"MEN I HAVE MET"

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 76, 23 December 1919, Page 8

"MEN I HAVE MET"

LORD FISHER'S "MEMORIES"

SOME PERSONALITIES

[Tho greater part of tho 'book from which this matter is taken was dictated by Admiral of tho Fleet Lord Fisher in September. The book includes also extracts from certain fugitive, writings which Lord Fisher is printing for private circulation. The conipleto volumo has been published by Messrs. Uodder and Stoughton.] CHAPTER XV. Amongst the 13 First Lords of tho Admiralty I have had 'to oeal with (and with nine of them I was vory intimately associated) I shoulcr like to record that, in my opinion, Lord George Hamilton and Lord Spencer riad tho toughest jobs, because of the constitution of their respective- Boards of Admiralty; and yet neither of them received the credit each of them deserved for his most successful administration. With both of them their tact was unsurpassable. They had to deal with extromely ab:o colleagues, and my experience, is that it is not a good thing to have a lot of able men associated together. If you take a little of tho best port wine, the best champagne, tho best claret, and the best hock and mix' them together, tho result is disastrous. So often is it with a Board of Admiralty. That's why I havo suffered fools gladly! But Lord George Hamilton and Lord. Spencer had an awful timo of it. To both of these (I consider) great men I am very specially beholden, lord Georgo Hamilton more particularly endured much on my behalf when I was Director of Naval Ordnance, fighting tho War Office. It was his own decision that sent me to Portsmouth as Admiral Superintendent of the Dockyard, and thus enabled mo practically to prove the wisdom and the economy of concentrating workmen on ono ship like a hive of bees and adopting piece-work to the utmost limit. Cannot anyono realiso that if you have your men spread over many ships building, your capital is producing no dividend as compared with getting a ship rushed and sent to sea ready to fight? I was held up as a dramatic poseur because the Dreadnought was built in a year and a day. Yes! She was ready to fight in a year and a day. She did fire her guns. Tho Inflexible, her famous prototype- in former years, which I 1 commanded, was four or five years building. I took up tho battleship Royal Sovereign when I went as Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard and got her completed within two 'vears, and thereby saw my way to doing it in a year. And so would I have done tho famous "Hush Hush" ships, ns a said I would; only circumstances brought about my departure from tho Admiralty, and apathy came back, and those "Hush Hush" ship 3 consequently took more than a year to builtl. And some armchair quill-drivers still sling ink at 'em. And when I heard from an eye-witness how tho whole lot of German cruisers did flee when they appeared and ought to have been gobbled up I rubbed my hands with malignant gleo eit the devastation of my pen-and-ink enemies. As usual in the war, on that occasion tho business wasn't pushed home.

A Commercial Offer. To revert to my theme—l owe also a great debt to Lord George Hamilton, when at a previous stage, of my careet he dissaoided me from accepting an offer from Lord Rothschild, really beyond the dreams of avarice, of becoming the head of a great armament and shipbuilding combine, which accordingly fell through on my refusal. Had I gone 1 , I'd have been a millionaire instead of a pauper as I am now; but I wouldn't have been first Sea Lord from 190-1 to 1910 and then "Sacking tho Lot!" -Lord George also selected me to be Controller of the Navy. lord Spencer called a horso after mcalmost as great an honour. Lord Spencer was really a very magnificent man, and ho had the attributes of his great ancestor, who selected Nelson over a great manv of his scirors to go and win the Battle of the Nile. Thero was no one else who would have dono it, and when Sir John Orde, one of the aggrieved admirals, told tho King th'at the selected Nelson was mad, ho replied. "I wish tn God ho would .bite you all!" My Lord Spencer had the same gift of selectionit's the biggest gift that a man in such a position can have, and the life, tho fate, of h's country may depend upon him. Only war finds out poltroons. Lord Spencer turned out his master, to whom he was faithfully devoted, when be saw the Navy was in danger and that Mr. G'ndstono would not agree to strengthen it His manner was superb. He satisfied that great description of wliat constitutes a gentleman: "He 'jemr hurt anv nn>"'<! f"elin?«." There's another First Lord I have too' faintly alluded Nortbbrook. He also was a great man, but he was not considered so by the populace. He was a victim to his political j essociatcs— they let him'in. His finance at the Admiralty was bad through no fault of his, and he was persuaded to go to Egypt, which I think was a mistake. I stayed with him, and tho microscope of homo revealed him to me. His conceptions were magnificent, and bis decisions were like those of the Modes and Persians. Of all the awful people in the world nothing is so terrible as a vacillator. I am not sure the Devil isn't right when he says, "Tell a lie and stick to it." Lord Northbrook also in spito of intense opposition laid hold of my band and led me forth in tho paths I glory in, of reform and revolution. Stagnation, in my opinion, is tho curse cf life. I have no fellow feeling with those placid souls who like a duckpond, torpid and quiescent' livo the life of cuT/iaROS. I don't believe anybody can say, "Of such is tho Kingdom of Heaven," because it is immortally shown that strife is the secret of a good life. \ ~ ~, As with Lord 'Spencer, so was it withLord Selborne. He again, as First Lord of the Admiralty, took the unusual course, of kindly comint; to Malta to see mo when I commanded the Mediterr';lnent Fleet (the Boer War placed England in a very critical position nfc that time); and though there was a great strife with the Admiralty, he chose me after inv three years as Commander-in-Chief to be Second Sea Lord of the Admiraltv, and permitted me to pinfold a scheme of education which came into being on the following Christmas Day without the alteration of a comma. Moro ihan that, he benevolently spared mo from the Admiralty to become Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth, to see that schemo carried out. Many letters have I that that step indicated the end of hit naval career. I believe to that date it always has" been so, but within a year I was First Sea Lord, and never did any First Lord hold more warmly the hand of his principal,adviser than Lord Selborne held mine.

