then possibly he may attack; but if he wants to invade he would not come banging his head against Portsmouth. In that case, I take it, your fleet being gone, you would hand the defence of the port, if you wanted to defend it, over to the military arm, if you have a military arm, to defend it. But in the meanwhile the defence of the port should, I should have thought, be under the control of the naval commander-in-chief. He, at any rate, would be able to tell you what you want, and the amount of defence you want. But that, again, is a subject on which I dare not place myself between such mighty antagonists as Sir John Hopkins and Sir Vesey Hamilton. May I be permitted to tread on even more delicate ground for a moment? Sir John Hopkins has spoken about the deficiency of speed in our cruisers, and has brought forward some very startling comparisons. I do not pretend to be an authority on this subject, but I have studied it a good deal, so far › as a civilian and an outsider can study it, and I venture to ask him whether he has not compared actual realised speeds, speeds at sea maintained for many hours by our ships, with less searching trial-speeds, and sometimes merely paper speeds of ships built either at Elswick or by foreign countries. I have some reason to think that when the comparison is made with extreme care and with access to knowledge which I do not possess, except in a vague and inadequate form, the discrepancy between the speeds of the ships would not in practice be found to be so great as it appears to be on paper, or as it can be made to appear by comparisons of trials of a very different kind. I think in all probability it would be found that the speeds, even if somewhat lower, which are attained by our own ships compared with the others, can be maintained against a heavier sea, and for a much greater length of time. I only put that forward as a suggestion. I may be wrong, but I have reason to think that there is some ground for my view. Lastly, I would thank Sir John Hopkins, especially for the final part of his lecture. I trust he has given a great impetus to the demand which has been made in certain quarters outside the Admiralty for the immediate provision of such fleet auxiliaries as we undoubtedly require. There will be an attempt to improvise them in time of war; we shall spend money like water and by the million, but we may not get them in time. We may get them for less than half the money, perhaps only a quarter, perhaps only a tenth, if we get them at once; and in the meanwhile, if the admiral in the Mediterranean, or in the Channel, is ordered to fight an enemy, what is he to do for his fleet auxiliaries? No doubt the Admiralty will order them at once, and we shall charter magnificent ships-the "Omrah" and the "Ophir " and the like--and we shall take out their beautiful fittings and put in the stores and ammunition, and perhaps we shall send out a distilling-ship. We had a distillingship in the last manœuvres. I think she distilled rather less in the 24 hours than the "Majestic" herself; and she was the first ship captured in the war, owing to her indifferent speed. That is not the kind of ship that you want, and if you wait until the war begins you will get even such auxiliaries too late. As to the colliers, is not there some difficulty? Sir John Hopkins said he did not quite understand why the Americans are building such enormous colliers; but you must have colliers of very great size if they are to maintain the speed of the fleet. You are advocating higher speeds for battle-ships. I had a letter from Sir John Fisher in the Mediterranean the other day in which he apologised for the shakiness of his handwriting--it was not shaky at all, I may say--because he said the “ Renown" was going 16 knots. The "Renown" is a very fast ship, of course, but we are building faster ships, and if you are to have colliers capable of going 20 knots, will they not require to be of very large displacement? And if they are to go from 16 to 20 knots all the time they will not have very much coal for the ships they are accompanying unless they are of enormous size. Finally, I would thank Sir John Hopkins for the concluding sentence, which I think the most important part of a most important and impressive lecture. We want our fleets, our fighting fleets that we keep at sea, to be ready at all times and in all respects for war. It is no good waiting until the war breaks out. We want to practise

them in a great many things they do not practise at present. If we are going to combine the Channel and Mediterranean Squadrons when war breaks out, why not occasionally do it beforehand? I think one gentleman behind me was rather aghast at the idea of manœuvring a combined fleet in the Atlantic; but supposing you have to fight an enemy in the Atlantic? Then you will have to manoeuvre the combined fleet in the Atlantic, and it is better to learn how. It has been my privilege to see something of the kind done on rather a heavy sea in the Atlantic, and even to my unnautical eye it appeared that practice would make it a great deal more perfect than it was. Therefore, though I think the lecture is as full of valuable suggestions as an egg is of meat, the most important of all is the concluding appeal to the authorities to see that in all respects the fighting fleets we keep at sea should at all times be ready for war.

