"LINESMAN'S" DEFENCE OF BRITISH GENERALS.
TO TICE EDITOR OF TER "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Does not " Linesman's " article on "The Horse "in your issue of March 8th contradict his plea for non-interference with experts of March 1st ? Now he writes :—" It is doubtful which has delivered more foolish, unwarrantable verdicts in its time,—the ridicule of the • thoughtless, or the toryism of military pundits." Here the expert is ranked in military matters equal with the "man in the street,"—unless both thoughtlessness and toryism are intended as applying to military experts. Either interpretation does not commend itself to a doctrine of non-interference with experts. The danger of all experts, military and otherwise, appears to be their tendency to become the slaves of detail. So outsiders— like the Boers—do sometimes "see most of the game." Of course, there has been much idle chatter about this war, but there has been much sound advice as well. In my calling I have found the intelligent outsider most useful.—I am, Sir, &c.,
CYCLE ENGINEER.
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