SOME FISHER SAYINGS.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXII, Issue 65, 18 March 1910, Page 2

SOME FISHER SAYINGS.

The famous reorganiser of the Navy vacated his post in January, and London, papers to hand this week contain appreciations and depreciations of his five years' work at the Admiralty, and some interesting stories and dicta illustrative of his powerful 2)ersonality. Sir John Fisher (fe.w recognise him as Lord Kilverstone) is a lover of sayings and phrases. "History is a series of exploded maxims," he is fond of saying, adding, "but Nelson is greater than ever." A Daily News writer tells us that Nelson is the admiral's great hero. In the ex-Sea Lord's opinion Nelson's greatest saying was not the immortal Trafalgar signal, but: "He would be a fool who fought an enemy ten to one when he could fight him a hundred to one." He also had a great admiration for the companion dictum that numbers alone can anmihiliate, which he says Napoleon stole and converted into, "God is on the side of the big battalions." "Life is phrases," he says. "It condenses itself into maxims which you have to go on repeating until you have made them current coin and worn down the opposition." He has a fine confidence in Britain's capacity to defend herself successfully at sea. "I believe we are the lost tribes," he once remarked humorously, as he moved his finger over the map of the world. "See how Providence has looked after us." It is said that he instituted a system at the Admiralty by which the position of every German merchantman all over the world was marked daily on a map, together with the position of every British warship overseas. The story of the installation of wireless telegraphy at the Admiralty is characteristic of the man. He wanted "wireless" to keep in touch with the Fleet. The Post Office objected. He replied by ordering some naval men to instal the apparatus. When the Post Office wanted to know who authorised it, he said, "No one. I was only trying to see if it would work before applying for permission." The installation, of course, was not interfered with.