INNOVATIONS IN THE NAVY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143838, 12 July 1912, Page 7

INNOVATIONS IN THE NAVY.

People of all parties in England are Beginning to agree, says the Sydney Morning Herald's London corespondent, that Mr. -Winston Churchill, whatever his political views and actions, is certainly filling in a manner beyond expectation his post as Eirst Lord .of the Admiralty, \iewed at first by some naval authorities as likely to prove an unnecessary nuisance, he soon showed that he understood the Navy’s needs, and that he was resolved to satisfy those needs, and he is rapidly converting people to a recognition of his hign abilities in this department. When Mr. Churchill resolves to do a thing, he does not let the mere consideration that that thing is unusual or unprecedented stop him half way. lake, for instance, his promotion quite lately of. Commander Samson, who distinguished himself by his aeroplane flights at Weymouth, and his sending of the Second lord of the Admiralty to take part in certain fleet exercises. Both these actions were contrary to established precedent, yet Mr. Churchill performed them without a thought of conventional prejudice. A far more important innovation is his abolition of- the custom of entirely changing the crews of warships every two years. Hitherto, no matter to how high a standard of efficiency the officers of a ship might have brought their men, at the end of the two years out they went, leaving their ship in the same position as any other uncommissioned vessel, ftplendid work had often been effected in the two years. The Herald’s correspondent citee the case of a battleship- which in 1904, when a particular captain joined her, was last in the fleet in nearly all manoeuvres, and was notorious m the Navy for the numbers of her men punished for broken leave. At the end of the terra she had beaten all others in the matter of evolutions, and there were no absentees. Even in a case of this- kind, officers and men were not permitted to go on with their 1 work on the ship, and attain still higher efficiency- They were split up and divided among fifty different ships, where the same work of drilling and organising was started anew. Mr. Churchill, with insight, saw that this did not make for efficiency, and promptly put a stop to it. Now, ships will have a continuous crew, not a permanent crew, for that would lead to stagnation, but one constantly renewing’itself and passing men m and out, as in a regimental depot. This new arrangement means that a ship’s fame will not pass with the passing of her commission, bu£ will grow and endure.