Making the Grand Fleet. There aro few people living to whom I am under a greater obligation than Admiral Sir Francis Bridgenian, G.C.B. This distinguished sailor aided me in the gradual building up of the Grand Fleet. As I havo said before, it had to bo done unostentatiously and by slow- decrees, for fear of exciting the attention of tho German Admiralty and lon much e.nibiwljiiT myself with the admirals whose fleets had to bo. denuded till rliey disappeared, so as to como under Admiral Sir Francis P.ridcman's command, with whom tho Grand Fleet originated under tho humble designation of the Home Fleet —n gathering and pen filiation of tilt. old more or less stationary coast-guard ships scattered all iound the United Kingdom, and. as the old phrase was, ""rounding on their beef bones" as they swung with the tide at their, anchors. In the Providence of God the animosities of the admirals thus engendered caused the real success of the wholo scheme-and what should have been as clear as crystal to the least observant onlooker was obscured -jy the fumes of pn"cr exuding from ftoso scandalised admirals. I look back-with astonishment at my Job-like conduct, but it bad its. compensations. I hope Sir Francis llrid"eman w>ll forgive me- for hauling him Into this book-I have no ether way of showing him my eternal Cphttidnj and it was with intense delight that 1 congratulated Mr. Churchi 1 on obtainin- his services to succeed Sir Arthur Wilson, tho First Sea Lord, who had. so.

magnificently adhered 10 the scheme- 1 left. Sir Arthur refused i ( peerage, and lis was a faithful • and self-effacing friend in his room at the Admiralty tlioso seven fateful mouths I was First Sea Lord during the war. It was peculiarly fortunate and providential that the two immediately succeeding First Sea Lords after luy departure on January £s,l'Jia, should have been the two great sailors thoy were—otherwise there uould have been- no Grand Fleet; i.ney altered nothing, and the glacier moved olong, resistless and crushing all tho obstacles in its path. I began these talks by solemnly declaring Hint I would not mention a single name—please let it stand—it shows what ono's intention was; but ono is really forced to stand un to such outstanding personalities as Sir Arthur Wilson and Sir Francis Bridgeman, and I again repeat with all the emphasis at my command that it would have been impossible to have conducted those eight years of ceaseless reform, culminating in tho production of the most incomparable fleet that ever existed,'had not the two political Administrations, four First Lords, and every member of the several Boards of Admiralty 'been, as I described them in public, united, determined, ami progressive. Never for ono instant did a single Board of Admiralty during thdt timo lie on its oars. For to rest on our oars would not have li«m still; the malignant tide was fierce against us, and tho younger officers of the fleet responded splendidly. On January 3, 1003, I wrote as follows in reply to some criticism of mo as First Sen Lord: Our Fleets are 50 per cent, more at sea, and wo hit, the target 50 per cent, more than we,did two years ago. In the first year there were 2000 more misses than hits! In the second year there were 2000 more hits than misses! Tho very first thing I did when I returned to tho Admiralty as First Sea Lord for those seven months in the first year of the war was instantly to get back Sir Percy Scott into the fighting arena. I ,had but ono answer to all his detractors and to the opposition to his return;

