Abstract
ON July 14, in the House of Lords, the Duke of Northumberland directed attention to the alteration in the status of the engineer officers of the Royal Navy brought about by the Admiralty Fleet Order 3241/25, issued last November. This matter has already been referred to in these columns on several occasions. In his remarks the Duke of Northumberland said that the Order abolished the last vestige of the improved status of the engineer officer under the 1902 scheme for the amalgamation of the engineering branch with the deck officers. Not only did it relegate the engineer officer to the non-executive branch of the Navy, but it also emphasised the distinction between the deck officer and the engineer officer by re-imposing the wearing of the purple stripe. The Duke of Northumberland was supported by Viscount Chelms-ford and the Earl of Selborne, the latter remarking that the point of view of the engineer officers had been recapitulated by Engineer Rear-Admiral Sheen in a letter in the Times of June 1, and to that he had seen no answer. Moreover, the Order might do great harm and could do no possible good. Viscount_ Chelmsford said that the question had arisen when he was First Lord and he had left a personal note for his successor, Mr. Bridgeman, to the effect that there had been no acute demand for the change, and that the system as it then stood was working well. The Duke of Montrose also spoke. He seemed to think that because purple had been worn by emperors, engineers should not object to it. The answer to that is, of course, that it is the way it has been imposed and what it signifies that renders it so distasteful. With his suggestions that engineer officers should have executive command of certain establishments ashore and that an engineer officer should be ap-j pointed a Sea Lord of the Admiralty a good many will agree.
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News and Views. Nature 118, 126–131 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118126a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/118126a0