Page:The Next Naval War - Eardley-Wilmot - 1894.djvu/16

 attached to one of the naval ports, and makes that his headquarters unless he has special leave to reside elsewhere. Hence he is ready to embark at a moment's notice. There is no half-pay. If not afloat he is in barracks, though given regular leave on return from foreign service. All this sounds simple and natural, but it is noticed as distinct from our system, in which officers on promotion are given a pittance, and retire to a cottage and grow cabbages until their turn comes for a command. All is then new to them, and the first year is spent in digesting the latest regulations and becoming familiar with the various advances gunnery and tactics, &c., have made in the interval.

As regards the men, no time could have been better for obtaining an ample supply. Outside the force actually serving in the Navy, the best seamen of France are perhaps those who go every year to the Newfoundland and Iceland fisheries in great numbers. They mostly belong to the Maritime Inscription, and have served their time in the fleet. To get them at any moment, they must be called out before going off for the summer fishing. In the Crimean war transports had to be sent out to Newfoundland and Iceland to bring numbers of these men back to man the fleet. Hence the delay which led to our fleet being first in the Baltic. At all the French ports there is an agent of the Maritime Inscription who keeps an account of every sailor, and knows where to put his hand on