"Ho hits the target!" He also was maliciously maligned. I don't mean to say that Sir Pory Scott indulges in soft, soap towards his superiors. I don't think be ever poured hot water down anybody's back. Let rs thank God be didn't! I have repeatedly said (and I reiterate it whenever I get the chancel that Nelson, was'nothing if lie was not insubordinate. Nelson's four immortal big fights are brilliant and everlasting testimonies to tho virtues of self-asser-tion, -self-reliance, and contempt of authority. But of Nelson and the Nelsotiic attributes I treat in another place. Suffice it to say of Sir Percy Scott that it was ho and he alone who made the first- start of tho Fleet's bitting the enemy and not missing him. Lord Kelvin. Of all tho famous men I have known, Lord Kelvin had the greatest brain. Ho went to sea with mo in many now ships that I commanded . Once, in a bleak March east wind at Sheorness, I found him on deck on a high pedestal exposed to the piercing blast watching his wonderful compass, and be had only a very thin coat on. I said. "For goodness sake, Sir William, como down and put on a great-coat." Ho said: "No, thank you; I am mure- warm. I've got several vests on." His theory was thafit was much warmer wearing many thin vests than one thick oiu-, as the interstices of one were up by tho next one, and so on. I explained this afterwards, as I sat one day at lunch next To the Emperor of Russia, when ho asked me to explain ;ny youth and good health, and I hoped that he would follow Lord Kelvin's example, as I did. Lord Kelvin got his idea of a number of thin vests instead of one thick one from tho Chinese, who in many ways are our superors. For instance, a Chinaman, like an ancient Greek or Homaii. maintains that the liver is the seat of the human affections. We beljevo that the heart is. So a. Chinese always offers his hand and his liver to the young lady of bis choice. Neither do they ever kiss each oilier in China. Confucius stoppetFit because tho lips are the most susceptible portion of the human body to infection. When two Chinese meet," they rub their knees with their hands, and say "Ah!" with a deep breath. A dear friend of mine wont to ihe Viceroy of Nankin to inquire how his newly-raised army was getting on with tho hugo consignment of magnificent rifles sent out from England for its use; Tho Chiuesn Viceroy told nw friend ho was immensely pleased with those rifles, and the reports made to him showed extraordinary accuracy, as the troops bit tho target every time Tho Viceroy sent.njy friend up in a Chinese gunboat to see. the army. When my friend landed he was received bv'tiio Inspector-General of Musketry, who was a peacock feather mandarin, and taken to see the soldiers firing. To my friend's amazement, the sojdiers were firing ai .the targets placed only a few hundred yards off, and be explained to the mandarin that these wonderful rifles fitted with telescopic sights were , meant for long Tangos, and their accuracy was wonderful. The mandarin replied to iinu: "Look here! my orders from the Viceroy are that every man in the army should hit the target, because these rifles are so wonderfully good, and so thoy do, and the Viceroy is very pleased at my reports.". And he added, "You know, we go back 2000 years before 5 our people in our knowledge of the world."

Lord Kelvin had a wonderful gift of being ab!o to pursue abstruse investigations in the hubbub or a drawing-room full of visitors. He ivoukl produce i> large green book oyt of a gamekeeper's pockot ho had at the back of his coat, and suddenly go ahead with figures. ) had an interesting episode once. Sir William Thomson, as he then was, had como with me for tho first voyage •■• .i new big cruiser that I commanded. I had arranged for various I'esponsiblo persons to report to me at 8 a.m. how various parts of tho ship were behaving. One of them reported that a livet was loose, and there was -a, slight leak. I said casually, "I wonder how much wnter would come in if the rivet came out altogether." Sir William ■n-as sitting next me at breakfast, very much enjoying eggs and bacon, and lie asked the officer: "How big is the livet?" and whereabouts it was, etc. Tho officer left, and Sir William went on with his eggs and bacon, and I talked to Sir Nathaniel Barnaby on tue other- side of me, who was the designer of the ship that we were in. Presently Sir William, in a mild voice, never having ceased his eegs and bacon, said so much water would come in. Sir N. Barnaby thereupon worked it out on paper, and said to Sir William, "You made a good guess." lie replied, "T didn't guess. I worked it out."

