admiralty. It has already been pointed out that the naval
lords, if they dissent from the estimates that are presented,
have no remedy but that of protest or resignation. Into the
controversies that have arisen as to the responsibility of the
several lords it is unnecessary to enter here. The Admiralty
Board possesses, in fact, the character of a council, and its
members can only be held responsible for their advice. It
has even been contended that, in the circumstances, it should
not be incumbent upon them to sign the navy estimates, and
there have been instances in which the estimates have been
presented to parliament without the signature of certain naval
lords. It is in any case obvious, as has been explained
above, that the ultimate responsibility must always rest
with the first lord and the cabinet, by whom the policy
of the country is shaped and directed. In the report of
the Hartington Commission in 1890 (the chairman of which
became 8th duke of Devonshire) to inquire into the civil
and professional administration of the Naval and Military
Departments, and the relation of these departments to each
other and to the treasury, the following recommendation occurs:
``On the first lord alone should rest the responsibility
of deciding on the provision to be made for the naval
requirements of the empire, and the existence of a council
should be held in no degree to diminish that responsibility.''
Two conditions primarily rule the determination as to the
strength of the navy. They are, the foreign policy of the
Cabinet, and, on the ground of practical expediency, the
amount of money available. ``The estimates and strength
of the navy,'' said Rear-Admiral Hotham before the select
committee on the navy estimates, 1888, ``are matters for
the cabinet to determine.'' ``Expense,'' said Sir Anthony
Hoskins, ``governs everything.'' The needs of the empire and
financial considerations, as it is scarcely necessary to remark,
may prove to be antithetical conditions governing the same
problem, and in practice it follows that the Admiralty Board
directs its operations in accordance with the views of the
government, but limited by the public funds which are known
to be available. Such considerations suggest a practical
limitation of responsibility, so far as the several lords
of the admiralty are concerned, but it may be presumed to
be their duty individually or collectively to place their
views before the first lord; and Lord George Hamilton told
the select committee of 1888 that, if his colleagues should
represent to him that a certain expenditure was indispensable
for the efficiency of the service, he would recognize
that all financial considerations should be put on one
side. The commissioners reported that this was the only
common-sense view of the matter, and that it was difficult
to see on what other footing the control of navy expenditure,
consistently with responsibility to parliament, could be placed.
Two practical considerations are bound up with the shipbuilding
programme--the carrying forward of the work in hand and the
new construction to be begun, since it is absolutely necessary
that proper provision should be made for the employment and
distribution of labour in the dockyards, and for the purchase
of necessary materials. Through the director of naval
construction and the director of dockyards, the controller
is kept informed as to the progress of work and the amount of
labour required, as also in regard to the building facilities
of the yards. These matters, in a general way, must form a
subject of discussion between the first naval lord and the
controller, who will report on the subject to the first
lord. The accountant-general, as the financial officer of the
Board, will be called upon to place the proposed estimates
upon a financial basis, and when the views of the cabinet
are known as to the amount of money available, the several
departments charged with the duty of preparing the various
votes will proceed with that work. The financial basis alluded
to is, of course, found in the estimates of the previous
year, modified by the new conditions that arise. There has
been in past times a haphazard character in our shipbuilding
programmes, but with the introduction of the Naval Defence
Act of 1889, which looked ahead and was not content with
hand-to-mouth provision, a better state of things has grown
up, and with a larger sense of responsibility, a policy
characterized by something of continuity has been developed.
Certainly the largest factor in the better state of things has
been the growth of a strong body of public opinion as to the
supreme value of the navy for national and imperial welfare.
Another important and related matter that comes before
the Board of Admiralty is the character and design of
ships. The naval members of the Board indicate the classes
and qualities desired, and it is the practice that the
sketch-design, presented in accordance with the instructions,
is fully discussed by the first naval lord and the controller,
and afterwards by the Board. The design then takes further
shape, and when it has received the final sanction of the
Board it cannot be altered without the sanction of the same
authority. A similar procedure is found in the other business
of the Admiralty Board, such as shore-works, docks and the
preparation of offensive and defensive plans of warfare--the
last being a very important matter that falls into the
operations of the Naval Intelligence Department, which has been
described, though not with perfect accuracy, and certainly
in no large sense, as ``the brain of the navy.'' That
department is under the direction of the first naval lord.
