NAVY NEEDS GEDDES

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 155, 28 December 1918, Page 8

NAVY NEEDS GEDDES

LLOYD GEORGE'S CHOICE PRAISED

BY WELL-KNOWN NAVAL

CRITIC

Arthur H. Pollen, one of Great Britain's foremost naval critics, and inventor of many of tho range-finding devices now in use, said recently that the appointment of Sir Eric Campbell Geddes m FirntLord of the British Admiralty was "the most important single political event that has taken place since the beginning of the war" Mr. Pollen, who interpreted the significance of the event for the Evening Post, said of Sir Eric that he was a man who aroused no antagonisms and made no enemies, although he "shatters tradition*, blows office into the air and robs heads of departments of a, thousand cherished adjuncts to their authority " A result of the appointment, Mr Pollen predicted, would be "a rejuvenation of many branches of Admiralty activity," and an opportunity to the younger men in the British. NaVy to"work wonders." "The appointment of Sir Eric Campbell Geddes as First Lord of the British Admiralty is the mont important single political event that has taken place since the beginning of the war, and for £ very simple reason," said Mr. Pollen, who is stopping at the Hotel Vanderbilt. "This war is a sea war. It is a sea war being waged by the British Navy. The efficiency of the Britisn Navy depends upon the higher command. The character of the higher command depends upon the ability," the character, the. energy, the insight, the imagination of the civilian chief of the, Admiralty CALLED THE ABLEST MAN ■ "It has been quite obvious from the beginning that the ablest man Great Britain could produce ought to be the First Lord of the Admiralty. The miracle is that the ablest man is now First Lord.of the Admiralty. I. have said recently that the most important war command in the world k that held by the Secretary of the American navy, and the officers and staff who work with him. I said that because I assumed that no change could take place in the headship of the British navy "But the miracle has happened, the change has taken place. Carson ha« gone, and Geddes, proved in four other crucial tests, has now a free hand to concert a naval policy with the best advice . that could be gotten,, and to choose his colleague*; and name those who are to execute their plans. "And he comes to the 'task assuming the chief strategic and political guidance of the navy after two months spent in mastering the civil, purchasing, and manufacturing 'side of the Admiralty's business. When Mr Lloyd George intervened in May, and, in response to vigorous criticism of expert writers in the press, intervened to reorganise the Admiralty, fronv within, I' pointed out that putting Geddes in command of the material side of the navy wm the one step in which Lloyd George could be sure of. himself. The man who created the Munitions Department knew exactly what he was doing, in giving Geddes. omnipotent power to do for the riavjr': what the Premier had done for thearhjy. "•I went on to say that a more im-portant-thing to do was to ccc that our, naya! forces were rightly used in war. ' I- 'thought it natural that Lloyd George would hesitate before intervening too drastically t on this side, but. I believed, nevertheless, that he would intervene as soon as he saw. his way clear. • "We have how, reached the next step. Geddes has made good, and the final step will not be long delayed. , We shall see a rejuvenation of many, branches of Admiralty activity, and once officers of the younger generation, trained in better principles of waT, theif judgment ripened' by the innumerable errors which the older generation have committed in the last few years, are given definite tasks by Geddes, they will, I think, work wonders. For the first time sines February it seems to me reasonable to say that, while the submarine may cause us costly losses in ships and goods,, and harrowing losses in men, we can definitely hope that it will now be impossible for the submarine to end the war in Germany's favour. Ido not see how this piece of news can be exaggerated" . ■.''■•■.'■■■■,■. . • In reply'to a question, Mr. Pollen then spoke of the noiseless and compelling personality .of the man who will rule the British Navy . "Geddes is an engineer and manager," he said. "The curious thing is that he was taken from the North-eastern Hailway, where/he was not even the General Manager. He was second in command, but his ability'was recognised, |iiot only by the railway world, but by all who had a general understanding of the brain resources of the. Empire. "The secret of his; success seems to be in that rarest of all gifts—the power of perceiving the essentials of any situation,'however complicated, with extreme simplicity If genius is the gift of seeing things as. they are, Geddes is a genius of the first order, and he is a, genius entirely impersonal in his handling of men and things,' quite fearless and quite'relentless in seeing that what he wants done is done. SHOOK UP THE ADMIRALTY. " It was said before he < had been in the Admiralty a week'the place had become unrecognisable. The tangled growth of a hundred years was swept off the ground as by a prairie fire, sothat heads 'of 'Departments actually found that they-could communicate with each other by. telephone; or by walking from one room to another across the corridor, and decisions were made in seconds that used only to be made in minutes. Those minutes were not minutes of time, however, but minutes of paper that passed from hand to hand; and 1 grew as each man consulted added an inclusive opinion. Urgent matters of policy thus often took ten days or a fortnight, not before being decided, but before the opinions were obtained. ; ' ■ > "The curiom thing about Geddes is that he excites no opposition and makes no enemies. He : shatters traditions, blows office rule's into the air, and robs heads of Departments of a thousand cherished adjuncts to their authority, and yet the whole thing goes through without resentment. The truth' is that where Geddes goe3, everyone, from the highest to the lowest, for the first time pulls his weight in the boat, and it is a curious trait of human nature that if you wish to excite the gratitude of your fellow men, the surest road to winning their esteem is to make them work ten times! as hard as they have ever worked before, but with one hundred times the visible result and success. "It is Geddes's clarity of wisdom, his strength of will, and his singleness of purpose that make him so great an exponent of the art of leadership." ■ Araons; the criticisms of naval experts, which Mr. Pollen referred to as having played such an important part in moving Lloyd George to intervene in the British Admiralty, Mr. Pollen's articles,, in Land and Water, are generally credited with having boerr the most important. Thus he is indirectly responsible foi the appointment of Sir Eric Campbell Geddes to' be Fi»t Lord of the Admiralty