LATE LORD FISHER

Hokitika Guardian, 14 July 1920, Page 3

LATE LORD FISHER

AN IMPRESSIVE FUNERAL, (Reuter’s Telegrams.) (Received This Dav at 12.25 p.m.) LONDON, July 13. Admiral Lord Fisher had an "impressive funeral. -Fiji naval honours were accorded. The route to Westminster Abbey wqs densely crowded. The coffin eyas borne on a gun carriage drawl) by blue-jackets, Eight Admirals acted as pallbearers. The congregation at the Abbey was representative of'all classes.

The motto of the late Admiral John Fisher was “Thorough.” He believed in the three It’s.—“ Ruthless, Relentless Remorseless.”—“l am sorry for your wife and children,” ho would say to an officer found lacking, but you must go. In war time you migh{ have be,on eoiirt. martialle'd and shot.” “Hie is "a good man at bluffing an enemy, hut he will permit of no bluffing when British sail, ors are concerned,”, was said of him. He carried the Nelson tradition info our modern navy. As Second Spa Lord Sir JoMU undertook and carried through thp revolution in the system of naval education, of which lie was particularly proud. As a delegate to Peace Conference at the Hague, Sir John Fisher was' personally very popular, but liable to cause his colleagues some anxiety owing to such outbursts as these:—“The humanising of war. You might as well talk of- humanising hell,!’ Whei) a silly ass at the Hague gqt up and talked about the amenities of civilised warfare, and putting your prisoners’ feet in hot water and giving them gruel, my reply, I regret tq gay,was considered totally unfit for publication. As if'war could be civilised!” Mr Harold Bcgbie wrote of. Lord Fisher in 1904: “In thp Navy Adpip'qi

Fisher is known as a cunning handler of ships, a hold fighter, and. a. crafty strategist. ‘Fisher,’ said an English Admiral, ‘is tlie ope pi an wo have got wlip ear, be compared to Nelson. If Bnilain were involved in a great naval war Fisher would achieve as great renown as that of Lord-' Nelson.’ His country never had occasion to demand her services in this direction, but he was destined to perform a duty little less important; to he the regenerator of its" Navy, to place it upon such an efficient footing that wlje}) the testing time came in 1914 it saved the world. But before he attained to the great post of First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, he proved his mptp] in potable directions.