In the early hours of the crucial Battle of Jutland in 1916 German salvos sent one British ship after another plunging to the bottom. Admiral Sir David Beatty, striding the bridge of the battle cruiser Lion, turned on a young flag officer, Alfred Ernie Montacute Chatfield, and remarked: "Chatfield, there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today."
Last week, nearly 23 years after Jutland, there was little wrong with Britain's bloody ships because Lord Chatfield as First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff had the job of bringing them to scratch. But there was plenty wrong with the rest of her three-year rearmament efforts. Four months have passed since the Czecho-Slovak war scare but few measures apparent to the public have been taken to improve Britain's shockingly weak defenses.
Production of antiaircraft guns and first-line fighting planes still lags below Britain's output in 1918. There has been no rush to fill the ranks of Britain's little army. Civilians who were scared stiff in September by the threat of Adolf Hitler's bombers were recently informed that there was neither time nor money to build deep, underground bomb shelters, that steel shanties to ward off splinters would have to suffice. Even the long trenches gouged in London parks and golf courses for air-raid "protection" have been allowed to crumble and flood.
Changes. Growing British resentment against this muddling contains enough dynamite to blow up the Chamberlain Cabinet and last week the Prime Minister took the long-expected steps to snuff the fuses. He moved his friend, slow-moving Sir Thomas Inskip, from the post of Minister for the Coordination of Defense, where everyone agreed he had been a first-class failure. Chosen to succeed him was Lord Chatfield, recently retired from active service. It was perhaps the most popular Cabinet move Mr. Chamberlain has ever made.
Only mildly sensational were other Cabinet changes: Sir Thomas Inskip took over the relatively unimportant post of Dominions Secretary, which had been filled by Malcolm MacDonald along with his Colonial Secretaryship; unpopular William Shepherd Morrison, a misfit as Minister of Agriculture, was transferred to the post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. A gentleman farmer, Major Sir Reginald Hugh Dorman-Smith was given his job.
More "Oi!" The Cabinet shakeup, indicating that at least Mr. Chamberlain intends to energize the rearmament drive, is expected to rally public support for the Government's vast Voluntary National Service registration scheme, inaugurated last week by the Prime Minister with a radio chat from his high armchair at No. 10 Downing Street.