A HIGH CONSTABLE FOR ENGLAND. T HE new Government have done
a very wise as well as a very striking thing. They have made the Duke of Devonshire in effect Lord High Constable of England. That is, they have created an office for him which will place in his hands the power to supervise the defences of the Empire, and to see that the Army and Navy are organised with a due regard to their mutual relations and to the national safety. Our cumbersome constitutional arrrangements do not allow the Government to tell the country openly what they are doing. The public would no doubt have been well content to see a new great office of State created under an appropriate name. That, however, is not the way in which things are managed in the United Kingdom. The Duke of Devonshire is to become nominally nothing more than Lord Pre- sident. But as Lord President he is to preside over a Council charged with the duty of superintending the national defences. This means in plain English that one of the most prominent men in the Cabinet will have the special duty of bringing the arrange- ments of the Army and Navy for the national safety into harmony, and of taking a comprehensive view of our warlike needs by sea and land. For the first time in our history since the days of Chatham, we shall have a statesman of strong character devoting his mind to the sole duty of putting the nation in a posture of defence. Practically, the Duke of Devonshire will be an autocrat in all that concerns the defence of the Empire. His colleagues will give him a free hand, and he will be able to see that the Admiralty on the one hand, and the War Office on the other, are in a position to do the work assigned to them.
What makes the appointment of the Duke of Devon- shire specially hopeful, is the fact that the post he fills is of his own devising. He has not been put into it on somebody else's suggestion, nor has it been created for him in a hurry and without deliberation. The Hartington Commission, in its Report issued in 1890, specifically recommended the creation of a Council or Committee for National and Imperial Defence, of the kind over which the Duke of Devonshire is now to preside. Thus the Duke will be carrying out in his own person an arrangement ibng considered and matured, and one in the good effects of which he strongly believes. It is worth while to turn to the Report of the Hartington Commission to see exactly what were the recommendations in regard to the Council kb/. Defence. In the first place, the Commission refused to sanction the idea of abolishing the Ministerial chiefs of the Admiralty and of the War Office, and substituting instead a single Minister of Defence. They declared that "neither the Admiralty nor the War Office could under this arrangement be individually and constantly represented in the Cabinet, and the interests of both services would, in our opinion, suffer by the change. Although the position of a Minister of Defence would be necessarily a very powerful one, his opinion could not be final, as it might be overruled either by the Cabinet or the Prime Minister. Under the existing system, it lies with the Cabinet or with a Cabinet Committee to maintain a just balance between the demands of the First Lord of the Admiralty and of the Secretary of State for War, and financial exigencies as represented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The centralisation of the two depart- ments under a single Minister, who must still be subject to Cabinet control in larger matters of policy, would merely introduce a new link in the chain of a responsi- bility already difficult to define Moreover, the existing tendency towards centralisation would be greatly aggravated, and in the result, the Minister of Defence would be involved in a complex mass of work with which no one man could adequately deal. No European Power has adopted the principle of the administration of the Navy and Army under a single Minister, and in the United States, where the experiment was tried in the last century, it was definitely abandoned." But though the Hartington Commission objected to abolishing the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary of State for War, they were very strongly of opinion that a bond of union should be created which would bring the two offices into relation. They declare themselves, therefore, in favour of the creation of a Naval and Military Council, " which should probably be presided over by the Prime Minister, and consist of the Parliamentary Heads of the two ser- vices, and their principal professional advisers. In this Council also possibly might be included one or two officers of great reputation or experience who might not happen to hold any official appointment in the Admiralty or War Office at the time. This Council might meet in all cases before the Estimates of the year are decided upon by the Cabinet, so that the establishments proposed for each service should be discussed from the point of view of the other, and the relative importance of any proposed expenditure might be fully considered. It might also be summoned from time to time, to consider and authori- tatively decide upon unsettled questions between the two Departments, or any matters of joint Naval and Military policy, which in the opinion of the heads of the two services required discussion and decision. It would be essential to the usefulness of such a Council and to the interests of the country that the proceedings and decisions should be duly recorded, instances having occurred in which Cabinet decisions have been differently understood by the two Departments, and have become practically a dead letter."
This looks at first sight a modest proposal, but in reality the creation of such a Council could not but have the most far-reaching results. The recommendations of such a body, even if not presided over by the Prime Minister, could not be neglected by the Cabinet. It would speak with the voice of three Cabinet Ministers and of the chief officers in both services. Again, the existence of this body would tend to the preparation of real Estimates. The Estimates for either the Army or the Navy should of course be based upon the needs of National Defence. The Departments should say in reality what they say in form. We shall want such and such things done this year, and they will cost so much." At present, however, the Estimates are not really prepared on this principle. Practically, the Treasury allows the Depart- ments so much, and they have to make the best of it. They propose, in fact, to spend so much of the money allowed them on this item and so much on that, as far as it will go. The Estimates thus are not now a report on the needs of National Defence with the cost added, but a scheme for distributing the expenditure of so many millions. A powerful Council, however, would be able to insist that the Naval and Military Estimates should be real Estimates, and based on the real needs of the nation. But the existence of the Council would do more than add weight to the demands of the Departments and make the national needs the basis of the Estimates, not the Treasury's abstract notion of how much ought to be spent annually on Defence. It would greatly increase the responsibility attaching to Ministers. The recom- mendations of the Council would be recorded. The written word remains, and the Cabinet would think twice before they refused to carry out a recommendation which could be brought up to condemn them in case of a national disaster. Now, Ministers know that in case of a crash no responsibility could be fastened on them. " We did our best," covers all errors. It would not when the retort could be made, "No ; you did not do your best. The Council of National and Imperial Defence recom- mended the doing of things which would have prevented the catastrophe, and yet you persisted in rejecting the recommendation." A Government will think twice—nay, ten times—before they reject proposals backed by the Council over which Lord Hartington is to preside. The risk would be too great.
The appointment of the Duke of Devonshire to preside over a Council of National and Imperial Defence is thus a matter for sincere congratulation. We are at last going to look our warlike needs in the face, and meet them honestly. But the Duke's appointment means more than the organisation of the Council. It means also that an internal reorganisation of the War Office and of the Admiralty will be carried out on the lines so often recom- mended in these columns—the lines of the Hartington Commission. What is wanted is the introduction of a clear undivided personal responsibility into each Office. There must be a Cabinet Minister responsible to Parlia- ment, and a permanent official—the First Sea Lord in the Admiralty, a Chief of the Staff at the War Office —responsible to the Cabinet Minister for the whole service, just as the Secretary of the Post Office is respon- sible to the Postmaster-General. Then, and not till then, shall we know whim to hang when our troops are left to face an enemy without cartridges, and our bayonets twist like gas-pipes. We have almost a permanent head of the Navy in the First Naval Lord, and we can soon have one at the War Office in the shape of the Chief of the Staff. All that is needed to be done is to give one more turn to the screw. That will give us all the essential recommendations of the Hartington Commission, and an efficient scheme of National Defence. Assuredly the new Ministry starts with good omens. It has found an adequate piece of work for a really great statesman.
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