A SOLDIER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR.
TORD ROSEBERY'S hasty and, as we think, ill-judged I remarks as to the wisdom of having a soldier as Secretary of State for War have once again brought this inept proposal under public discussion. We can under- stand men of half-formed views when expatiating on the subject in railway carriages and club smoking - rooms jumping to the conclusion that because the Secre- tary of State for War has to do with soldiers there- fore he ought to be a soldier. The principle that "who drives fat oxen should himself be fat" is one which has always had great attractions for the public mind. But though we are not surprised to find the suggestion obtain an ephemeral popularity while the nation is discontented, and most justly and properly so, with the results of its vast military expenditure, it cannot but be a subject of disap. pointment, nay, anxiety, to find this glib paradox sanctioned and encouraged by a leading statesman,—one who has been Prime Minister, and who has had for a quarter of a century an intimate acquaintance with political affairs. If he can find nothing better to suggest in the way of Army reform than to echo the parrot-cry of "Put a soldier at the War. Office," we may indeed feel hopeless as to the creation of a body of sound public opinion in regard to military affairs. What makes Lord Rosebery's indiscretion the more astonishing is the fact that he glories in being a Liberal and the inheritor of the great Whig and Liberal traditions for dealing with the interests of the nation. Yet in a moment of pessimism he does not hesitate to throw to the winds all the Whig principles of civilian control over the armed forces of the nation—if we are to have a soldier War Minister, we must, of course, have a sailor First Lord of the Admiralty—and so to subvert the very foundations of our system of party and Parliamentary government. As supporters of the party now in power, Lord Rosebery would, we suppose, deny us the name of Liberals ; but at any rate we can feel proud that no such counsel of irrational Anti- Liberalism has ever been advocated in these columns.
The arguments, both practical and Constitutional, against Lord Rosebery's proposal for a soldier War Minister are so many and so strong that it is difficult to know which to choose. We will take first the practical arguments. That because soldiers have greater technical knowledge about military affairs therefore a soldier would make a better Secretary of State for War we entirely and absolutely deny. The chief requirements in the War Minister are a wide and open mind, a power to judge men, and a capacity to mould a policy which shall conduce to an efficient Army. He no more wants to know the details of soldiering, great or small, than a successful financier needs to know the intricacies of bookkeeping, or a successful editor of a newspaper the details of the paper and printing trades. In each case the man at the top must be able to make use of the technical judgment and ability of those who know the details, but that suffices. Again, not only is it unnecessary for the Secretary of State for War to know military details. It is often a positive disadvantage to know them. In other words, the technical training of the soldier is not the training best calculated to make a successful Secretary of State. It is almost impossible for a soldier, immersed in technical knowledge, to keep an open mind. His absence from the centre of affairs during his youth, his concentration in middle life on technicalities, and his absorption in the instant needs of the campaign, if he has seen much service, all tend to disqualify him for statesmanship. The greater the soldier as a commander the less likely is he to prove a good Secretary of State for War. The ideal civilian Secretary of State for War must, of course, rely on the advice of a soldier, and for many things will rely on that advice implicitly ; but to repose immense confi- dence in a soldier Commander-in-Chief, and to take his advice without challenge on a variety of subjects, is a very different thing from making a soldier the Secretary of State for War. We by no means desire to depress the position of the soldier, and, as our readers know, would make the Commander-in-Chief in all military affairs the official alter ego of the War Minister; but we feel that the whole training of the soldier renders it imperative that he should be the trusted adviser of the Government in military affairs, but not the man who gives the ultimate order. There is another reason in human nature against soldier War Ministers which does not seem to hav,°_ occurred to Lord Rosebery and those who agree Wita him. It is this. If you take a prominent soldier, and place him in the Cabinet, he is sure not to .03e; self in the whirl of party polities, and wool affairs. The sot. tent himself with mere military thus placed in the Cabinet would immecliately find d almost certainly begin to take a, lively interest in domestic and foreign policy. But nothing attracts the amateur so potently as statesmanship; and unless he were a miracle of self-suppression, the soldier War Minister would very soon be found neglecting the military art, and insisting on studying and having his say on matters of general policy. Soldiers are always apt to hold strong views on public affairs, and the practical soldier in the Cabinet would soon let his colleagues know that he meant to make his voice heard on all that concerned the nation at home or abroad. In fact, the Cabinet would soon find a political application for Browning's lines :— " Does he paint, he fain would write a poem ;
Does he write, he fain would paint a picture."
The danger would be, in fact, that the soldier would become far more begt upon showing him self a statesman than on spending his time on the to him dull old drudgery of getting the best gun for the Artillery. In truth, you might easily spoil a good, practical, and useful soldier by putting him into the Cabinet, and letting him fill his mind with policy rather than devote himself to securing technical efficiency.
We have dwelt upon the practical inconveniences of having a professional soldier in the Cabinet. The Con- stitutional inconveniences are quite as great. At present our soldiers are happily not party men. If, however, we were to put them in the Cabinet, they would soon become so. It is all very well to say that they might still remain outside party, but we know perfectly well that as a matter of fact they would do nothing of the kind. A very few years after the inauguration of the new system the Army would be divided into Government and Opposition Generals, eagerly waiting their chance of getting into the Cabinet. °And the waiting would not all be silent. The candidates for office would find it advisable, we may be sure, to make a speech from time to time to remind the regular politicians how sound they were, not only on Army reform, but on general questions. Even now we see indications of "party Generals." Under Lord Rosebery's proposal we should have them as a permanent institution. We can easily imagine the paragraphs in the newspapers :—‘ In well- informed political circles it is considered that the spirited attack on the folly of allowing foreign pork to pollute the home market made by the Commander of the Second Army Corps at the meeting of the Native Hog's Defence Union at Salisbury is certain to secure him inclusion in the next Cabinet formed by Lord X.' That seems to us ridiculous and preposterous now, but after a very little experience of soldier Secretaries of State for War it would appear the most innocent of "Political Notes." Un- questionably soldier War Ministers would mean an Army in which in the higher ranks party considerations would remain supreme. We do not wish to enlarge upon the danger of giving too much power to the soldier, for ire fancy that a soldier War Minister who joked with his colleagues about the ease with which he could order their arrest, as did the French General who was also Minister of War, would soon find out his mistake; but still we believe it to be a sound instinct in the British people to avoid even the appearance of any risk of militarism, and to insist that the soldier shall always be a servant, not a master, in the State.
For all these reasons, then, if we are wise, we shall use our soldiers, as we are now using that ablest and most Patriotic of them all, Lord Roberts, to control the technical side of the Army, and shall lodge problems of policy, finance, and general supervision, as heretofore, in the hands °f a civilian Secretary of State. That such a civilian may have been at some former time a soldier will, of course, be no obstacl ; b e while hie h be a profession l e Secretary of State he must not a soldier. That will prove, in our view, not "IY niost profitable, but also most consistent with our Con- taution and with the safe and wise government of the nation.
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