MORE ABOUT FISHER

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 83, 5 October 1920, Page 7

MORE ABOUT FISHER

A PROPHECY OF 1905

(FROM OUR OTfN CORREBPOKDSIIT.)

LONDON, 15th August,

There is stated to hei a letter in existence, written by the late Lord Fisher in 1905, which may go dpwn to history as one of the most remarkable forecasts on record. It contained, two prophecies, both of which have been fulfilled to the letter. They were these : There would be war with Germany in 1914, and Captain Jejlicoe would be the Admiralissimo. PENNILESS ENTRY TO NAVY. Recalling the brutalities practised when he first entered the Navy, Lord Fisher wrota in the Times : "For instance, the day I joined as a little boy, I saw eight men flogged—and I fainted at the sight. I entered the Navy penniless, friendless, and forlorn. While my messmates were having jam, I had to go without. While their stomachs wot full, mine was oftep empty. I have always had to fight like hell, and fighting like hell has made, me what I am. Hunger and thirst ara the way to Heaven! "The chief object in those days seemed to be, not to keep your vessel efficient for lighting, but to keep the deck as white as snow, and all the ropes taut. We midshipmen were allowed only a basin of water to wash in, and the basin was inside one's sea-chest; and if anyone spilt a drop of water on the deck he was made to holy-stone it himself. And that reminds me, as I once told Lord Esher, when I was a young first lieutenant, the First Sea Lord told me that he never washed when he went to sea, and ho didn't see 'why the devil the midshipnient should want to wash now !' " WALKING BISCUITS. Lord Fisher, writing of his early days a.t sea, said:—"ln the first ship I was in we had some rare old ship's biscuit supplied in what were known as 'breadbagfi.'^ These bread-bags were not preservative ; they were creative. A favourHe amusement was to put a bit of biscuit on the table and see how soon all of it would walk away. In fact, one midshipman could gamble away his 'tot' of rum with another midshipman by pitting me bit of biscuit against another. Anyhow, when ever you took a bit of biscuit to eat it you always tapped ii edgeways on the table to let the 'grown-ups' get away." One of Lord Fisher's last letters—written less than a month ago—began with these words : "Forgive my damnable reiteration ! 'Reiteration is the secret of conviction!' It sells Buggins's soap and somebody's littie liver pills ! Advertising isc. the soul of business: and the secret of political success. As a dear friend once said to me (he's very eminent!) : 'I don't eire a d—n what they say of me co long as they say something.' (And they have 1 !) Advertising is reiteration!" SCATHING ATTACK ON WASTE. Here is an example of his "straight from the shoulder" method of correspondence: "I told you the absolute (and uncontradicted) truth in one of my letters : 'That wo had fought more—lost more—and spent more—and got the least —out of the wai than any other nation !' I should have added (and I now supply the omission): 'We are taxed more!' Why? Because the House of Commons encourages scandalously wasteful Estimates. What does every one know and say? 'That this country must spend less and earn more.' But how can we when rascally waste is slurred over by an effete House of Commons?" j MIDDIES IN THE RENOWN. I When Lord Fisher had recently hauled I down his flag as Commander in Chief I in tlie Mediterranean and was installed in Admiralty House, Portsmouth, three young lieutenants, in very new uniforms, entreed the drawing-room after a dinner which had been given to Prince Henry of Prussia. Lord Fisher at once beckoned the three young men to the spot where he was talking to the Prince. "Allow me, eir," he remarked, "to present to you three young officers who were with me in the Renown as midshipmen. They are all now lieutenants. Favouritism is the secTet of efficiency." This was a phrase to which, the Admiral was devoted, and he justified it by explaining that a commander had opportunities of studying the officers under his orders, of sifting the brilliant from the dull, and of assisting the former; in that sense it was true that "favouritism is the secret of efficiency."