Just back from the English Channel with the Submarines and am very enthusiastic!... We really must arrange to get the British Army to Sea somehow or other! Yesterday all the mice died in their cages and two of the crew fainted, but the young Lieutenant of the Submarine didn’t seem to care a d--n whether they all died so long as he bagged the Battleship he was after, and he practically got her and then he came up in his Submarine to breathe! Depend on it we shall have more “Niles” and “Trafalgars” so long as we continue to propagate such “young bloods” as this! But see how splendid if we could shove the same “ginger” into the young Military aspirants, and they all came from the same schools! but the whole secret is to catch them very young and mould them while they are then so plastic and receptive to be just what you want them. Another submarine had an explosion which made the interior “_Hell_” for some seconds (as the Submarine was bottled up and diving to evade a Destroyer who had caught her with a hook) but the Submarine Lieutenant saw them all d--d first before he would rise up and be caught. Another young fire-eater had his periscope smashed but bagged a battleship nevertheless by coming up stealthily to blow just like a beaver, and look round. _It really is all lovely!_ but what I am writing about is--_you must embark an Army Corps every year and give them sea training_. [“THE ARMY AND NAVY CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY.” I must here interpose a few words to explain that I had submitted an elaborate method of increasing the military efficiency of officers--first by very early entry as in the Navy--having free or State education for them--hence “Equal opportunity for all”: Officers’ pay of all ranks to be sufficient for them to live on--and the regimental system abolished--and the same system as in the Navy by which military officers would serve in all arms--Engineers, Artillery, Cavalry and Infantry, instead of being familiar with but one part of their profession. When the Sea Lords sit round the Board of Admiralty they can talk about anything, because they’ve been in every type of vessel and every branch of their Profession. Again, in a good regiment the promotion is slow because the officers stick to it. In a bad regiment the promotion is rapid because everyone wants to leave it. Then, finally, I submitted the idea of the Army and Navy being incorporated in one great Service. There is no going aloft now--a ship can be manned by soldiers with equal efficiency as by sailors. You want nucleus crews thoroughly used to the ship and always in her, knowing all her foibles. Brains--the Beef needn’t be equally clever! The military officers in the Peninsular War only 16 years old were splendid and they were numerous.] 1904. _March 20th. Telegram._