At the Defence Committee yesterday ... we had a regular set-to with Lloyd George (supported by Harcourt and Morley chiefly) against the provision of defence for Cromarty as a shelter anchorage for the Fleet, and the Prime Minister adjourned the discussion to the Cabinet as the temperature got hot! As you know, I’ve always been “dead on” for Cromarty and hated Rosyth, which is an unsafe anchorage--the whole Fleet in jeopardy the other day--and there’s that beastly bridge which, if blown up, makes the egress very risky without examination.... Also Cromarty is strategically better than Rosyth.... Also Lloyd George had a row about the airships--Seely’s Sub-Committee. We _must_ have airships. * * * * * 1912. _August 7th._ I still hate Rosyth and fortifications and East Coast Docks and said so the other day! but what we devise at Cromarty is for another purpose--to fend off German Cruisers possibly by an accident of fog or stupidity getting loose on our small craft taking their ease or re-fuelling in Cromarty (Oil will change all this in time, but as yet we have for years coal-fed vessels to deal with).... I’ve got enthusiastic colleagues on the oil business! They’re all bitten! Internal Combustion Engine Rabies! * * * * * 1912. _September._ ... What an ass I was to come home! but it was next door to impossible to resist the pressure put on me, and then can you think it was wise of me to plunge once more into so vast a business as future motor Battleships? Changing the face of the Navy, and, as Lloyd George said to me last Friday, getting the Coal of England as my mortal enemy! * * * * * 1912. _Sept. 14th._ _This Royal Commission_ [on oil] is a wonder! We have our first meeting on September 24th, and practically it is finished though it will go on for years and years and never submit a Report! You will love the _modus operandi_ when some day I expound it to you!... In the second week of December we have an illustration on the scale of 12 inches to a foot of producing oil from coal. Twenty-five tons a day will be produced as an example. All that is required is to treble the retorting plant of all gas works in the United Kingdom where there is a Mayor and Corporation, and to treble their “through put” of coal! We get two million tons of oil that way! We only want one million.