Captain Sir JOHN C. R. COLOMB, K.C.M.G., M.P. (late R.M.A.):-I entirely endorse what fell from the last speaker as to the value of a discussion raised by such a paper as this, and the extremely able way in which the paper has been prepared. I also entirely agree with the previous speaker in the order of precedence of the points raised in the paper. I, therefore, confine myself to saying that, and pass to another part of the question. I am delighted to have on record from a distinguished admiral, who has himself been at the Admiralty, a statement and an acknowledgment, based upon experience, that the officers at the Admiralty really have not the time to give full consideration to those various problems which have been mentioned in the paper to-day. It is gratifying to me personally for the reason that I have always maintained that, with regard to naval knowledge and experience, the Admiralty is undermanned. I think the Naval Intelligence Department of the Admiralty is neither upon a sufficiently comprehensive basis nor has it the necessary number of naval officers to collect, think over, and prepare that information which must be got if those various problems are to be solved. With regard to the discussion which has taken place on the question of ports and harmonious co-operation between the two Services, I think myself we must follow some principle, and at the same time acknowledge that it has variations in application. There is a vast difference, I conceive, between a great naval port at home and a purely naval base abroad. I consider that the general arrangements of the defence of home ports from attack by sea should be under the control of the admiral, who alone understands the principles of attacks by sea. As to the attack by land, of course when there is any possibility of attacking Portsmouth, for example, by land, you have lost your supremacy by sea and your empire, and there is an end of it. But with regard to attacks from the sea, I do not think, in view of the limited amount of ammunition that ships carry, and the whole of the facts and circumstances, that you need contemplate any serious naval attack upon ports in these days if provided with very moderate fixed defences. Therefore, that all points to this, that naval opinion has not prevailed in the past sufficiently in our arrangements for the defence of our ports, and I do not think at this hour it is sufficiently attended to. The position which the naval commander-in-chief has in the port now is not such as he ought to have. What Sir Vesey Hamilton says about 70,000 men refers to land attack, and is disposed of by my previous point. Not only should the admiral have absolute control of these, but the garrisons should be a portion of the naval forces, and be entirely at his disposal. That is why I have persistently advocated the substitution of marine garrisons for military garrisons at purely naval ports abroad. With regard to naval bases and ports of supply abroad, they are absolutely dependent upon the sea for support. With reference to courtsmartial, I will only say this: I cannot agree that doctors should sit upon courtsmartial, and certainly, under its present organisation, I am not prepared to advocate officers of the engineering department sitting upon courts-martial. But I do say that a marine officer, except as to the handling of ships, is just as much an executive officer as naval executive officers, and I agree that the marine

So.

officers should sit upon courts-martial, with their naval executive colleagues, at all events where marines are under trial. I mention that because I know that the present exclusion of executive marine officers is felt very much. But the most important point is this, the extraordinary amount of money wasted under the present system. The enforced idleness of marine officers afloat, and the cruelty of the system, waste public money. I am not blaming individuals because it is The circumstances of the Navy have wholly changed, and you ought to adapt your organisation to your circumstances. What can be more absurd than this system now? I will take the marine artillery as the strongest point. You have at Portsmouth, within five miles of each other, two great gunnery establishments, you have at Whale Island an establishment for naval officers and bluejackets training for the service of the gunnery of the fleet; and at Eastney you have another establishment to train the marine officers and men also for the gunnery service of the fleet, that is, for identically the same thing. You train the marine artillery officer at a vast expense to the country, and you submit him to a long and elaborate course of theoretical study and technical teaching. You spend, I think, more money upon marine artillery officers than upon officers of any other branch of the naval Service, and what is the result? You go on board ship and you find no place for the marine artillery officer. There is no co-operation or interchange between the two gunnery establishments at Portsmouth, and the consequence is this, that afloat you have a naval officer who does not keep watch, and is relieved from watchkeeping because his gunnery duties are so onerous that he must be excused from getting experience from handling the ship; and you have the marine artillery officer discontented because he finds that, with all his scientific teaching and with all his artillery training, there is no artillery work for him to do on board ship. That absurdity is emphasised as you go on. When the marine artillery officer, having become rusty on board ship, goes back to headquarters, he goes on a revised course of instruction again, and so on until he is major. Then, when afloat, he has nothing whatever to do with guns. As a subaltern he may have charge of a gun or two. You have on the one side the marine artillery major doing nothing, who has cost the country perhaps £4,000, and on the other you have the naval gunnery lieutenant, not having cost so much money, but with all the gunnery of the ship to do. You want more co-operation and more real rapprochement between the Marine Artillery and the Navy proper; and I trust, when disting uished men like Sir John Hopkins come forward in support, something will be done in that direction. I hope everybody will understand that in what I have said and written about the Marine Service, I must not be taken to mean that I am for separating or creating friction between the two branches. My action has been dictated by a desire to emphasise and to bring into public light the ridiculousness of the present position, because I do wish to see a termination of it; and I desire to see closer co-operation between the Navy proper and the Marines leading up to future amalgamation of the two branches of the naval Service.

