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In the light of these figures it is not unnatural to look for an appreciable reduction in the size of the Admiralty Office. It is a little disconcerting, therefore, to find that the cost has increased from 483,000l. in 1914 to 1,220,000%. in the 1926 Estimates. But, before condemning such increase as wholly unjustifiable, it is necessary to differentiate between that part of the machinery of Admiralty which must be maintained in readiness for war, and that part which is required for the administration of the fleet at peace strength.

In the forefront of the first category comes the Naval Staff. Before the war this was not properly developed, otherwise we might have been spared some terrible blunders in our war policy and strategy. Failure to use the sea power we possessed to prevent the sinews of war flowing into enemy countries, the tragedy of Coronel, the muddle of the Dardanelles, are some of the failures which have been attributed to the meddlesome interference of civilians-Ministers, diplomats, and politicians. Whether such blame is warranted or not, it is obvious that the influence of amateur strategists, however powerful, can be neutralised, to a large extent, if there exists a plan, properly thought out and set out by the professional heads of the Fighting Services. Again and again, in the late war, such plans were lacking. This was partly due to the Cabinet having no clear major policy, partly to lack of co-operation between civil Ministers and the naval and military Chiefs, but also, so far as the Navy was concerned, very largely to the lack of a fully equipped and properly organised

* Including two cruisers under reconstruction as aircraft carriers.

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Naval Staff. The naval element at the Admiralty was, for the most part, swamped with routine work, and the Staff, whose business it was to think out the problems of war, was undermanned and mostly untrained.

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If the war brain' of the Navy is starved, the highest efficiency of personnel and matériel may not avail when war comes. The comparatively small additional expense of an adequate Naval Staff has not only enabled the recent very great economies to be made with a minimum loss of efficiency, but should go far to save the Empire from a repetition of tragic blunders and panic measures, costing millions in lives and money.

That 'brain' must always be the pick of those officers who, in war, will have to see their schemes put into ot practice; no other type of mentality has the necessary training; in no other way can there be proper responsibility. There is no room in this section of the Admiralty for the unprofessional element, except, perchance, for the civilian scientist acting in an advisory capacity. Even the clerical work should be done by those who understand the subject matter, as opposed to those to whom it is only so many numbered memoranda, files, jackets, or packs.

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It is all the more surprising, therefore, to find here, at the first stage in Admiralty organisation, that a large staff of civil servants is engaged in handling papers es of an essentially naval character, dealing with highly specialist subjects such as plans, operations, and intelligence. 'M' Branch, as it is called, provides the whole of the clerical personnel for the Naval Staff. It is a Civil Service Principal Assistant Secretary (Staff), or one of his / subordinates, who drafts orders affecting the movements of the fleet, and who signs them in the name of the Board. ¿In war-time such a system may be fraught with danger, for the naval officer reads, but often does not write, what goes forth to the fleet, while the uncomprehending scribe may elude the vigilance of the former and bring about disaster.

Mr Winston Churchill in his 'The World Crisis' gives the account of a 'regrettable incident' which occurred in this very Branch, and which had lamentable consequences.

* The World Crisis, 1911-1914,' pp. 255-6.

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'At 1 a.m. on Aug. 8 [1914],' he writes, 'Sir Berkeley Milne, having collected his three battle-cruisers at Malta, set out at a moderate speed on an easterly course in pursuit of the "Goeben." At this juncture the Fates moved a blameless and punctilious Admiralty clerk to declare war upon Austria. The code telegram ordering hostilities to be commenced against Austria was inadvertently released without any authority whatever. The mistake was repaired a few hours later; but the first message reached Sir Berkeley Milne. . . . His original orders had prescribed that in the event of war with Austria he should concentrate near Malta, and, faithful to these instructions, he turned his ships about and desisted from the pursuit of the "Goeben." Twentyfour hours were thus lost before orders could reach him to resume it.'

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The 'Goeben' escaped, and, as Mr Churchill puts it, 'the Curse descended irrevocably upon Turkey and the East.'

Many years previously, that great First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Frederick Richards, wanted to have this Branch of the Admiralty manned entirely by a naval personnel, but (the story goes) the then Secretary of the Admiralty lunched with the then Secretary of the Treasury, and the former afterwards informed Sir Frederick that his wish could not be resisted, but that other projects which he had at heart could and would be. The First Sea Lord was a diplomatist and therefore chose the lesser evil, although the change was really needed in the interests of the safety of the State.

