain lack of enthusiasm in the reception of 
the news of his promotion. Similarly the causes which made 
a drastic change in the Higher Command necessary, seem also 
to have been very little understood. One paper of very wide 
cnculation I noted, published a portrait of the out-going First 
Sea Lord, and printed underneath it and in italics, a statement 
to the effect that this particular journal had " never joined 
ni the anti-Jellicoe campaign." When people see no reason 
wJiv a change should be made, and then hear that an officer 
entnely unknown to tiiem has been entrusted with the most 
difficult and the most arduous post in the anti-German 
Alliance, tliey are not unnaturally filled with misgivings and 
suspect that tjie late holder of the post is the victim either of 
some personal intrigue or of a cowardly submission to press 
clamour, and so look upon his successor as a pis-allcr — a 
choice where there is no choice. The facts of the position are 
diametrically opiwsitc to what sucii people suppose. 
My readers may remember that some time before Mr. 
lialtour reconstituted his Board about thirteen months ago, I 
pointed out m these columns that such a reconstitution was 
necessary, that the task of selection was extremely difficult, 
and that it was exceedingly unlikely, so obscure were the 
indications of competence in this grave matter— that Mr. 
Balfour could rest satisfied with his first, or even with second 
choice of advisers. I said this because the first choice was 
already known to him. To those who shared mv doubts of a 
year ago, and have noted what has occurred between their 
expression and the present date, will have been more surprised 
that the second choice has been so long a-commg than that it 
has at last been made. It is unnecessary then to explain to 
tliem, as it wouhl be ungracious now to explain to others, 
preci^clv why th<- first of the events of last week was inevit- 
able. It 1. iiiif.iituiiMU' tl.-t these transitions cannot occur 
without inflicting pin. The British public is extranrdinarily 
loyal to its favourites, and particularly to its naval favourites. 
A large section of the public, which for years bcrfore the war 
had taken real trouble to study na\al affairs, was led to 
believe that tiie greatness of the British navy derived solely 
from the seamanship and statesmanship of Sir John Fisher 
and depended on the leadership of his chief pupil and suc- 
cessor. It was shocked when events at Gallipoli led to Lord 
Fisher'6 retirement. It is shocked now when the gallant and 
popular officer, who had the full confidence of Wv nation in 
ins command of the Grand Fleet, has to make way for another. 
This mental distress is deeply to be regretted, but it cannot 
be avoided. Old estimates of personal worth and ability 
formed in times of peace are constantly upset by the rude 
realities of war, without those who have formed those esti- 
laates being able to realise exactly how the upset has occurred. 
For the moment it is best to leave this mystery unexplained! 
It is more to the purpose to set out why the " second choice '' 
is a sound choice. It may be some consolation to such people 
to know that the officer who is now First Sea Lord is where 
he is because it is A^ar, and notliing else, that has shown liiin 
to be what he is. 
If, therefore, I am a.sked what the recent changes in the 
Board of Admiralty signify, my simplest answer is, to say that 
at last we have an officer appointed First Sea Lord, not be- 
cause of his seniority in the Navy List, nor because he is 
blessed — or cursed — with a newspaper or popular reputation, 
but simply on merit shown in war. I was in Washington when 
Sir Edward Carson joined the War Cabinet, and an enter- 
prising interviewer asked. me why the Premier had put an 
ex-railway manager, presumably 'ignorant of the sea affair, 
at the head of the Burtish Navy. I replied that he had done' 
so for the almost incredible, but nevertheless valid reason, that 
Sir Eric Geddes had shown himself to be the right man for the 
place. Just as Jlr. Lloyd George passed over all the popular 
jwliticians and ciiose the ablest man he knew for the most 
difficult position that a civilian can fill, so now Sir Eric himself 
has passed over all the advertist^d Admirals and appointed 
the proved man for the most diflicult post a naval officer 
can fill. It is natural to ask in what the proof consists. 
In the early stages of the war the evidence of Sir Rosslvn 
Wemyss' merits must either have been slender or was unper- 
ceived, for wiien Sir Sackville Carden fell ill, a day or two l)efore 
tile last and most disastrous attempt to force the Dardanelles. 
Rear-.Admiral de Robeck was appointed to succeed liim, and' 
two officers senior to him were passed over by this preferment. 
Sir Rosslyn Wemyss was one of these. It is not an agreeable 
position for a Rear-Admirul to find liiinself suddenly and 