Major-General J. M. MOODY (late R.M.L.I.): It is with the greatest pleasure that I have heard Sir John Hopkins's paper. I think it is very

opportune, and I am glad to see the largest attendance I have ever seen at the United Service Institution present to-day, and including so many influential men. There are two points in the lecture I should like to touch upon. The first has reference to a naval reserve. Everybody in the country I think recognises the need of an efficient reserve for the Navy, and I think we all agree that we have not got it at present. It appears a coincidence that when this lecture was in print, the Admiralty announce the constitution of a "fleet reserve," which is a step in the right direction. I cannot say that I am altogether satisfied with what has been put forward, if what I read is official. This fleet reserve apparently gives equal inducements to both bluejackets and marines to join at the expiration of their first period of limited engagement, viz., 12 years. My idea is that it is an unwise thing to induce a bluejacket to leave the

active service so young who has cost so much money to train-I take it that the amount is not far short of £300; he is in his prime, only thirty years of age, and has had a most valuable training, and he is acknowledged to be one of the most valuable class of men in any Service, even up to the time when he earns his pension at 22 years' service. The men in the Marine Service are differently situated. A 12 years' man has not cost more than one-third to train and retrain as a bluejacket does. At 12 years he is a bit tired in many cases of soldiering and not being a non-commissioned officer, as only a limited number can get promotion, his pay is small, nor has he the possibilities of getting any substantial increase by gunnery, torpedo, or other extra money for extra efficiency which a bluejacket can earn; being in the prime of life, and having no doubt picked up some knowledge of a trade, he is inclined to, and as a matter of fact does, take his discharge. The Service, it is true, loses a highly trained men, but the time and money necessary to train a successor are considerably less than to train a bluejacket. If a 12 years' marine will join a reserve, the active service will therefore suffer less than if a bluejacket is transferred. I am doubtful, however, if under the proposed title of "fleet reserve" you will get any substantial number of 12 years' marines to join, nor will you get many other ex-marines who would be qualified, viz., men discharged by purchase, and recovered invalids, of whom there is a large number of in civil life. Should, however, the title be altered for the marine branch, and you call it the Royal Marine Reserve, you will appeal to all marines past and future by the great lever of esprit de corps. In my opinion, a force of 5,000 men would be added at once to the general naval reserve. For the past eight years I have done my best with the Admiralty to get such a reserve established, without success; but I hope that the Board will still adopt the suggestion. Whether or not, any addition in any way to the Naval Reserve has my hearty good wishes for its success under whatever title it comes. As regards the proposal of the lecturer for amalgamating the two branches of the Royal Marines, viz., the Royal Marine Artillery and the Royal Marine Light Infantry, under the title Royal Marine Artillery, although I think it is in some measure undesirable to have the two separate branches, still having the two, I think the best thing is to make the best of them. We all know how highly trained the Marine Artillery are in naval and land service gunnery; it will be a revelation to the man in the street, and even to some naval officers, to know the thorough naval training that the Light Infantry Marines receive. Before 1877 the gunnery of the Light Infantry received little attention and no extra pay could be earned for efficiency. In that year the late Admiral Sir Thomas Symonds, when C.-in-C. at Plymouth, made a very strong report against the inefficiency of the gunnery of detachments he had to inspect in ships under his command. It was proposed and subsequently decided in consequence to extend to the Light Infantry the penny a day trained pay under the same conditions as bluejackets were given it. Our gallant lecturer was one of the committee which Mr. W. H. Smith appointed to consider the question. It took two years, however, before the committee's recommendations were adopted. I remember at that time (1878) I was gunnery instructor at Plymouth, and it was asked what percentage would earn that penny a day, and I replied to the commandant that I thought it would be about 30 per cent. He said, "You had better put 25 per cent., and be on the safe side." As a matter of fact, for years, 80 per cent. of men have earned this penny a day, and that is the only inducement. Beyond this penny a day no additional sum has been offered for higher qualifications with the exception of twopence a day to the very limited number of N.C.O.'s and men who are allowed to qualify as captains of guns. It has been repeatedly suggested by gunnery instructors and approved by commandants that an additional penny should be given to N.C.O.'s and privates for a higher standard of efficiency. If this amount was granted for all naval purposes, the gunnery of the Light Infantry would be found to be all that could be desired, and there would be no necessity for making any alteration in the organisation of the corps. I agree with everything

