ADMIRALTY
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ADMINISTRATION
those instruments which actually give it authority, and which, it may be remarked, are not in harmony among themselves. The executive operations are conducted by a series of civil departments which have undergone many changes before reaching their present constitution and relation to the Board. The salient characteristic of the Admiralty is a certain flexibility and elasticity with which it works. Its members are not, in a rigid sense, heads of departments. Subject to the necessary and constitutional supremacy of the Cabinet Minister at their head, they are jointly and co-equally “commissioners for executing the office of High Admiral of the United Kingdom, and of the territories thereunto belonging, and of High Admiral of the colonies and other dominions.” The members of the Board are in direct and constant communication with the First Lord and with one another, as also with the civil departments which work under their control. It was enjoined by James I. that the principal officers and commissioners of the navy should be in constant communication among themselves, consulting and advising “ by common council and argument of most voices,” and should live as near together as could conveniently be, and should meet at the navy office at least twice a week. This system of intercommunication still exists in a manner which no system of minutes could give ; and it may be remarked, as illustrative of the flexibility of the system, that a Board may be formed on any emergency by two Lords and a secretary, and a decision arrived at then and there. Such an emergency Board was actually constituted some years ago on board the Admiralty yacht in order to deal on the instant with an event which had just occurred in the fleet. At the same time it must be remarked that, in practice, the First Lord being personally responsible under the Orders in Council, the operations of the Board are dependent upon his direction. The present system of administering the navy dates from the time of Henry VIII. The naval business of the coun r History f y had so greatly expanded in his reign that we find the Admiralty and Navy Board reorganized or established; and it is worthy of remark that there existed at the time an Ordnance branch, the navy not yet being dependent in that matter upon the War Department.1 The Navy Board administered the civil departments under the Admiralty, the directive and executive duties of the Lord High Admiral remaining with the Admiralty office. A little later the civil administration was vested in a Board of principal officers subordinate to the Lord High Admiral, and we can henceforth trace the work of civil administration being conducted under the navy and victualling boards apart from, but yet subject to, the Admiralty itself. This was a system which continued during the time of all the great wars, and was not abolished until 1832, when Sir James Graham, by his reforms, put an end to what appeared a divided control. Whatever may have been the demerits of that system, it sufficed to maintain the navy in the time of its greatest achievements, and through all the wars which were waged with the Spaniards, the Dutch, and the French. The original authority for the present constitution of the Admiralty Board is found in a declaratory Act of the 2 William and Mary, c. 2, in which it is enacted that “all and singular authorities, jurisdictions, and powers which, by Act of Parliament or otherwise, had been lawfully vested ” in the Lord High Admiral of England had always 1 The Board of Ordnance was originally instituted for the navy, but eventually fell into military hands, to the detriment of the navy—the only navy of any nation that has not full authority over its own ordnance. In 1653, according to Oppenheim, it was, owing to its inefficiency, placed under the Admiralty. In 1632 it appears to have been independent, but “ still retained that evil pre-eminence in sloth and incapacity it had already earned and has never since lost ”
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appertained, and did and should appertain to the commissioners for executing the office for the time being “ to all intents and purposes as if the said commissioners were Lord High Admiral of England.” The Admiralty commission was dissolved in 1701, and reconstituted on the death of Prince George of Denmark, Lord High Admiral in 1709. From that time forward, save for a short period in 1827-28, when the Duke of Clarence was Lord High Admiral, the office has remained in commission. It is unnecessary to describe in detail the many changes which have passed over the system of naval administration up to the present time. When Lord St Vincent accepted office under the Addington ministry in 1801, it fell to him to deal with a vast system of waste, extravagance, and malversation of public funds. The work of reform was too vast even for this strong administrator to accomplish, and the great seaman became the object of a torrent of virulent abuse embodied in an extraordinary pamphlet literature. When the Addington ministry fell he left office, but the work he had done bore good fruit later. The investigations which were conducted at that time were essentially the basis of the reorganization effected by Sir James Graham under the administration of Earl Grey. That reorganization involved the abolition of the Board of principal officers and commissioners of the navy, and the commissioners for victualling, the whole business of naval administration being concentrated under the immediate direction of the Board of Admiralty. The “ Act to amend the laws relating to the business of the civil departments of the navy, and to make other regulations for more effectually carrying on the duties of the said departments ” (2 William IV. c. 40), vested in the Admiralty Board all the powers of the commissioners of the civil departments, and provided for the creation of five separate and independent responsible superintendents of departments under the Admiralty collectively, and the several Lords individually. These new officers were the surveyor of the navy, the accountant-general, the storekeeper-general, the controller of victualling and transports, and the physician of the navy, whose title in 1843 became director-general of the medical department of the navy. A number of changes have since been made, but the general juinciple remains the same, and the constitution of the Admiralty Board and civil departments is described below. The Board consisted of the First Lord and four Naval Lords with a Civil Lord, who were accustomed to meet sometimes daily, but at all times frequently ; and the system developed provided for the sub-division of labour, and yet for the co-ordinated exertion of effort. A fresh system, at variance with Admiralty tradition and practice, was introduced by Mr Childers in 1869. But those changes have now almost entirely been reversed. The system of intercommunication in the Board was paralysed by an attempt to lay down definite rules of practice and to define what was essentially indefinable. When Mr Goschen succeeded Mr Childers he found it necessary to modify the system ; and since that time it may be said that the Admiralty Board has resumed, broadly, the character which it had after the reorganization of Sir James Graham. The merits of that system, as conducing to elasticity and flexibility of working, have been pointed out; and, whatever its disadvantages, it is not to be denied that the system has worked well in practice, and has certainly won the approval and the admiration of many statesmen.2 Lord George Hamilton said, before the Royal Commission on civil establishments, 1887, that “It has this advantage, 2 The Duke of Somerset, Lord Halifax, Sir J. Graham, Sir F. Baring, and others stated that “the administrative system contrasted most favourably with any department they had been connected with,” as did the more recent commission under Lord Hartington’s presidency. S. I. — 9
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