The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
spend them. From a Liberal Government the Salisbury Government of 1886
inherited the completing of the Northbrook shipbuilding programme;
whose provisions were based, not upon any intelligible scheme of
preparation for war but, upon the Russian war-scare. Those who were
acquainted with the real posture of affairs were not deluded by the
mere haphazard expenditure of a few millions, voted in order to soothe
public opinion.
Nor did ministers themselves deny the total inadequacy of their
measures. In March, 1886, when the Liberal administration was still in
power, I brought forward in the House of Commons an amendment
empowering the Government to expend an additional sum of over
£5,000,000 upon the construction of 35 cruisers, three armoured
cruisers, and 21 torpedo craft; pointing out at the same time that the
expenditure would provide employment for a large number of unemployed
workmen, both skilled and unskilled. Of course the amendment was
defeated; but it is significant that {342} the necessity of such an
increase was virtually admitted by the Government spokesmen. I also
urged the abolition of 69 useless vessels of war, which I specified,
and the expenditure of the money saved in their maintenance, upon new
vessels.
At that time, it was nearly impossible to obtain accurate official
information with regard to naval affairs. I asked for a return of the
relative strength of the Fleets of this and other countries; which was
granted; and which aroused considerable comment in the Press. The
return has since been issued every year; first in my name, then in the
name of Sir Charles Dilke, and at present in the name of Mr. Dickenson.
But the first half of the year 1886 was consumed with the Home Rule
Bill. Turn to the files of the time, and you shall see precisely the
same arguments, declarations, denunciations, intrigues and rumours of
intrigues, charges and counter-charges which were repeated in 1893, and
which are being reiterated all over again as if they had just been
discovered, in this year of grace 1913. We who stood to our guns in
1886 know them by heart. We have been denounced as traitors and rebels
because we stand by Ulster, for so long, that we are beginning to think
we shall escape hanging at the latter end of it.
I know my countrymen, both of north and south, for I am of both; and
they know me. Isaac Butt once asked me to lead the Home Rule party;
because, he said, my brother Waterford was widely respected and
popular, and was thoroughly acquainted with the Irish question, of
which I also had a sufficient knowledge. I might have accepted the
invitation, had I believed that Home Rule was what my countrymen
needed. But it was not. The settlement of the land question was and
is the only cure for Irish ills. Mr. Wyndham with his Land Act did
more for Ireland than any Government that ever was; and I say it, who
have lost a great part of my income under the operation of the Act.
Not that the Irish would have obtained the Wyndham Act, had they not
been incorrigibly intractable. By {343} demanding a great deal more
than they wanted, which they called Home Rule, they got what they did
want, which was the land. Their avidity for the land never diminished;
whereas the cry for Home Rule died down; until, by one of the
inconsistencies of Irish politics which so bewilder the Englishman, it
was revived by John Finton Lalor and Michael Davitt, who welded the two
aspirations together. In order to rid themselves of the Home Rule
spectre, the English Government conceded the land. And then, owing to
another unexpected twist, they found the spectre wasn't laid after all.
For the English had not learned that so long as they permit Ireland to
be so superbly over-represented, so long will they have trouble. Sure,
they'll learn the lesson some day, if God will; for there's no lack of
teaching, the way it is. In the meantime, it is hard for the English
people to argue against what appears to be the demand of the majority
of the Irish people.
But so far was the Government in power in 1912 from understanding or
attempting to understand Irishmen, that the defence of the Home Rule
Bill was constantly relegated to two eminent descendants of an
interesting Asiatic race; who, however distinguished in their own walk
of life, could never in any circumstances know or care anything
whatsoever about Ireland. The Ulstermen, at least, resented the
proceeding.
One of the Nationalists attacked me with great ferocity in the House.
He accused my family for generations past of having committed atrocious
crimes, and asserted that I myself had entered Parliament for the sole
purpose of escaping active service in case of war with a foreign Power.
"Why did you say all those things?" said I to him in the lobby
afterwards.
"Sure, Lord Char-less," says he, "ye're an Irishman, and ye'll
understand I didn't mean a word of it."
Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill having been rejected in 1886, Lord
Salisbury returned to power with a majority that defied Mr. Parnell and
his friends, and so there was no {344} more Home Rule for a while.
'Tis the pure morality of the Home Rule demand that moves the political
conscience; and that the morality always acts upon that sensitive organ
when there is a controlling Irish vote, and not at any other time, is
of course a mere coincidence.
In August, 1886, I was appointed junior lord at the Admiralty,
succeeding Captain James E. Erskine.
"No doubt you'll try to do a number of things, but you'll run up
against a dead wall. Your sole business will be to sign papers," said
Captain Erskine, and so departed.
I speedily discovered that there was at the Admiralty no such thing as
organisation for war. It was not in the distribution of business.
