TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CABINET AND THE WAR.
WE hold it to be the duty of every good and patriotic citizen at the present moment to support the Government, and to check to the very best of his ability any tendency to undermine the position of Ministers or to represent them as unfit to carry on the war. If the Government were to fall—that is, to be driven from office by some outburst of popular discontent--our position would be not better, but infinitely worse, than it is now. We shall be asked of course by the pessimists, who when things go wrong always prefer to curse and scold rather than put their shoulders to the wheel and try to set them right, whether we really have the audacity to pretend that the present Government have been a success, or that their work is above criticism, and so forth and so on. Of course we pretend nothing of the kind. We are fully aware of the blunders of the Government, and we pointed some of them out, not, however, in the language of vituperation, but plainly and squarely, long before they were pointed out by hysterical newspapers, panic-stricken plutocrats, or angry and self-righteous M.P. s. The Government have not only done what they ought not to have done, and have left undone the things which they ought to have done, but they have also shown many signs of being wanting in clear insight and rapid decision. But though we grant all this, we are none the less certain that it is, as we have said, the duty of all patriotic men to stand by the Govern- ment, to protect them from disintegrating attacks, and to take care that when criticism is made, as it should be, it shall be of a constructive, or, rather, a co-operative kind, intended to heal and build up rather than to injure and destroy.
The reason why we say this is because we are convinced that there is no alternative to the present Government. If we destroy it, we shall get not a better but a worse Government ; not a bolder and firmer Government, but one less able and less firm; not a Government more capable of taking responsibility, but one less capable; not one less inclined to be awed by public rumour, but one much more inclined to run into that danger.—The fact t hat the breath of an unfavourable public opinion had pulled down the preceding Government would not put a good heart into its successor, but would make it do what is the very worst thing that a Government can do, tremble at the thought of criticism.—But in truth the argument against forming another Government goes far beyond this. Let any sensible person take a list of the men in office, and then take a list of the men out of office and try to make a new Government, and he will see the absurdity of the proposal. If there were a, row of able, untired men standing ready to take over at a moment's notice all the great Departments of State, we should be the very first to say let the new men and the fresh men be tried. But we know of no such row of men. They do not exist. It comes to this, then: If the Cabinet fell, we could only remake it out of the old pieces. ln fact, it would be the old Government under an alias. But who can say that it would be wise at a moment of special danger and anxiety to submit the country, and still more the Government, to the distractions of a Ministerial crisis ? The thing is unthinkable. Quite apart from these considerations, the Government are not going to fall. Though it is very easy to make out a case against them and to criticize them and show up their blunders, we venture to say that it would be quite impossible to turn them out of office by a hostile vote in the House of Commons. What does this mean ? It means that the only result of irresponsible and scolding criticism such as that to which the Ministry are now exposed will be, not to turn them out of office, but to distract their minds, and possibly sow dissension, and so break up that solidarity in the Administration which, under our system of government, is essential to sound and far-seeing action. The Government must remain in power because there is no alternative to them, and because the majority of the House of Commons are well aware of that fact ; but they will remain weakened and not strengthened if the public and the Press give way to a fit of angry recriminations. Nerves are catching. If we individually and as a nation succumb to an attack, the Cabinet are only too likely to catch the malady. Tho only portion of the criticism which has of late been levelled at the Government with which we have any sympathy is that directed against the size of the Cabinets, or rather against the attempt to run the war by a large Committee. But this criticism, though based on sound ideas, has unfortunately been very largely stultified by the passionate and exaggerated way in which it has been pressed against the Ministry. If, however, the matter is looked at dispassionately, it must be admitted that even the inner Cabinet or War Council which now has the conduct of military and naval affairs in its hands is too large a body for efficiency, and, what is oven a greater obstacle to the best work, is a body of men who are necessarily too busy with other things to concentrate upon the war, the whole war, and nothing but the war. What is wanted, and it is a thing very often wanting in our system of government, is a clearer analysis of the needs, or shall we say the possi- bilities ? of the situation. In our opinion, the first and the essential thing is to distinguish between the operations of the war and the general conduct—i.o., the policy and political strategy—of the war. For the conduct of opera- tions what is wanted is a very small Committee composed of the men directly concerned with the immediate work of the war—of men who are able to sit literally and not metaphorically en permanence and devote their whole time to coping with the needs of the situation as they arise. The men who have to deal with the conduct of operations from day to day or hour to hour must be whole-timers, and not half-timers or quarter- timers—men who have nothing else to do, and not men who can only spare an hour or two every other day from the absorbing work of, let us say, the Treasury, the India Office, the Foreign Office, or some other great Depart- ment of State.
