For at least ten years all the most important steps taken to enlarge, improve or modernise the Navy had been due to Fisher. The water-tube boiler, the “all big gun ship,” the introduction of the submarine (“Fisher’s toys,” as Lord Charles Beresford called them), the common education scheme, the system of nucleus crews for ships in reserve, and latterly—to meet the German rivalry—the concentration of the Fleets in Home Waters, the scrapping of great quantities of ships of little fighting power, the great naval programmes of 1908 and 1909, the advance from the 12–inch to the 13.5–inch gun—all in the main were his. In carrying through these far-reaching changes he had created violent oppositions to himself in the Navy, and his own methods, in which he gloried, were of a kind to excite bitter animosities, which he returned and was eager to repay. He made it known, indeed he proclaimed, that officers of whatever rank who opposed his policies would have their professional careers ruined. As for traitors, i. e., those who struck at him openly or secretly, “their wives should be widows, their children fatherless, their homes a dunghill.” This he repeated again and again. “Ruthless, relentless and remorseless” were words always on his lips, and many grisly examples of Admirals and Captains eating out their hearts “on the beach” showed that he meant what he said. He did not hesitate to express his policy in the most unfavourable terms, as if to challenge and defy his enemies and critics. “Favouritism,” he wrote in the log of Dartmouth College, “is the secret of efficiency.” What he meant by “favouritism” was selection without regard to seniority by a discerning genius in the interests of the public; but the word “favouritism” stuck. Officers were said to be “in the fish-pond”—unlucky for them if they were not. He poured contempt upon the opinions and arguments of those who did not agree with his schemes, and abused them roundly at all times both by word and letter.