LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE ARMY THAT WE NEED.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOE.".1
Sin,—The general soundness of your views as expressed in "The Army that We Need" in the Spectator of March 14th can hardly be found fault with by any thoughtful person. You very properly say that it is our duty to "think out in the abstract what would be the ideal system of military defence for an Empire situated like ours, and then having established our ideal, to bring the existing system gradually and prudently into conformity with that ideal." It can scarcely be main- tained that any such careful stocktaking of our military needs has ever been undertaken by the War Office, or That the impulge necessary for such a revision of our military position has ever been given by any Cabinet. I do not propose to deal in this letter with the general question, or to enter into any 'details, all of which would necessarily be more or less con- troversial ; but I wish to direct your attention to one im- portant aspect of your scheme which is usually lost sight of and forgotten. In order that our present Auxiliary Forces may be used to some good purpose, even under their present faulty organisation, it is absO- lutely necessary that we should begin by laying the founda- tions of our house, and those foundations can only be dug in the War Department itself. The staff, which deals nominally with all questions affecting the Citizen Army at the War Office, now consists of one general officer, two military clerks, and half-a-dozen pensioners ; and let it be observed that in this small coterie only one member is sound in limb and wind, to wit, the general officer, the whole of the remainder having been selected from the permanently unfit list. Such is the constitution of the Department on the Head- quarters of the Army, which now deals with an establishment of more than half-a-million officers and men belonging to the Auxiliary Forces. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that curious conditions of efficiency are promulgated for the Volunteers. If we want to reform our Auxiliary Forces we must begin by establishing an adequate staff to deal with this complicated question. The constitution of such a staff can be threshed out on the War Office vote of the Army Esti- mates ; the.opportunity ought not to be missed by the " mal-
[We have no personal knowledge of the state of the personnel of the Department criticised—i.e., the Department dealing with the Auxiliary Forces—and therefore must not be held to endorse our correspondent's strictures in this respect. As, however, to the need for laying the foundations at the War Office well and truly there can be no doubt. The able general officer who presides over the Department at present ought to be supported by the most efficient body of subordinates pro- curable, for the duties of his Department are as important as those of any section of the War Office.-aEn. Spectator.]
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