... Really all my thoughts are with my Royal Commission. I expect you will see that the course of action will inevitably result in what I ventured to indicate _if only_ the Admiralty will keep their backs to the wall of the irreducible margin required in Home Waters. The only pity was that dear old ---- said we were sufficiently strong for two years or more, which of course is quite true, but his saying so may prevent Lloyd George being hustled (_as he otherwise would have been_). Luckily I prevented ---- saying even more of our present great preponderance--but let us hope “All’s well that ends well.” Ian Hamilton came in most effectively with his witnessing the armoured Cruiser “Suffolk” laden with a Battalion of the Malta Garrison being twice torpedoed by a submarine. * * * * * 1912. _July 15th._ ... This instant the news has come to me that there are 750 eligible and selected candidates for 60 vacancies for Boy-Artificers in the Navy at the approaching examination! When I introduced this scheme 8 years ago every man’s hand was against me, and the whole weight of Trades Unionism inside the House of Commons and out of it was organised against me.... We were dominated by the Engineers! We had to accept Engine Room artificers for the Navy who had been brought up on making bicycles! _Now_, these boys are suckled on the marine engine! and they have knocked out the old lot completely. Our very best Engine Room artificers now in the Navy are these boys! Not one of my colleagues or anyone else supported me! _Do you wonder that I don’t care a d--n what anyone says?_ The man you are going to see on Wednesday--how has he recognised that we are at this moment stronger than the Triple Alliance? The leaders of both political parties--how have they recognised that 19 millions sterling of public money _actually allocated_ was saved and the re-arrangement of British Sea Power so stealthily carried out that not a sign appeared of any remark by either our own or by any Foreign Diplomatists, until an obscure article in the _Scientific American_ by Admiral Mahan stated that of a sudden he (Mahan) had discovered that 88 per cent. of the Sea Power of England was concentrated on Germany? But the most ludicrous thing of all is that up to this very moment no one has really recognised that the Dreadnought caused such a deepening and dredging of German harbours and their approaches, and a new Kiel Canal, as to cripple Germany up to A.D. 1915, and make their coasts accessible, which were previously denied to our ships because of their heavy draught for service in all the world! * * * * * 1912. _August 2nd._