TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.
Tun resignation of Lord Hardinge, followed by the appointment of the Duke of Cambridge, has revived the question respecting the .proper organization of the War Department. One thing is obvious on the face of the change the regime of Peninsula com- manders has fairly,died out, and a soldier more imbued with the spirit of our time has succeeded to the power they have so long wielded. The Peninsula men laboured under great disadvantages ; for the system of army-administration, so greatly improved by Wellington, was hastily broken up by the House of Commons, and the political prejudices of the great chief, combined with his fear of change, led him to acquiesce in that shortsighted policy. While he lived, it seems, little could be done ; and it is one of the historic puzzles, how a great general, who had himself suffered so much from defective and confused administration, and who, by sheer force of character, had oounteracted many of its evils, should for so 'long a period have made no effort to build up enduring military institutions. And now when the last of his race has yielded to age and failing -vigour, and a new man is appointed in his stead, what is our position ? We have learnt much from the war, remarks Sir Charles Wood ; but we do not seem to have learnt what to do with the Commander-in-chief. When the Duke of Somerset asked Lord Pain:lure, the other day, whether the _position of the Commander-in-chief in regard to the Secretary for War had been altered, our respectable War Minister replied, that no change had been made : and he forthwith indulged in an eulogy of Lord Hardinge,—to convince the public, we suppose, that appearances are deceptive, and that the greatest harmony has prevailed between the Horse Guards and the Ministry for War. The public will have its own opinion on the subject. For our parts we should be glad to know, with Lord Melville, -what is the position of the Commander-in-chief—where his duties begin, and where those of the Secretary for War end. What may be called the theory of our Army is very pretty. The Sovereign is Captain-General of the Army. "All employments, promotions, military honours," we are told, " proceed from the Crown." Again: the Commander-in-chief is "nut a ministerial but an executive officer, responsible to the Queen and the Government for the military- organization, efficiency, and discipline of the army." From this you would suppose, at first sight, that the .Commander-in-chief is a personage tolerably absolute in his sphere ; that he is something independent of the 31inistry ; and the idea is, that by maintaining the present state of things and vesting the patronage of the Army in his hands, by stile hocus- pocus the Army is a Royal Army and not a Parliamentary Army. In England we are very much governed by words, and keep up a great many useful fictions. This is one of them. Let us look at the fact. The test of the position is the doctrine of responsibility. To -whom is the Commander-in-chief responsible? Is he respon- sible to the Crown ? How can that be r' We always understood that Officers of State are responsible for the Crown, seeing that, as the Crown efill do no wrong, the Crown cannot be responsible. If this officer is not responsible to the Crown, but to the Minister— which is the fact—what becomes of the theory that he, more than any other high functionary, is the servant of the Crow-n ? Take the case of patronage, and try by that whether the Commander- in-chief is the peculiar servant of the Crown. What does Lord Panmure say ? He says that "the Commander-in-chief makes no high appointments without consulting and obtaining the concur- rence of the Secretary for War " ; that even in minor patronage, where he " acts on his own responsibility," he is " subject to the control of the Secretary for War "; in fine, that "entire responsi- bility for all acts of the Commander-in-chief rests with the Go- vernment of the day." How, after that, can any one say that the Army is not a Parliamentary Army ? The Commander-in-chief is responsible to the Minister ; and. the Minister—to whom is he responsible ?—to the Parliament. When we have said this in plain language, we only change the terms we do not alter the facts. The Whatever is just as much a Royal :Army as the Navy is a Royal Navy. Whatever may be the arrangement of the War Department, there is not the least reason for altering the re- lations between the Commander-in-chief and the Crown, which it -is an advantage to the Army to preserve. Only do not let us as- siduously keep up a divided authority in military administration for the sake of a venerable fiction.
What the public good requires is a War Department "one and indivisible." In that department the Commander-in-chief should only be chief of one of the sections. Now, one great obstacle in the way of a judicious organization of the department is the ques- tion of patronage. If the minor patronage—for it seems the War Minister virtually holds the major patronage—were placed in the hands of a political Minister, there is a fear that he would use it for political purposes. No doubt, that is a strong objection, be- cause the purest administration would be open to unfounded sus- picion, and an impure administration would give but too good reason for jealousy and complaint. We are ready to admit that the patronage of the Army should be in the hands of an independ:- ent man ; but even your independent man, as men go' would need some arrangements that would impart strength to his sense of duty. For if the political Minister would fight for his party, the non-political officer might give way to the Court. If we grant, then that the Independent authority—independent, that is of the tuctinitions of party—should distribute the patronage in the name
of the Crown, how shall we provide for its just administration? A solution may be possible. Might not the Commander-in-chief, for instance, nominate any number of candidates for military em- ployment; and might not these candidates undergo an examina- tion before a permanent non-political Board, for the sole purpose of testing their fitness ? That would secure for the Army what Sir George Lewis tells us the Civil Service examinations have secured for the Civil Service—the separation of the worthy from the un- worthy. The actual appointment of those who passed would still remain with the Crown ; and the objection to placing the patron- age within reach of the Minister for War would be removed. The actual first appointment, and the subsequent stages of promotion to a certain rank, based on the same principle, being in the hands of the Crown, would secure that connexion between the head of the Army and his subordinates which is necessary to discipline. It is but fair to say, in passing, that we do not see how the sys- tem of purchase would work satisfactorily side by side with a system of admission and promotion based on examination. It would be unjust to exclude an unusually fit man because he could not purchase, and it would be equally unjust if the Commander- in-chief only nominated those who gave security that they could. purchase. /ig'or would the scheme work well without a systematic plan of military education.
The beau ideal of a War Minister is an absolute monarch, like Philip of Macedon, or Frederick the Great, or Napoleon. Society, however, does not exist in these islands for the sake of armies ad- mirably organized for vietory. If we could find such a War Min- ister, we could not afford to take him into our pay, because he would be incompatible with the forms and the subtance of our national life. We have therefore to get the best constitutional War Minister, or rather War Ministry, we can devise. The solu- tion of the question, as it appears to us, lies in the adoption of the principle which works very well in the affairs of the Navy. Let the War Minister be the autocratic chief of a Military Board ; let the Commander-in-chief hold. a subordinate post, performing those duties he performs now, but with some guarantee for the just administration of the patronage ; and let there be a Finan- cial Secretary, to keep the Board in harmony with the Treasury and the House of Commons. Under such an arrangement any amount of subdivision of labour might be made, care being taken to maintain in the highest vigour the absolute authority of the Minister for War. It would not be difficult to thoroughly organ- ize the whole department and apportion to each section its dis- tinct line of work. The War Minister would give unity to the whole, by maintaining the supreme direction and keeping clear of executive business. By this means, the Army would be kept in its direct relation to the Crown and its indirect dependence upon Parliament. A fairer opportunity than the present, for some such change, Could hardly occur again ; as we are passing from war to peace, and from one generation of soldiers to another. If it be not done—and there does not seem to be energy enough in the Palmerston Cabinet to do it—we hold that at least it is the bounden duty of Lord Panmins to adopt Lord Melville's sugges- tion, and draw up a minute, for her Majesty's sanction, "defining where the duties of the Secretary for War end and where those of the Commander-in-chief begin.'
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