Kelvin the Middy. Tho midshipmen idolised Lord Kelvin, and they were very intimate with him. I heard one of them, who was four-foot-nothing, explain to Sir William how to make a. magnet. Sir William listened to the midshipman's lecture, on magnetism with the greatest'deference, and gave tho littlo boy no , idea of what a little ass he ' ,was to be talking to the greatest man on earth on the subject of magnetism. The same little boy took the time, for him in observing the lighthouse Hashes, and Sir William wrote a splendid letter t« "The Times\" pointing out that tho intervals of darkness should be tho exception, and the flashes of light the rule, in a lighthouse, whereupon the Chief Engineer of the Lighthouse Department traversed Sir William's facts. Tho little boy came up to Sir William and asked him if he had read the letter, and lio hadn't, so he told' hiin of it, and then asked Sir William if lie would like, to write to "The Times" to corroborate Mm. Sir William thanked-hiin sweetly, but said he would take no notice, as thev would alter the flashes, and so they did. This little boy was splendid. He playc'l 13e a Machiavellian trick. We had mi nss one night as officer 'of the watch, nnd in the middle watch J was nearly jerked nut of my cot by a heavy squall striking the ship. I rushed up on decic (laining torrents) and we got in what uas left of the sails, nnd T came down soaked through and bitterly cold, and onthe main deck I met my young friend, the little midshipman, with a smoking hot bowl of cocoa. I never enjoyed anything more in my life, and I blessed the little boy, but it suddenly occurred to me that ho was dry as a bone. I said, "How is it you aro dressed?" Ho said:

to "I am midshipman of the watch." I said: "The devil you arc! How is it vnu aren't wet?" "Well, Sir," ho said "I thought I should be host doing my duty by going below and making yon r. howl of cocoa." I felt I had sold myself, lileo Esau, for a moss of pottage. Ho was a splendid boy, and lie wrote mo periodically till he died. Mr. Gladstone's Prophecy, Previously in this chanter I mentioned Mr. Gladstone. I sat" next to him at dinner once. At the other side of him was a very beautiful woman, bill: «he was struck dumb by awe of Mr. Gladstone, so he turned round to mo and asked mo if I had ever been in China. Yes, I had. And lip asked me who were the best missionaries. I said the Roman Catholics were the most successful, on they wore the Chinese dress, wti'o untrimmollcd by families, so they got better amongst the people in the interior, but furthermore in their chapels they represented our Saviour and His Apostles with pigtails owl dressed as Chinamen. Yes, ho said, he remembered that, and he told me the name of tho head of the Roman Catholic Mission, ivhose name I bad forgotten, and said to mo that the Pope considered he had gone too far in that respect, and had recalled him. That had happened some 20 years previously, and I had forgotten all about it. Someone said what a pity 'hat all that' is now being said is being lost. Mr. Gladstone said: "Nothing is lost. Science will one day take off tho walls of this room what we have been say.ing." This was years before tho g'amophono and the dictaphone and the telephone. Ho told us a great deal alxmt Abraham and pigs, and why Abraham was so dead against them, and how he, Gladstone, had been driven by Daniel O'Comiell in a four-in-hand, and how tho Bishops in his early days were so much handsomer than now. One Bishop ho specially named was called "Tho'Beauty of Holiness." When ho left, he asked me to walk home with \lm\ which I did. Iks. Gladstone said, seated insido tho brougham which was waiting at trie door, "Come in, William." He said, "No, lam going to walk with this young man." It wits midnight, and Piccadilly was quite alive. He was living with Lady Frederick Cavendish, I think, at Carlton Gardens. We were nearly run over, as he was regardless of the traffic. I remember his saying, "Do right, and you can never suffer for it." I thought of that when, in my own case later on, it was "Athanasius contra mundiim." I was urged to attack only one vested interest at a time, but I said, "No; if you kick everyone's shins at the same timo they won't, trouble about their neighbours," and it succeeded; but alas! I.gave up ono tiling, which was tho real democratic nith and marrow, tho free education of tho. naval officer, and a competence from tho moment of entry, and open to all. King Edward said to me about this, "You're n Socialist" I said that a white shirt doesn't imply tho best brain. Wo have '10 million to select from, and wo. restrict our selection to about onefortieth of tho population. <

