The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

18 MARINE REVIEW. a “NAVAL LESSONS FROM AMERICA.”’ UNDER THIS CAPTION ONE OF THE LEADING TECHNICAL JOURNALS OF EN °LAND DISCUSSES THE LAST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE ENGINEER-IN-CHIEF OF OUR NAVY—FRANKNESS OF THE REPORT ANDO ADMIRAL MELVILLE’S INDEPENDENCE ARE MARVELED AT. From Engineering, London. The annual report of the chief of the United States bureau of steam engineering is a publication that British engineers may read with interest and regret—interest for the matter contained, regret that we have no like record. Our older methods of naval administration have traditions of _ secrecy which the public interest does not warrant. The expenditure of the United States bureau, estimated for the fiscal year—ending June, 1902—is under half a million sterling ($2,256,762), of which about half is spent in labor. The total does not seem large, con- sidering the position of importance the American fleet is now taking among navies of the world. Admiral Melville, the professional chief of the bureau, does not hesitate to point out the defects in administration with characteristic frankness. Again we say it is a pity our own engineer- in-chief has not the same power of making his voice heard. The report points out the danger of a failure in the supply of those young engineers who should provide the talent required for continuing the work of the de~ partment “‘in its most effectual spirit, and make the future record one of increasing progress.” What that work is we gain some idea from the report. There is “a flood of detailed drawings, amounting to several thou- sands during the year, constantly coming from the contractors, in which are submitted the expansion of the various parts of the general design of the machinery of ships under construction.”’ These have all to be approved by the bureau. For a single battleship—the Kearsarge—there were 595 separate drawings of the machinery. ‘Many of these were sub- mitted more than once; and, indeed, the 595 drawings only represented the approved plans, and not those which were discarded or needed alter- ation. All these had to be carefully studied by the technical members of. the staff; and, as on their decision rests the success of the vessel, no hasty or perfunctory discharge of the duty can be permitted. Admiral Melville, like all good chiefs, is proud of his staff. “I can assure you,” he says, in addressing the secretary of the navy, “that the wonderful immunity from casualty in the engineering department in the vessels of the regular navy is, in a great degree, the result of the extraordinary ability exercised in the designing rooms of the bureau.’ Of this manifestation he selects one instance, not without interest to us at the present time. “‘Some years ago,” he says, “the department was urged with no little pressure to adopt the Belleville water tube boiler as a standard for the new ships. The bureau opposed the innovation wholly upon a close examination of the designs, criticising the very defective features which in later years have made conspicuous the comparative inefficiency of this type over the purely straight tube non-screw-joint type for which I have given continuous and urgent preference.” No doubt the department over which Admiral Melville presides is “to be congratulated,’ as he claims, ‘upon the conservative approval it has given to the change in the boilers of naval ships.” For America that is well enough, and we have reason to believe that at our admiralty, also, difficulties in working the Belleville boiler were foreseen. Unfortunately the passages of the report will be seized upon by those who delight to vilify our own admiralty engineers, and they will be quoted, or misquoted, after the manner of such disputants. It would be well, however, for the critical British public to remember that the royal navy stands on a differ- ent footing from that of other navies. What they can afford we cannot. To the United States a powerful navy is more or less an ornament; to Great Britain it is a necessity of existence. The United States bureau of steam engineering can afford to wait, to risk their ships being, for a time, a little slower, or in some other way a little less efficient. With her vast self-contained territory the United States might be cut off from the rest of the world—not, of course, without suffering - but without fatal disaster. Her distance from the other great military powers, together with the spirit and patriotism of her citizens, renders invasion impossible. So it was that Admiral Melville and his colleagues could continue to use shell boilers until experience had matured in other countries, and by that ex-~ perience they have profited. No less credit is due to: the United States department for the sagacity displayed. As the report says: “Instead of having been encumbered during the last war with ships powered with a type of boiler necessitating a specially trained force even for its safe operation, the most effective vessels had either retained the Scotch boiler or possessed the simple straight tube Babcock & Wilcox boiler, and re- mained free from any real danger of becoming hors de combat by reason of a lack of a completely experienced fire room management, or the sudden failure of delicate and intricate special apparatus connected with the steam generators.” All naval engineers will agree with the report in condemning “deli- cate and intricate special apparatus” whenever it can be avoided; and screwed joints are doubtless a source of danger. When the admiralty had to adopt the water tube boilers they had to take what offered. They found the Belleville boiler installed in France, and had no time to make experiments or wait upon invention. We have profited since, as the rest of the world has, by. our experience, and we may hope that our own navy will not lag behind the fleets of other powers in adopting what is most to be desired in the future. The danger of the waiting policy—the “conservative approval,’ of which Admiral Melville speaks—is so insid- ious an argument that against it we can hardly guard ourselves too strongly. It is so specious. ‘Wait a little, a couple of years or so, and we shall see something still better follow this better thing; and so we may save ourselves many thousands of pounds.” It is, indeed, an argument that has too often been listened to in England. We used to delay the completion of our warships for just such a reason; and in the meantime left the country so much more open to attack. We have used the same argument in regard to electrical matters. ‘‘Let us wait and see what the Americans do; let them pay for the experience.” This has been: said more than once in public; and now we see American engineers taking [February 28, enormous fees—which no one should grudge—for American advice, and American electrical machinery coming into the country in a way never before known; and this because America had the first experience. No doubt this latter state of affairs was largely