The shipbuilding programme may be described as the cornerstone
of the executive business of the admiralty, because upon it
depends very largely the preparation of all the other votes
relating to numbers, stores, victualling, clothing, &c. But
if the Admiralty Board is responsible through the first lord
for the preparation of the estimates, it is also charged
with the business of supervising expenditure. In this matter
the financial secretary plays a large part, and is directed
to assist the spending department of the admiralty in their
duty of watching the progress of their liabilities and
disbursements. Some notes on admiralty finance will be
found below (section 4). The shipbuilding votes set the
larger machinery of the admiralty in motion. The executive
departments, except in regard to the hulls and machinery of
ships and the special requirements of the director of works,
do not make purchases of stores, that work resting with the
director of navy contracts. Most of the important executive
and spending branches are in the department of the controller,
and it will be well, while we are dealing with the material
side of the navy, to describe briefly their character and
duties. The civil branches of the navy tributary to the
controller are those of the director of naval construction,
the engineer-in-chief, the directors of naval ordnance, of
dockyards and of stores, and the inspector of dockyard expense
accounts. The first duty of the controller is, as has been
explained, in relation to the design and construction of ships
and their machinery, and the executive officials who have
charge of that work are the director of naval construction
and the engineer-in-chief, whose operations are closely
interrelated. A vast administrative stride has been made in
this particular branch of the admiralty. The work of design
and construction now go forward together, and the admiralty
designers are in close touch with the work in hand at the
dockyards. This has been largely brought about by the
institution, in 1883, of the royal corps of naval constructors,
whose members interchange their duties between the designing
of ships at the admiralty and practical work at the
dockyards. It is through the director of naval construction
that many of the spending departments are set in motion, since
he is responsible both for the design of ships and for their
construction. It deserves to be noticed, however, that a
certain obscurity exists in regard to the relative duties of
the director of naval construction and the director of dockyards
touching constructive works in the yards. The former officer
has also charge of all the work given out to contract, though
it is the business of the dockyard officials to certify that
the conditions of the contract have been fulfilled. In all
this work the director of naval construction collaborates with
the engineer-in-chief, who is an independent officer and not a
subordinate, and whose procedure in regard to machinery closely
resembles that adopted in the matter of contract-built ships.
The director of naval ordnance is another officer of the
Controller's Department whose operations are very closely
related to the duties of the director of naval construction,
and the relation is both intimate and sustained, for in
the Ordnance Department everything that relates to guns,
gun-mountings, magazines, torpedo apparatus, electrical
fittings for guns, and other electrical fittings is centred.
A singular feature of this branch of administration is that
the navy long since lost direct control of ordnance matters,
through the duties connected with naval gunnery, formerly in
the hands of the master-general of the ordnance, and those of
the Board of Ordnance--a department common to the sea and land
services--being vested in 1855 in the secretary of state for
war. A more satisfactory state of things has grown up through
the appointment of the director of naval ordnance, taking the
place of the naval officer who formerly advised the director
of artillery at the War Office. Expenditure on ordnance has
also been transferred from the army to the navy estimates, and
a Naval Ordnance Store Department has been created. It cannot
be said that the condition is yet satisfactory, nor can it be
until the navy has control of and responsibility for its own
ordnance. The assistant-director of torpedoes is an officer
instituted at the admiralty within recent years, and his duty is
to assist the director of naval ordnance in all torpedo matters.
The director of dockyards replaced the surveyor of dockyards in
1885, at about which time the inspector of dockyard expense
accounts was instituted. It is upon the director of dockyards
(q.v.) that the responsibility of the controller devolves in
regard to the management of dockyards and naval establishments
at home and abroad, and to the performance of work in these
establishments, ship and boat building, maintenance, repairs and
refits. In this department the programme for work in the dockyards
is prepared, as well as certain sections of the navy estimates.
We now come to the Stores Department, with the director of
stores as its chief. This officer, about the year 1869,
took over the storekeeping duties previously vested in the
storekeeper- general. The Naval Store Department is charged
with the custody and issue of naval, as distinguished from
victualling and ordnance stores, to be used in naval dockyards
and establishments for the building, fitting and repairing of
warships. It has, however, no concern with stores that
belong to the Department of Works. The business of the
director of stores is also to receive and issue the stores
for ships of all classes in commission and reserve, and he
deals with a vast array of objects and materials necessary
for the fleet, and with coals and coaling. He frames the
estimates for his department, but his purchases are made