W. T. Stead. While on personalities, I should like to sav a little on oSio of the best friends I ever had, and in my opinion tho greatest of all journalists. Lord Moriev. once told me that ho had never known the equal of W. T. Stead in his astounding gift of catching tiie popular .feeling. Ho was absolute integrity and im feared no man. I myself have heard him tackle a Prime Minister liko a terrier a rat. I liavo known him to go lo a packed meeting and scathe the whole mob of them. Ho neycr thought of money; he only thought of truth. Ho might have been a rich man if he hadn't told the truth I know it. When, ho was over sixty ho performed a journalistic, feat, that was wondrous. By King Edward's positive orders a cordon was arranged round the battle-cruiser Indomitable, arriving late at night at Cowes' with the Prince of Wales on board, to rrovent tho Press being a nuisance. Stead, in a small boat, dropped down with the tide from al(c-ad, and swarmed ui) a rope ladder under the bows, about thirty feet high, and then along a sort of greasy pole, known to sailore as ,the lower boom, talked to one of the officers, who na--1 -ally supposed he couldn't bo there without permission; and the "'Daily Mail" the next morning had tho most perfect digest I have ever read of perhaps one of flic most wonderful passages ever mado. This big battle-cruiser, encumbered with tlio heaviest guns known, and with hundreds and hundreds of tons of armour on her side, beat the Mnuretania/tlie greyhound of the seas, built of gingerbread, carrying no cargo, and shaped for no other purpose than -for 'speed and luxury. Stead always told mo he would dio in his boots. Strife was his portion, he said. I am not sure that mv friend Arnold While would not have shot him at sight in tho Boer War, Stead was a pro-Boer, and so was 1. I simply loved Botha, and Botha gavo mo great words. He said: "English was Hie business language of the globe"—that's good! Of course, ovory genius has a strain of queorness. Does not the poet say, "Great wits are- sure to madness near "allied"? I remember a book which, had a great circulation, entitled "The Insanity of Genius." I very nearly wrote a letter to "The Times," only I was afraid they miffht think 'me mud. and I was afraid that Admiral Fitzgerald might not think me modest (see his letter in "The Times" of September 8, ' 1919). Tins was my letter to "The Times":— "Genius is not insanity, it only means the mail is before his time. That's all." That was the whole of the letter. Without saying a word to me pr even letting me know, in a few hasty diours Stead wrote in the "Review of Reviews" in February., 1910, the most extraordinarily (aßcmrato resume of every date I nnd'namc connected with my career. It I have taken any other man a ! month. However, he made one great I mistake in it. He only spoke in it, like all other things that have been said ' of mo, of "the full corn in flic car"! j What really is a man's life is the en- } durance anil the adversity and the nonrecognition, and the humiliating slights and the fighting, morning, noon, and night, of early lifo. That, brings fortune. I here insert a letter kindly lent mo by Lord Eiher. As it, was written on tl\.-> pnur of Hie moment an dnut of the abundance of the heart, I give it verba I im.—

April 22, 1912. Hotel Excelsior, Naples. This loss of dear old S'»nd numbs- me: CromwoP and Martin Luther rolled into one. And such a big heart. Such great emotions. Ton must v.T'te something. All I've read quite inadequate. The telegrams bore say be was to the forefront with tin- women and children, putting them in Hie boats! T c-.in ?o 0 him! and probably sing!-' "Halleluiah." and encouraging the «hin's band to play cheerfully.' He told 'in"? be would die. in his lirof.i. So lie hv-- And a fine doaHi. As a boy he had threepence a we"k nnelcet-nioncy. One: penny bought Shakespeare in weriklv parts, the other two pennies to his God for. ip : «=inns. And Ike result was he Vcanio, editor of a big newspaper at 22! And he iras a nv~int'"ry himself all his life. Fearless even when alone, bol'ovfiig in his God— the Chi] of truth—and his enemies always rued it when they fought him. Tie was an exploder of "gas-bn-'s" and the. terror of liars Ho'_ wa= called a wild man" because be said "Tw--> Wis to one." He was at "Berlin—the Hi?b Personage said to Win, "TWt be fr.Vhfenced!" Stead replied to the All HighcH. "Ob. no! wo won't! for every Pi'oa<bioiight vou bhild we will build iwoP' That was "i'li" pen wis of the orv "Two lcels to one." T ha''" a note of if. made at/the (im« for my "Rcfleet.'ons." But. my ■near friend, nut your concise pen to paper for our Cromwellia.n Saint. He dcyrvps it. Yours Alwavo. HSHF.K.