The men who of necessity must give their whole time and thought and every ounce of physical and mental energy to the consideration of operations are, in the first place, the Secretary for War, and, in the second, the First Lord of the Admiralty. But these men cannot form a. Committee by themselves. It would be impossible to give, as it were, a casting vote to either of them. Again, they must have some nexus between them and the man who, under our system, is the head of the Government and the channel of communication between the Ministry, the Sovereign, Parliament, and the people. The Prime Minister must there- fore be a member of this Committee charged with the duty of conducting operations. During war, or at any rate during such a war as this, the Prime Minister is not obliged as in times of peace to think about the Housed Commons and how to circumvent the tactics of the Opposition. His Department, which is really that of Leader of the House, does not now occupy him. Therefore be can and must give his whole time and energies to the war. But when we say that this Committee for carrying on operations should be a Committee of three, we are not doing anything so foolish or so impracticable as suggesting that the inner Cabinet, or even the Cabinet as a. whole, should be kept from exercising their legitimate power and influence in regard to the groat decisions of policy. Such a proposal would be not only mischievous but futile. The Committee of Operations, which would sit every day, would not merely from time to time, but constantly, call into ocounsel, as their help was needed, the heads of the great Departments of State, and also those Ministers who, though they do not at the moment hold great administrative posts, have been singled out for their abilities and by their hold upon the confidence of their countrymen for the conduct of great affairs. Sometimes the conduct of operations would necessitate the presence of the Foreign Secretary ; sometimes that of the Colonial Secretary or of the Indian. Secretary ; sometimes of the Home Secretary ; sometimes of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; sometimes, again, of all of them. Further, some one or other of the groat. Ministers without portfolio, or with only nominal office, might be asked to undertake some vital piece of work. Presumably the way in which the thing would be run would be something of this kind. When same problem before the Committee of Operations touched a great Department, the Prime Minister, as holding the balance and as able to look at the matter from the widest horizon, would say : " We ought on this matter to associate with us this or that of our colleagues." Again, it must be for him to say whether a particular matter is really too big to be considered as part of war operations, but must be regarded as a question of policy to be decided by the inner Cabinet, or in the last resort by the Cabinet as a whole. Clearly what is wanted for the conduct of operations is a small body, and one which can act rapidly and does not requite that circumlocution which appears to be necessarily involved when a Committee of ten or twelve &male sets to work on a piece of administration. But above all what is essential, as we have said before, is that the men who are on the Committee of Operations should be whole-timers, and not men whose minds are filled with the great and grave responsibilities— for great and grave they are—of a Department of State. To sum up, what would actually happen if the scheme for a Committee of Operations were adopted would be that the Secretary of State for War and the First Lord of the Admiralty would manage the pure details, but that the Prime Minister would be there to co-ordinate their views, and, still more, to see to it that they did not go beyond their legitimate field of work, and, finally, to say when and how the inner Cabinet, or the whole Cabinet, must be consulted. The essential of our scheme. is to differentiate between the operations of war and the policy of the war.
One further suggestion may be made. When the Committee was at its smallest—when there were only present the Secretary for War, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Prime Minister—the appropriate official expert adviser from the War Office and from the Admiralty should as a rule be present as recorders or rementhrancers. This looks like a small matter, yet it might well prove a vital one. If illness struck down the chief, the expert adviser could help to carry on. That is presumably why we have two eyes, two ears, two hands, and two legs. We began this article by appealing to the public not to waste energy which ought to be reserved for the conduct of the war in useless vituperation and destructive criti- cism. We would also urge Cabinet Ministers not to fail in a duty which is of equal importance. If it is the duty of the country to remember that when the coach is in difficulties it is useless, or worse than useless, to turn round and curse the driver, so members of the Government must remember that at a time like the present cohesion and solidarity—i.e., close co-operation--is their essential duty. They must not fur a'moment allow themselves to think of Cabinet solidarity as if it were some musty fiction of the Constitution. It must once more become a living thing. Ae long as a man is a member of the Cabinet he must regard himself as part of an artificial person. He must hold in complete subjection all temptations to speak out for himself. He must have, as Speaker Lenthall told Charles I., no ears and eyes except those of the Cabinet as a whole. As long as he remains in the Cabinet he must shoulder without a word any number of blunders com- mitted by his colleagues. He must endure every sort of apparent injustice rather than infringe for a moment the solidarity of the Government. Concerning what passes in Cabinet his lips must be absolutely sealed. Since men are human, this duty must be enforced by the Prime Minister. It must be part of his business to descend with merciless weight upon any one of his colleagues who forgets this truth even for an instant. In order to secure the safety of the country the Cabinet must present to the world a frame of adamant. But it can only do this if every member of it is willing to subordinate himself to the common task. There must be no lone wolves and no one who is not abso- lutely loyal to the Freemasonry of the Cabinet. The decisions of the Cabinet must be the decisions, in no mere theoretical sense, but actually and positively the decisions, of every member of it. These decisions each Minister must defend in public and private as if they were his own. The voice of the whole Cabinet must be also the voice of each member. Cabinet loyalty in the fullest—if you will, in the extremest —sense must be the ruling passion of every Minister. If every Cabinet Minister is absolutely loyal to his colleagues and to the Prime Minister, and if the Government are loyal to themselves, they will set an example to the country which will soon be followed. People who do not stand by each other will never find that outsiders are willing to stand by them. But we must not write as if there were any signs of Cabinet disloyalty. We know of none. Our words are purely cautionary. We use them because we realize that when a peevish Press and a set of " rattled " quidnuncs are surging outside the doors of the Cabinet and clamouring, cursing, and scolding, the task of maintaining true solidarity is anything but easy. But the difficulty of maintaining an absolutely unbroken front is the proof of how great is the need. The greater the pressure of the howling Dervishes on the square, the greater the need of standing shoulder to shoulder.
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