The incident, whether exact in its details or not, illustrates clearly the position of the civil servants at the Admiralty. Instead of owing full allegiance to the Board, their virtual chief is the Secretary to the Treasury, who is practically the head of the Civil Service. The effect of this, at the present juncture, is that My Lords, instead of being in the position of Managing Directors who can cut their civil staff to conform with the volume of business, are in that of a Manager, whose Directors have compelled him to dismiss a number of his industrial workers and close down several of his factories, but who is prohibited from economising on his office staff, because all its members have powerful vested interests.

So we see these drastic naval reductions-ships scrapped, some 1800 officers and 18,000 men retired, per

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force, whole departments of the war-time Naval Staff abolished-yet the same names as before, occasionally with new titles, appearing at the head of the list of the Secretariat.

On the civil side of the Admiralty Office, only the unfortunate under-dog- the temporary clerk, the messenger, and the charwoman-is economised' out of the building. While there has been a reduction in the cost of practically every naval department at the Admiralty, including the Naval Staff, except those directly concerned with the new programme of construction, as between the 1925 and 1926 Estimates, there has actually been an increase from the already high figure of 74,8177. in the former year to 75,0607. this year in the cost of the Secretary's department. Little wonder that the economist and the naval officer are at one in very natural indignation at the apparent inability to reduce this incubus of civil expenditure which hangs round the neck of the Sea Service. The reason why the Board of Admiralty has not been able to reduce the Navy's overhead charges, in this respect, will, however, be better understood when we realise the extent to which the Civil Service rules in that office.

The Coalition Government made the Secretary to the Admiralty a member of the Board on the grounds that he had financial responsibility. Apart from the fact that, as will be seen later, he is only a cog in the complicated machine which controls the Navy's finance, this was a thoroughly unsound step, for it means that the Secretary and his department, whose functions should be mainly those of clerical assistants to the Board, are, far too often, in the position of being masters.

The political, like the nawal, members of the Board are, comparatively speaking, temporary Directors'; the civil servant is part of the permanent machinery, but that is no reason why the machine' should override the hands which are intended to direct it; yet, in financial matters, we find the power of the civil servant is undisguised and overwhelming. In other ways his influence in naval affairs is more insidious than obvious.

Between the Treasury and the Secretarial and financial departments of the Admiralty there is not merely close Vol. 246.-No. 488,

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liaison, but overlapping and duplication of work to an extent which means an unjustifiable waste of public time and money. The whole system of Admiralty finance is so complicated and dilatory, so bound up in regulations and red tape, so hedged around by highsalaried officials, that it actually creates unnecessary expense and often precludes economies where they might otherwise be effected. The following is typical of how Admiralty business is conducted:

1. A naval department makes a proposal involving unforeseen expense.

2. The Naval Lord in charge approves the proposal in principle, as being really necessary for efficiency, but he has no means of finding the wherewithal to meet it.

3. It goes to a branch of the Secretariat. From there it is probably returned to the naval department for further information to enlighten the civil staff, who do not understand what it means or entails.

4. In due course it reaches the Accountant-General's Department, probably with some comment of no material value. Here there is more questioning, and after being bandied from one section to another, it is eventually sent to the Principal Assistant Secretary for Financial Duties. This office appears to have been created largely to provide additional promotion in the Civil Service, and the holder has been interposed between the AccountantGeneral and the Treasury to act as the latter's watchdog. In his hands the unfortunate proposal may meet with premature extinction, the death warrant taking the form of some such phrase as 'The Treasury inform me that no funds are available for this purpose'; or it may be sent to the Inquisition of the Finance Committee.

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5. This Finance Committee is presided over by the Financial Secretary (the Parliamentary member of the Board). Supporting him are most or all of the following civil members-the Civil Lord, the Secretary, the Deputy Secretary, the Principal Assistant Secretary for Finance, and the Accountant-General-while a solitary naval member, perhaps the Third Sea Lord, Controller of the Navy, sits with them justifying the needs of his department in gross and in detail.

6. This does not end the matter, for the work of the Finance Committee is not infrequently done all over

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