CORRESPONDENCE. [With the view of promoting the interests of the United Services, this department of the MAGAZINE is open to all authenticated communications, and therefore the Editor cannot hold himself responsible for the opinions expressed.] THE ACTIVE LISTS OF CAPTAINS AND COMMANDERS OF THE ROYAL NAVY. Sir,-Will no man of position, who knows the real state of the Active Lists of Captains and Commanders, R.N., come forward and tell the House of Commons and the public generally, how things now stand, letting them know, for example, that the junior captain may expect to wait six or seven years for employment, if indeed he is not wiped out by the Compulsory Retirement Clause after seven years on half pay without ever commanding a ship at all. After the lists are reduced to what Mr. Childers considers the proper numbers, viz.: 150 captains, and 200 commanders (the present numbers are 237 of the former, and 337 of the latter), his retirement scheme will doubtless keep matters in a sound state, but at present we are worse off than ever. I thought, that as a commander, my prospects looked sufficiently unpromising, but when I had listened to the growl of one of the junior captains, and tested the validity of it (the growl) by an examination of Navy List, I saw that I was like a young bear with all my troubles to come. There are 101 men between the last captain employed in regular turn, and the junior of that rank. Including seven flag-ships and all troop-ships, there are now thirty ships in commission of the class which, as a rule, captains command on first appointment. Assuming that each officer holds his ship for three years, and many hold them for a longer period, vacancies will occur as follows:-three in 1870, five in 71, seven in 72, and fifteen in 73; following out this investigation, it will be found that the junior captain will come on turn for employment in ten years, or allowing a good percentage of deaths, retirements, refusals to serve, &c., say that he will just save his bacon by getting a ship a few months before his seven years are up. The prospect is bad enough for him, but I wish to point out how bad it is also for the country to have its men-of-war commanded by men who, instead of being constantly exercised in the duties of their profession, are allowed to rust on shore for six or seven years together. And this objection applies in the present day with very great force. Before steam, armour-plating, great variety of construction of ship, and heavy guns with all their accompanying machinery came into the Service, a man might cease going to sea for a few years, and on resuming his active career find things much as they were when he left them; but such is not the case now, and, assuming, as I think we may fairly do, that a captain of a ship is not thoroughly efficient unless he perfectly understands the very complicated machine, called a manof-war, which he commands, we may fairly say that the man who has been rusting on shore for six or seven years is not the officer that our ideal captain should be. Moreover, circulars pile themselves up to that extent, that unless a man takes them in one by one he is lost when he comes to try to act upon them, and when a culprit is brought before him his chief consideration (unless he happens to be fond of foolscap and wiggings from Admiralty clerks) must be, not whether a certain punishment may be a just one, but whether it is strictly in accordance with all the numerous instructions and circulars there are on the subject. Who on earth would employ a lawyer or a doctor who had been laying by for seven years, positively losing his knowledge of his profession day by day instead of gradually improving in it? In what way could a few thousands, out of the many expended yearly on our Navy, be better spent than in at once retiring such a number of captains and commanders as would once and for all place the lists in a healthy condition, that is to say, reducing them to such numbers as Mr. Childers himself declares to be desirable, and which would ensure the reasonably continuous employment of officers, say for example, that the junior captain should get a ship in two years instead of six and a half, and that no commander should be more than one year on half pay at any one time. The men that should be induced to go from the captain's list are some 75 of the 101 before referred to. Getting men to retire from the top of the list won't do much good, and the men in the middle who are now in the full swing of employment after having waited years (though mind not so long as men have to wait now) to get it, most assuredly won't budge. Why not try the virtue of ready money? A thousand pounds down, in addition to any retirement the officer may be entitled to would induce many a man to take himself out of the way, and even if £1,500 were offered to the number of officers proposed (seventy-five) it would only amount to £112,500, the interest on which, at three and a quarter per cent, would increase the Navy estimates in perpetuity by the astounding amount of £3,656 5s. a year, or putting it in another light, as the rank and file of the Navy cost about £60 a year a man, suppose we reduce the numbers voted by sixty seamen and marines. Apply an equal sum of money to inducing one hundred commanders under the seniority of 1862 to retire, and both lists would then be placed in a healthy state. Could the country invest £225,000 in a manner that would give a better return for the money? Had Mr. Childers' scheme had the effect of reducing the lists to the desired extent, it would have been equivalent to raising officer's half pay, since it would have increased the ratio of full to half pay time. If I am not mistaken, Mr. Childers pointed this out in the House of Com mons. But unfortunately the lists have not been so