You write anxious to have some connected statement in regard to the whole history of the German Submarine Menace. Now, the first observation thereon is the oft-repeated indisputable statement that no private person whatever can hope to fight successfully any Public Department. So even if you had the most conclusive evidence of effete apathy such as at first characterised the dealing with this German Submarine Menace, yet you would to the World at large be completely refuted by a rejoinder in Parliament of departmental facts. Nevertheless here is a bit of Naval History. In December, 1915, the Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) unexpectedly came up to me in the Lobby of the House of Commons, and said he was anxious to consult me about Naval affairs, and he would take an early opportunity of seeing me! However, he must have been put off this for I never saw him. A month afterwards I pressed him in writing to see Sir John Jellicoe in regard to the paucity both of suitable apparatus and of suitable measures to cope with the German Submarine Menace; after much opposition the Prime Minister himself sent for Sir John Jellicoe and he appeared before the War Council. This is my Memorandum at that time, dated February 7th, 1916: MEMORANDUM. “I have just heard that, notwithstanding the opposition to it, Sir John Jellicoe will attend the War Council at 11.30 a.m. next Friday. That he may have strength and power to overcome all ‘the wiles of the Devil’ is my fervent prayer. “That there has been signal failure since May, 1915, to continue the Great Push previous to that date of building fast Destroyers, fast Submarines, Mine Sweepers and small Craft generally is absolutely indisputable. “Above all, it was criminal folly and inexcusable on the part of the Admiralty to allow skilled workmen (20,000 of them) to be taken away from shipyards. Also it was inexcusable and weak to give up the Admiralty command of steel and other shipbuilding materials. “Kitchener instantly cancelled the order to take men from the shipyards when it was attempted by his subordinates while I was First Sea Lord. He saw the folly of it! “Again, deferring the shipbuilding that was in progress was fatuous. I saw myself two fast Monitors (each of them a thousand tons advanced) from which all the workmen had been called off. A few months afterwards there was feverish and wasteful haste to complete them. So was it with the five fast big Battle Cruisers of very light draught of water. All similarly delayed. “Well! Jellicoe, a ‘No Talker,’ at the War Council was opposed to a mass of ‘All Talkers,’ so he did not make a good fight; but when he got back to the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow he remembered himself and wrote a most excellent Memorandum, which put himself right.