Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill having been rejected in 1886, Lord Salisbury returned to power with a majority that defied Mr. Parnell and his friends, and so there was no {344} more Home Rule for a while. 'Tis the pure morality of the Home Rule demand that moves the political conscience; and that the morality always acts upon that sensitive organ when there is a controlling Irish vote, and not at any other time, is of course a mere coincidence. In August, 1886, I was appointed junior lord at the Admiralty, succeeding Captain James E. Erskine. "No doubt you'll try to do a number of things, but you'll run up against a dead wall. Your sole business will be to sign papers," said Captain Erskine, and so departed. I speedily discovered that there was at the Admiralty no such thing as organisation for war. It was not in the distribution of business. Lest I should seem to exaggerate, I quote the testimony of the late Sir John Briggs, Reader to the Lords and Chief Clerk of the Admiralty. Referring to the period with which I am dealing, Sir John Briggs writes as follows (_Naval Administrations, 1827 to 1892_. Sampson Low. 1897): "During my Admiralty experience of forty-four years, I may safely affirm that no measures were devised, nor no practical arrangements thought out, to meet the numerous duties which devolve upon the Admiralty, and which at once present themselves at the very beginning of a war with a first-class naval Power; on the contrary, there had been unqualified apprehension on the mere rumour of war, especially among the naval members, arising from their consciousness of the inadequacy of the Fleet to meet the various duties it would be required to discharge in such an eventuality." The fact was that after Trafalgar this country had attained to so supreme a dominance upon all seas, with so high a degree of sea-training acquired in independent commands, that organisation for war was taken for granted. We were living on the Nelson tradition. The change came with the advent of steam, which altered certain essential conditions of sea warfare. The use of steam involved a new organisation. Other nations recognised its necessity. We {345} did not. Nor was it that the distinguished naval officers composing successive Boards of Admiralty neglected their duty, for organisation for war did not form part of their duty, as they conceived it. Moreover, they were wholly occupied with the vast labour of routine business, which developed upon them when the old Navy Board was abolished. The Navy Board, in the old wars, was charged with the provision of all matters of supply, leaving the Lords Commissioners free to conduct war.