reduced, and the ratio remains about the same, so that the half pay has not been either directly or indirectly increased. Figures could be brought forward to show that the ratio has increased, but the persons advancing them would omit to take into account that a very large proportion of those who have retired were men who would not have been again employed, and whose existence, therefore, on the active lists did not practically affect the question. I touch upon this point because it is now rumoured that Mr. Lowe is about to have a tooth drawn in the shape of an increase of half pay to certain ranks of executive officers. Now there are 149 captains, and 165 commanders at present unemployed, increasing their half pay by only two shillings and sixpence a-day would cost the country £14,326 a year. If instead of increasing the half pay, men were induced to retire as I propose, the cost of the measure (£225,000,) would be liquidated in twenty-one years, principal and interest, by the saving effected of £14,326 a year through abstaining from increasing the half pay. And it is to be remembered that I have not taken into account the saving effected by leaving the lieutenant's half pay as it is, and their future interests would be so much benefitted by the proposed measure that they might under such circumstances be well satisfied to let their half pay remain as it is. In connection with this subject, I may mention for the information of the curious in such matters, that when a commander is promoted to captain he at once jumps from £182 10s to £191 12s 6d half pay per annum. He might really without being very extravagant spend his first year's increase of income in "wetting" his commission. Many, in discussing the important question of employment of officers have spoken of "Justice to officers;" I speak only of what England owes to herself; viz.: to have whatever sized fleet she may see fit to keep in commission commanded by men who are well up to the mark as officers, through being, first, well selected, then well trained, and last, though not least, constantly exercised in the duties of their profession. I believe that this last qualification may be promptly obtained by the measure I have suggested, and considering the advantages to be gained the necessary expenditure is not large. I close with a simile. If a doctor is called in to attend a patient who by a long persisted in course of unwise living has brought himself to a bad state of health, he does not content himself with dieting the patient, and so expect him to recover; no, he first of all cures (or kills) him, and then by dieting strives to prevent his having a relapse. Now our medico, Mr. Childers, has not cured our active lists of the distemper of overcrowding, he has only given us a scheme of retirement which will doubtless after the lists are reduced to their proper numbers (about the end of the present century,) keep them in a sound condition; but what we want is to arrive at that condition, and that quickly. No promotions should be made to fill any vacancies caused by retirements under a temporary arrangement as such as that proposed in this paper. O. S. 66 SOCKET-FIXED IRON TRIPOD MASTS. Sir. The short, sharp, fearful official requiem on the 'Captain,' reads as follows: 'Captain' foundered in the night. She was close to this ship at two o'clock this morning. Sudden S.W. gale, very heavy squalls. At day-break 'Captain' gone! All hands (500 officers and men) perished. This afternoon, boats and some spars found. A. MILNE, Admiral, K.C.B., H.M. Ship, Lord Warden,' off Finisterre, Sept. 7, 1870."-Let us have no more Captains,' no more iron-hulled, irontripod masted ships of war, standing all a-taunt at the bottom of the ocean (for with masts and sails still erect, she must naturally have righted going down), manned with a skeleton crew of hundreds of the gallant dead, a warning, a mockery to the living naval world, floating above. "Struck by a squall, thrown on her beam ends," ready axes seized, masts cut away, ship righted, restored to an even keel, and jury-masted, to proceed to the nearest port without the loss of a man, or a plank, was by no means an extraordinary occurrence, when the noble old forest tree had the ocean all to itself. But in these our mo dern days, the iron-tripod masts, the iron shrouds, and iron stays, hug the iron ship to the death, to become a vast iron coffin to her hapless, (probably, as in the case of the 'Captain') sleeping creweven until the sea shall give up her dead. Is there no remedy, nothing to supply the place of the ever ready axe of old, as regards these iron tripod-masted, iron-rigged ships, in such cases? Let the foot of each iron tripod-mast, instead of being an unconquerable, unapproachable fixture in the depths of the ship, fit into a sufficiently strong iron socket, rising above the decks, its continuation below being secured by the usual mast fixing, the upper mast being fastened in the socket by a short lever or screw sufficiently powerful bolt or catch, which could be instantly acted upon, in case of a ship, under the influence of a squall, or a heavy sea, evincing a determination to float on her broadside instead of her keel (with its almost immediate fearful consequences), and the tripod masts, being in a sloping direction, would draw instantly. As to the socket offering any impediment to the fall of the mast in such a case, it must be remembered, that even as regards iron-rigged, iron-masted ships, the mast depends, not upon the support of the iron stay, "as a stay," but like its hempen predecessor, upon its drawing, pulling action; therefore there can be no reason why the above deck iron socket, should not be connected with its lower fixed continuation by means, of a sufficiently strong iron joint, which allowing the socket to decline, would