that we have heard from the lecturer with regard to utilising the modern marine officer for additional duties on board ship, and I am quite sure, from what I believe to be the feeling of my brother officers, that they would all respond heartily to such an extension of their present work. That there are duties which the marine officer would be quite capable of undertaking will be admitted. At the same time, if you give the men additional duties, you must give them a little additional pay. There is no position at present on board ship by which a marine officer can add anything to his pay, beyond interpreter. As regards courts-martial, I can only hope that the suggestions of the lecturer will be speedily carried out, so far as my own corps goes. I believe the measure would have the very best effect with both officers and men. I should like to say a word about coast defence. When I was commanding at Gosport, I was serving under H.R. H. the Duke of Connaught, and he appointed the Commandant of Marine Artillery and the Commandant of Light Infantry to be commandants of the mobilisation of the defences of Portsmouth, and for two years and over we held that position. A scheme was drawn up for mobilisation, under the guidance of His Royal Highness, who took the greatest interest in it, and we worked together most cordially. All went smoothly until within ten days of the time actually fixed for the mobilisation, when to everyone's surprise the two Commandants were ordered to relinquish the work, and two R.A. colonels were appointed to take their places. I have never yet heard any explanations. The mobilisation took place, but without the officers who had been for two years entrusted with arranging the details. It showed that there was some friction between the Admiralty and War Office; the friction was certainly not local. The weakness, it struck me, was the number of departments having authority in that fortress. I recollect going up once to Portsdown Hill a month or two before the mobilisation took place with a whole troop of staff, representing the various branches. I was proud of them in one sense, but I was taken aback by their numbers. It was like a small cavalry regiment. Then again there was practically nobody immediately available with the special duty of defending the fortress. This is no doubt altered now, as I understand there have been alterations in consequence of His Royal Highness' suggestions. The regiments (Militia) entrusted with the defence then had to be brought from distant parts of Ireland, and could not reach Portsmouth under four or five days from the time they received their orders. If there is a scare the railways will be wanted for transport, etc., and it is questionable if the regiments would reach the fortress even in this time. Several gentlemen have spoken of the value of Volunteers. I have spoken about this before, but it struck me really the Volunteers of the garrison were the people to man those forts. Beyond a few Regulars to take charge of the stores, the Volunteers could and should do all the work. Say, for instance, at Gosport-Gosport would furnish Volunteers for Stokes Bay lines, etc., Fareham for Fort Fareham, Nelson, and Southwick, Southsea for Southsea Castle, Portsmouth for Hilsea lines, Havant for Warblington, and so on. Instead of going to the expense of mobilising the entire defences at one time, you would simply mobilise your different forts, and at a well-recognised signal, night or day, you would man any forts selected with Volunteers. You can get the Volunteers easily, and they should be all artillery, for the idea of seeing mere infantry regiments marching out of Portsmouth is perfectly ridiculous. They ought to be all garrison artillery, and you should have no difficulty in getting sufficient Volunteers, because you must recollect that the people who have the greatest incentive to protecting the fortress, are the people whose homes are within it. The Volunteers would know exactly where all the different kinds of ammunition and projectiles were stored, and the ranges of positions all round; in fact, they would have a local knowledge, which the Militiamen from a distance would take some time to acquire. I should say it would simplify matters greatly if the coast defence was handed over to the Navy, the Army giving their cordial co-operation. I have to say how gratifying it is to have heard this interesting and most valuable lecture, and to have had the privilege