Mr. Childers has made an excellent selection for the office
of Inspector-General of Fortifications, in the person of Sir Andrew Clarke, an officer who, in various and distinguished employment, has always risen to the level of his task, and who was just in- fusing a new spirit, sadly wanted, into the direction of the great Engineering School at Chatham, of which he has been chief since his return from India. Any one who wishes to under- stand the hostile spirit in which the older school of officers resist any attempt on the part of Mr. Childers to think for him- self, and form an intellectual and vigorous Head7quarters' Staff, will see it very candidly revealed in a letter of General Sir L. Simmons to the Morning Post on Monday last. Such a letter, wholly apart from the merits or demerits of Mr. Childers' selection, is a very grave mistake. It is not for officers, however able or highly placed, openly to oppose the Minister of War, who is responsible not to them, but to Parliament and the Crown.
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