The Washington herald., 1915-04-11
The KITCHENEP"of the NAVY

licity, but when he gets interested In .
subject words a. brisk and sparkling as
champagne come from his lips in an
unoeasing stream.
Like the Scotch "meenister who
dinged tho insides DOT Of seeven Bibles"
he is a powerful public speaker. II fur
Their proof is needed there IL the occa-
sion when he upset bottle Of wine over
q dignitary's shirt front at public func-
ton in the middle Of q peroration.
When he wants to he can be tactful.
That was illustrated when he arranged
that some French naval officers about to
visit London should arrive at the Vic
toria station rather than the Waterloo.
If he desires he can be extremely untact-
full. Once Queen Victoria talked to him
about the advissbility Of having . new
yacht built, at the same time bemoaninE
tho giving up Of an old one on account Of
cherished recollections.
"Ma'am," replied Fisher, don't let
that worry You. The old one Will last
you out"
For q man who occupies such an
little known about him by his country.
men. He entered the navy when he was
thirteen years old. He did good service
like hundreds Of other officers. Tho att
tention he attracted came almost ex-
clusively from his superior officers.
He waited until he was sixty years old
before his great opportunity came to
him. At that age was offered to him
the highest prize of an English sailors
ambition in peace. He was made first
sea lord.
But even that honor he would accept
only on his own terms. For many
years he had been formulating a COM
plete reorganization in the navy. He
knew and said that the English navy
was years behind the times in training
and efficiency. He had seen the change
from wooden walls to ironclads and had
observed that with the coming Of deli
cate and intricate machinery there had
been but little change in the training
from the days Of sails and muzzle-load-
ing cannon.
He saw, too, more clearly than any
other man that England's future battles
would be fought in the North sea. All
the statesmen Of the day still considered
tho Mediterranean as the naval ground
of the empire. How clear were his theo-
ries on the subject is proved by the
present war. It is in the North sea.
experts agree, that England will win
or lose her naval battles.
When Fisher was appointed first sea
lord in 1904 the first thing he did was
in drastic fashion to issue an order d.
viding the effective war fleet in two,
one part to be In commission in the
North sea and the other to be held in re-
serve.
His next departure was to scrap every
naval vessel not absolutely up-to-date.
In three months he sent no fewer than
120 such vessels to the scrap heap.
One Of the strangest things about the
man who has the burden Of suiteme
command of the English navy upon his
shoulders is that he is not an English
man at all In the strict sense of the word.
His father was a captain of the Seventy
eighth Highlanders, who settled in Cey-
lon. and his mother was a Singhalese
woman Of rank. Thus he has a strain Of
oriental blood in his VEINS
1t Is slightly noticeable in his fea-
lures, and persons who have lived in
the east can detect it easily. His fea-
lures are as stern and unrelenting as
those Of a bulldog. and he has more or
less Of that animals cruelty.
There have been amusing incidents in
his career when subordinates and diplo-
mats have let themselves think that he
was an innocent. guileless sailorman
with no brains. In every case they dis
covered too late that a considerable de-
gree of oriental subtlety was grated
upon his Anglo-Saxon directness and
iron will. Fisher has played many diplo-
matte games with Asiatic craft.