Nor, indeed, was this all. For no such inquisition could be made in fundamentals without the work being reflected in every other department of naval activity. In place of uninstructed conjecture, we should have, as a basis of naval thought and plan, the reasoned conclusions of expert knowledge. There was the more reason for this optimistic view because Mr. Churchill’s Memorandum went on to indicate the machinery by which alone right methods can invariably, because together impartially and impersonally, be discovered. For the particular occasion of the Memorandum was the establishment of a new and extended war staff for which, since 1904, we had all been waiting. This, the First Lord explained, must have four carefully differentiated but very important tasks. It was first, the Memorandum said, “to be the means of preparing and training officers for dealing with the extended problems that await them in stations of high responsibility.” Its second function was to sift, develop, and apply the results of history and experience, and to preserve them “as a general stock of reasoned opinion available as an aid and as a guide for all who are called upon to determine in peace or war the naval policy of the country.” Its third function was the exhibition of the vast superiority which a well-selected committee of experts possesses over even the most brilliant expert working by himself. The Staff was to be a “brain far more comprehensive than of any single man, however gifted, and tireless and unceasing in its action, applied continuously to the scientific study of naval strategy and preparation.” Finally, this Staff, carefully selected from the most promising officers, whose work would train them for the highest command, making all history and experience the province from which to draw the raw material of its doctrines, engaged tirelessly and unceasingly in applying this doctrine to the guidance of the civilian authorities by defining the requirements of our war preparation and war strategy, was also to be the executive department through which the higher command would issue its authoritative orders. “It is to be an instrument capable of formulating any decision which has been taken, or may be taken, by the executive, in terms of precise and exhaustive detail.”