Lest I should seem to exaggerate, I quote the testimony of the late Sir
John Briggs, Reader to the Lords and Chief Clerk of the Admiralty.
Referring to the period with which I am dealing, Sir John Briggs writes
as follows (_Naval Administrations, 1827 to 1892_. Sampson Low. 1897):
"During my Admiralty experience of forty-four years, I may safely
affirm that no measures were devised, nor no practical arrangements
thought out, to meet the numerous duties which devolve upon the
Admiralty, and which at once present themselves at the very beginning
of a war with a first-class naval Power; on the contrary, there had
been unqualified apprehension on the mere rumour of war, especially
among the naval members, arising from their consciousness of the
inadequacy of the Fleet to meet the various duties it would be required
to discharge in such an eventuality."
The fact was that after Trafalgar this country had attained to so
supreme a dominance upon all seas, with so high a degree of
sea-training acquired in independent commands, that organisation for
war was taken for granted. We were living on the Nelson tradition.
The change came with the advent of steam, which altered certain
essential conditions of sea warfare. The use of steam involved a new
organisation. Other nations recognised its necessity. We {345} did
not. Nor was it that the distinguished naval officers composing
successive Boards of Admiralty neglected their duty, for organisation
for war did not form part of their duty, as they conceived it.
Moreover, they were wholly occupied with the vast labour of routine
business, which developed upon them when the old Navy Board was
abolished. The Navy Board, in the old wars, was charged with the
provision of all matters of supply, leaving the Lords Commissioners
free to conduct war.
That there existed no department charged with the duty of constantly
representing what was required in ships, men, stores, docks, under
peace conditions, or what would be required under war conditions, was
obvious enough. But in the course of the execution of my duties as
junior lord, it immediately became equally clear that the Navy was
deficient in those very matters and things concerning which it would
have been the business of such a department to report. Among them was
coal, which was in my charge. Not only was there an immense deficiency
in the war reserve of coal, but there was no plan for supplying it.
What my friends used to call my "craze," which they regarded as an
amiable form of lunacy, for organisation for war, showed me that
without it, all naval force, though it were twice as powerful, would be
practically wasted in the event of emergency.
I went to the First Lord and asked him if it would be in order for me
to draw up a memorandum on any subject to be laid before the Board.
Lord George Hamilton, with his invariable courtesy, replied that any
such paper would be gladly considered.
Within six weeks of my appointment to the Admiralty, I had drawn my
Memorandum on War Organisation calling attention to the necessity of
creating a Naval Intelligence Department at the Admiralty.
In that document, it was represented:
1. That although recent events had revealed approximately our
deficiencies in the event of war with a {346} second-rate maritime
Power, no measures had been taken to prepare a plan showing how the
requirements were to be met.
2. That other countries possessed departments charged with the duty of
preparing plans of campaign and of organising their every detail so
that they could be instantly carried into execution.
3. That the deficiencies in the numbers of the personnel known to be
required, were such and such.
4. That the Medical stores were deficient in such and such respects.
(They were kept in bulk, so that in the event of war, the medical
stores would have had to be selected and distributed: a system I was
able to alter.)
5. That there existed no organisation of any kind with regard to the
use of merchant shipping in war for the transport of coal, ammunition,
and stores, and for hospital ships.
6. That there existed no organisation for rapidly mobilising the
reserves.
7. That in order rightly to fulfil these requirements, there must be
designed plans of campaign to meet all probable contingencies.
8. That in order to obtain such plans of campaign, there should be
created a new department charged with the duty of drawing them up.
There followed a detailed scheme for a new Intelligence Department, at
an increased expense of no more than £2251.
The Memorandum concluded as follows:
"1. Can it be denied that the gravest and most certain danger exists to
the country if the facts stated in this paper are true?
"2. Can it be denied that these facts are true?
"3. If not, should not immediate steps be taken to minimise the danger?"
The Memorandum was laid before the Board. My colleagues came to the
unanimous conclusion that my statements were exaggerated; and also
that, as a junior, I was {347} meddling with high matters which were
not my business; as indeed I was. Having been thus defeated, I asked
the permission of Lord George Hamilton to show the Memorandum to Lord
Salisbury, and received it.
Lord Salisbury very kindly read the document then and there from
beginning to end. He pointed out to me that, on the face of it, I
lacked the experience required to give force to my representations, and
that I had not even commanded a ship of war in a Fleet.
"You must have more experience, on the face of it," he repeated.
And he observed that, practically, what I was asking him to do, was to
set my opinion above the opinion of my senior officers at the
Admiralty, and their predecessors.
I replied that, since he put the matter in that way, although it might
sound egotistical, I did ask him to do that very thing; but I begged
him, before deciding that I was in the wrong, to consult with three
admirals, whom I named.