On Friday week, the House of Commons dealt with the
question of National Defence, raised by Sir Charles Dilke on the motion to go into Committee of Supply. Sir Charles Dike, though he did not commit himself to any cut-and-dried plan, seemed to favour the notion that there should be a Minister of National Defence, that under him there should be a permanent official head for each of the fighting services, and that the naval and military estimates should be framed in accordance with their advice. The important thing was to bring home responsibility, and to get the problem of National Defence looked at as a whole. Lord Randolph Churchill was in favour of creating a Treasurer of the Army and Navy, "a sort of Finance Minister over the two services,"— a fantastic and impracticable proposal. Mr. Balfour made a more luminous contribution to the debate. He was for a Committee of Cabinet on National Defence—such a Com- mittee actually sat during the late Administration—which should review the whole problem and keep permanent records, —" A body with permanent records. That is what we want." We are not prepared to oppose this scheme off-hand, but it is a very far-reaching proposal. This Committee of Cabinet might easily become an inner Cabinet, and finally the repository of all power, while it would be greatly ham- pered by its permanent records. Its smallness and its importance would make it the place in which great acts of all kinds would be canvassed.
