2110-2-15-10

(Dictated) Private.[underlined]

Admiralty, Whitehall

8th May, 1916 (really written a month ago!)

My dear Buchan

Is not the analogy suggested in your letter between the modern developments of land warfare and the modern developments of sea warfare, very misleading? I think you may be right in saying that Jellicoe would like to be at the Admiralty rather than with the Grand Fleet, - but this is not because the command of the Grand Fleet is a task for which he thinks that many naval officers are qualified, but because he has himself for twenty months the heavy strain which it involves. The notion that it is easier to find an admiral fit to command the Grand Fleet, than to find a competent First Sea Lord, is quite without justification. Jellicoe is qualified for both offices; no one else that I know of is. Let me add that he is constantly consulted, not merely on questions of fleet distribution, but on naval construction also; although the responsibility for all decisions on these subjects rests not with him, but with the Board.

You must remember that one of the problems of matériel which the Board of Admiralty have to deal with,

and the Army have not - or not to the same extent - depends upon the duration of the war. Roughly speaking, you cannot expect to get a sloop under six months; a destroyer under eleven or twelve; a battle-cruiser under two years. Your whole powers of shipbuilding are quite insufficient for the needs of the country if the deficiencies of the mercantile marine, as well as of the Navy, are taken into account.

How, in these circumstances, are you going to distribute your available labour? This, and not new types, or the modification of old types, constitutes the most difficult question. But Jellicoe, who has unique qualifications for his present post, has no better means of judging on such matters than other naval officers of equal ability and experience.

My real anxiety about Jellicoe is not whether he is not the best man for his present place, but whether he will be able to stand the strain which it necessarily involves.

Yours ever

Arthur James Balfour