offer no hindrance (when the short lever and screw pin, or catches, were disconnected) to the masts drawing clear of the sockets, going overboard with the slightest roll, and immediately sinking. In case, also, of a ship being in peril of foundering from a leak, (a dangerous thing where iron is concerned), she might thus be instantly relieved from an enormous weight of top hamper, and give her pumps, her crew, and England some chance for action, life, home and ship. Should my socket and pin tripod-masts cause a smile, I would advise the smiler to refresh, or extend, his mechanical experience, by contemplating the working of a thousand horse-power steam engine, where such things abound. I conclude with the following unanswerable evidence from the Times, quoted in the Broad Arrow of Sept. 17, 1870, as to the foregoing statements, and the remedy here proposed by me. Captain Sherard Osborne, says, "that after long conversation, he and Captain Coles agreed, that if the leverage of sails and masts, canted the 'Captain' over beyond a certain point, the danger of her not recovering herself would be great." And, again, "the topsails of the 'Captain' threw her on her beam ends, and kept her from righting." It was remarked, also, that the sails were of no great value; but I venture to imagine, that there are circumstances in a ship's life, and those of constant occurrence, which render an additional motive power, (independant of her steam), indispensable; for instance, to save fuel on a cruising ground, or a long voyage, in case of coal supply falling short, or not to be had, or serious damage to the engines, in such cases, sails become the life in fact, of the vast ship, and perfectly safe even when supported by iron tripod-masts, but, only if absolutely certain, instantaneous means exist, of getting rid of the dangerous pressure, from an unusually severe squall, or hurricane. Without the power of canvas, the ship would, in fact, often stand the chance of becoming an enormous log upon the water, rolling her guns and turrets out, and perhaps starving to death her despairing crew. The only objection apparently possible to the plan of "socket fixed tripod masts," is, that in case of a capsize, or an inclination to capsize, the leeward mast fastenings, would be under water, and, therefore, beyond reach at the moment when life and death were in the balance. To obviate this, let the tripod mast bolt shafts be "under the deck," and continued on to a common centre, their terminations to be cogged on to the cogged capital of a perpendicular central iron revolving column, or columns, in the form of a deck support; a few poles round its base at a proper distance from the cabin floor, and a few vigorous turns, with some short iron capstan bars, would release all three bolts of each tripod-mast simultaneously. The solid square bolts, of sufficient strength for the purpose, need not enter the mast more than three or four inches, which would be quite enough to give full powers of retention of mast in the socket, until their withdrawal. The inclination of the ship would scarcely prevent Jack, at such a moment, from clinging to his mark, the revolving column, which upon the excellent maxim of aye ready," might be furnished with a foot rope, ready to become pendant, and a bracket for the little iron capstan bars, instead of the axe of old. The pot goes nine hundred and ninety-nine times to the well, but it breaks the thousandth. One 'Captain' gives a surfeit of the horrors of an instantaneous change, for five hundred human beings, in the full power and responsibility of manhood, from warm vigorous life, to the cold obstruction of death by drowning-from dreamy calm repose to struggling despair-from the warm comfortable hammock, to iron entombment in the ocean's depths-from time into eternity! Aye, for a century! 66 In conclusion I would call attention to the fact recorded in the papers of the day, viz, that they were about to reduce the length of our iron masts," from dread of the danger, the very danger which has already found its fulfilment to the utmost, and which my plan is calculated to annihilate, and although of course, such reduction might seriously affect the sailing powers of a ship, particularly in latitudes (much frequented by the British flag), where light-canvased top-gallants and royals, and other sky-scrapers are kept full, whilst the heavier folds of the lower sails are hanging loose against the masts. The sad fate of the 'Captain' must have left a certain "turn the turtle" apprehension upon the men's minds, (if the minds of British sailors may be supposed to be ever open to such things), every time the ship heels over to a sudden squall a feeling which might increase, until the sea-boy, although willing enough as of yore, "to perch aloft upon the giddy mast," would make a mental reservation, that that mast should not be of iron, and our ironclads in consequence might find it difficult to get crews. Whereas such a feeling, if existing, would instantly vanish before the conviction that certain means were at hand for instantaneously launching the whole of the ponderous iron top hamper overboard into the depths, should circumstances demand it. Rigging may easily be brought into existence again-the gallant crew, never-in this world. Cheltenham, Nov. 10, 1870. I am, &c. J. E. ACKLOM, CRITICAL NOTICES. THE HISTORY OF OUR RESERVE FORCES, with Suggestions for their Organization as a Real Army of Reserve. With a Map and Statistical Tables. By a Militia Officer. (W. Mitchell and Co.) Reserving the right to differ on some matters of detail, we yet can very heartily endorse the concluding sentence of this pamphlet: "The whole of the defects in the Militia, Yeomanry, and Volunteers may be summed up in the want of Organization." This is most true; and, ac |