due to foolish legislation, but it well illustrates the danger of getting behind, either in military or indus- trial warfare. If finality could be seen ahead—say in a year or two—there might be something to say in favor of waiting, though even then it would be a dangerous policy for us. But there is no finality in engineering; and the water tube boiler placed in the American ships today will be out- classed long before the vessels have run their course. In the meantime Admiral Melville has been remarkably successful with his ships. He can afford to wait; we cannot. Another section of the American report which has an interest for British naval reformers comes under the heading of “Consolidation of Bureaus.” A demand has been put forward in the United States, and the same idea has been mooted in England, that the professional staff of the navy office should be combined in one department to be known as the “bureau of ships.” Admiral Melville has had many years’ experience of naval administration, and it will be profitable to hear his opinions. It may be said at once that he is opposed to such a scheme of consolidation. He points out that in every large ship building establishment there exists a more complete system of separation of special branches than in the American navy. Nominally there is a head, but no pretence is ever made by that head of possessing expert knowledge regarding all branches, Fre- quently, he says, the head is not a technical expert. at all, but simply a good general manager. Every tendency is to increase specialization in work. The secretary of the United States navy recommended to congress in his last annual report that the bureaus of repair, steam engineering and equipment, should be amalgamated, and Admiral Melville does not hesi- tate to differ from the opinion of his political chief. Remembering that the report under consideration, in which these views are expressed, is printed and circulated widely throughout the states, such independence would be looked on in this country as a species of mutiny; and certainly no English engineer-in-chief could publicly say to the first lord of the admiralty what Admiral Melville says to the secretary of the navy, without first resigning his position. In any case such a course would here be con- sidered a public scandal, and most people would declare the business of the country, to say. nothing of the discipline of the navy, could not go on under such conditions. We do not find, however, any loosening of the roots of society following this procedure in America. The secretary of the navy—the equivalent to our first lord of the admiralty—finds it possible to carry on his duties, even though every one is not thought to be in agreement with his policy; and Admiral Melville, having registered his opinion, can carry out his duties, even if they sometimes clash with his own convictions.. That appears to us an honest and sensible course of procedure. “Your impression that the work of the three bureaus,” the chief engi- neer-in-chief says to the naval secretary, ‘‘is an integral work is certainly not gained by a close examination of the character of their separate spe~ cialities.” The report goes on to point out that the navy department is in itself a “bureau of ships,” the head of which is the secretary of the navy, who makes no pretence of having expert knowledge in any branch of the work. The impossibility of one man possessing the combined edu- cation and ability to be an expert in all branches is pointed out to the secretary. “A life-long study of any one mechanical art is needed to secure eminence and utmost proficiency in it.” In other words, the ex- pert engineer cannot hope to bean accomplished naval architect, nor can the trained naval architect be a proficient engineer. The single official in charge of the dual department would therefore be ‘‘but a second assist- ant secretary of the navy.” The “combination would not be real, and the only effect would be to humiliate the chiefs of the bureaus by destroying their nominal integrity, and the pride they feel in preserving it.” Later on the report says: ‘Ships of war are of such construction that it would not be safe to trust their design to any one man, with the prospect of his carrying out thereon his particular fads and experiments.” In our own navy there is very little danger from the course referred to in the last sentence. The constructive and engineering departments at the admiralty have for their chief the controller of the navy; a naval officer who is now one of the board of admiralty. The design of a warship, so far as military purposes are concerned, is in the hands of naval officers. The professional staff, the constructors and engineers, are responsible to the board, through the controller, for technical matters within their re-- spective provinces. Whether it would be possible to find a man capable of exercising intelligent and effective supervision over the whole construc- tion of the ship is a matter upon which only conjecture can be offered. To us it seems that the chief danger that arises in connection with our system of admiralty management comes from the absence of real responsibility on the part of any one official, naval or civil. The controller is in office for a short time only. He is unacquainted with matters in which he rules; he is not, for some time at any rate, even acquainted with the routine of his office, and he is, therefore, in the hands of his subordinates. The whole machinery of admiralty and dock yard management is old-fashioned and out of date, and such success as is achieved in these times of naval peace, that have lasted nearly for a century, is due to the able men who have served the country, and in spite of the system. Another matter to which Admiral Melville refers at some length, and which is also of unusual interest to us, is the position of naval officers. It will be remembered that in the United States navy the line and engi- neer officers have been amalgamated by an act of congress. The scheme has not worked to the expectation of those who were mainly instrumen- tal in bringing it forward. “Another year of experience under the pro-~ visions of the personnel bill,” says the report, “finds the status of steam engineering interests in the navy even less fully protected, and the number and condition of the force for their control even less satisfactory than when I made my last annual report.’ The truth appears to be that the arrangement does not, as the report puts it, “properly materialize.” Either the scheme was a mistake, or the proper course has not been taken to carry out its intent; and though Admiral Melville is free to acknowledge that the events of the past year have brought only discouragement, he is convinced that the result is due to the latter alternative. “The cause of discouragement,” he says, “is not in the scheme itself, but in a lack of full appreciation, on the part of the department, of the urgency of the need for haste, not only in. providing the fullest opportunity for the ac-