that the actual personnel available for sea-service shrink to considerably less than 100,000 officers and men; this number, on Lord Brassey's own calculation of the quirements of the fleet, shows a deficiency of something approaching 30,000 men.

This deficiency would occur mainly in the older vessels which form the Fourth Division of the Home fleet; and it is common knowledge that it would be made good by calling up reservists. This year upwards of 57,000 reservists have been voted, roughly in the proportion of one reservist to every two active service ratings, a proportion in accordance with Sir Edward Grey's Manning Committee. It is regrettable that the important report of this body is not more carefully studied by those who discuss the intricate problem of manning the fleet. The Committee came to the conclusion that the wastage of ships would exceed the wastage of their crews, and so set free officers and men from employment in the initial war-fleet.' In other words, we need a superabundance of material of which the wastage will be great, and an adequate, but not super abundant, personnel, among whom the wastage will be relatively small. Our financial resources are limited; it is a sound policy not to vote men wildly in the hope that they will all be utilised, but to adopt a manning policy definitely designed to meet the needs of the fleet.

The navy, in short, requires an adequate number of officers and men of the best type. Two considerations show that this consummation cannot be reached by pressing into the naval service an unrestricted number of men from the merchant service. In the first place, the navy exists in order that the mercantile marine may, even in time of war, continue its essential task of conveying food to the people of the British Empire and supplying them with raw materials essential to their daily activity. If, on the outbreak of war, the Admiralty withdrew a large proportion of these sailors from merchant ships, we should have the remarkable anomaly of a war-fleet, one main reason of whose existence is that the merchant fleet may continue its business, being manned by the withdrawal of officers and men from that merchant navy, already perilously undermanned with sailors of British origin, In the second place, the

merchant sailor is not well fitted for duty in a modern man-of-war, which requires that new product, the seaman-mechanic, a man with the sea-instinct and trained mechanical aptitude. It is in these circumstances that the Admiralty have evolved the present manning scheme, which consists of a short-service system and a longservice system. The larger proportion of the men of the navy are still engaged for a minimum period of twelve years' service in the active fleet; and the best of them are afterwards permitted to re-engage. A smaller proportion are engaged for a term of twelve years, of which five are spent in the active fleet and seven in the fleetreserve. Men who engage for short service and afterwards win the good opinion of their captains are allowed to re-engage. By this process of weeding out unsuitable men, the standard of intelligence and character in the navy is being raised; and it would be a misfortune if, in accordance with Lord Brassey's advice-endorsed in the Naval Annual'-this policy of building up a strong reserve were checked for the sake of a short-sighted policy of economy.

Lord Charles Beresford, on the other hand, has urged that the personnel of the fleet should be raised immediately by 16,000 men; and he proposed to increase the number entered every year from between 8000 and 9000 to about 15,000. Such a sudden increase could not fail to have its influence upon the character and physique of the navy. The present high standard of the personnel of the navy is largely due to the fact that the naval authorities are able to pick and choose, and afterwards to adopt a policy of rigid selection and elimination. Any man who is not up to the high physical and mental standard, and whose character does not bear full investigation, is rejected in the first instance; and men in the fleet are weeded out if they are undesirable.' Thus the British navy has become the corps d'élite of all sea-services. If it were decided suddenly to augment the numbers by 16,000, not only would the existing standard have to be lowered, but an injurious strain would be placed on the training service, with the result that the navy would be provided with men of a less satisfactory type, who had received a far less thorough preliminary training.

6

There is, as a matter of fact, no deficiency at present, as was shown by the last naval manoeuvres, in which upwards of three hundred ships were engaged. T existing organisation is adequate to meet the nee of the initial war-fleet, without calling out the reserves. At the same time it is also true that consistent and methodical scheme of expansion is necessary in order to meet the future needs of the navy when the new ships will be completed. This, however, does not mean that the Admiralty will have to increase the personnel by the number of men required to form the crews of these new vessels. As ships are completed and passed into the active fleet, other older ships will, in accordance with the custom in every navy, be withdrawn and be put in the Third Division of the Home fleet, there displacing yet older ships which will pass into the Fourth Division, with merely care and maintenance parties on board; and they in turn will displace other vessels which will in due course find their way to the scrap-heap. Owing to this process of degradation on account of age, the crews of older ships will pass into new vessels; and the expansion of the personnel in order to meet the actual expansion in the fighting fleet will be neither rapid nor sensational unless the Admiralty postpone action too long, as has occurred in the past. The time has now come when the number of recruits entered annually should be increased in order to meet the necessities of the fleet three years hence and onwards.

Lord Brassey in his pamphlet has endeavoured to arrive at such an estimate of the numbers required for the manning of the effective ships of the existing navy:

This calculation makes no provision for crews for auxiliary ships; nor does it provide for the staffs at the various training establishments ashore which would have to be maintained after war had broken out; nor does it take into account the men who would be required for the coastguard and signalling stations on the coasts. If all these needs are included, the total personnel required on the outbreak of war would be about 140,000 men. Including 57,000 reservists, the personnel at present comprises over 180,000; and it is thus apparent that the Admiralty are in a position to man the initial war-fleet without difficulty. The call for additional men arises from the fact that, in addition to the new ships which will replace older Vessels during the next few years, there must be a large net addition to the strength of the navy in face of foreign, and particularly German, competition. is only by the exercise of foresight that the Admiralty can avoid a serious crisis. It is essential that preparations should begin at once to meet the need of men three or four years hence. Happily the reserve continues to expand year by year in a most satisfactory manner; and the Admiralty can now concentrate attention upon the steps which are necessary for enlarging the regular personnel, so as to avoid the recurrence of a shortage such as has occurred in the jast after a period of exceptional activity in shipuilding. It is to be hoped that the Admiralty will face this problem manfully.

It

The navy has also other needs. The subcommittee of the Committee of Imperial Defence, which recently sued its report, affirmed that there was no such leficiency of small craft and destroyers as to constitute danger to national security.' This may be true, and et it can hardly be accepted as entirely satisfactory. A leet is like an army corps, it must be complete in all its mits. Torpedo craft in adequate numbers are as essential is battleships; and small cruisers are as necessary as rmoured cruisers. While it is true that there is no such present deficiency as to constitute a danger to national jecurity,' it is also true that a vigorous policy of shipJuilding is required in respect both of small cruisers and

Vol. 211.-No. 421.

2 P

Eighteen torpedo gunboats were also built, and six gunboats have also been constructed, as well as sixteen sloops, of which one has been lost and

several sold.

* Supplementary programme, 1900.

+ Including four scouts in 1902 and four in 1903.

These four ships are Dreadnought cruisers of the Indomitable type.

Originally these thirty-six craft were known as 'coastal destroyers.' They displace from 247 to 287 tons, and have speeds of from 26 to 28 knots.

destroyers. The adjoined table gives a synopsis of the programmes of shipbuilding from year to year since the passage of the Naval Defence Act. This statement proves that most of the protected cruisers (scouting ships) now in the fleet are fast becoming obsolete; and no doubt it is the recognition of this fact which has led the Admiralty to include in the last three programmes provision for thirteen small cruisers. At least six more of these ships should be laid down next year, since they are needed, not only for work with the battle fleets, but for