"3. If not, should not immediate steps be taken to minimise the danger?" The Memorandum was laid before the Board. My colleagues came to the unanimous conclusion that my statements were exaggerated; and also that, as a junior, I was {347} meddling with high matters which were not my business; as indeed I was. Having been thus defeated, I asked the permission of Lord George Hamilton to show the Memorandum to Lord Salisbury, and received it. Lord Salisbury very kindly read the document then and there from beginning to end. He pointed out to me that, on the face of it, I lacked the experience required to give force to my representations, and that I had not even commanded a ship of war in a Fleet. "You must have more experience, on the face of it," he repeated. And he observed that, practically, what I was asking him to do, was to set my opinion above the opinion of my senior officers at the Admiralty, and their predecessors. I replied that, since he put the matter in that way, although it might sound egotistical, I did ask him to do that very thing; but I begged him, before deciding that I was in the wrong, to consult with three admirals, whom I named. A week later, I saw Lord Salisbury again. He told me that in my main contentions, I was right; that he was sure I should be glad to hear that the three admirals had agreed with them; and that the Board of Admiralty had decided to form a new department upon the lines I had suggested. The new Naval Intelligence Department was then formed. The Director was Captain William H. Hall. His assistants were Captain R. N. Custance (now Admiral Sir Reginald N. Custance, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.) and Captain S. M. Eardley-Wilmot (now Rear-Admiral Sir S. M. Eardley-Wilmot). There was already in existence a Foreign Intelligence Committee, whose business it was to collect information concerning the activities of foreign naval Powers. In my scheme the new department was an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Committee, which was to form Section 1, while {348} the duties of Section 2 were "To organise war preparations, including naval mobilisation and the making out of plans for naval campaigns to meet all the contingencies considered probable in a war with different countries, corrected frequently and periodically." The whole of the department was to be placed under an officer of flag rank; a part of my recommendations which was not carried into effect until 1912, when the War Staff was instituted at the Admiralty. It will be observed that, although I designated the new department the Intelligence Department, it was in fact planned to combine Intelligence duties proper with the duties of a War Staff. What I desired was a department which reported "frequently and periodically" upon requirements. But as it was impossible to know what those requirements would be without plans of campaign which specified them, the same department was charged with the duty of designing such plans.