TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD KITCHENER : AN IMPERIAL FOREMAN OF THE WORKS.
ikLL Britain welcomes Lord Kitchener to-day. Not only does the nation feel that it owes him a deep debt of gratitude for the past, but that it has in him a most valuable Imperial asset. He is a worker and a causer of work in others ; and these are qualities which no nation, and least of all one which carries a burden of Empire like ours, can have too much of. And these qualities are rare. Plenty of men of genius are hard workers, and show the active, diligent, alert mind, but too often their activity is self-. centred. They cannot easily communicate it to others. Lord Kitchener has the peculiar gift of making other men work as hard as be works himself, and of getting out of them that tireless, eager vigilance which is his special and personal characteristic. He is in truth the ideal foreman. It is the business of the foreman to see that the whole of the men under him do their work, and not merely the willing men. Just as a skilful driver of a four-in-band is always watching his team, and seeing that they are all pulling, that the necks of all of them are pressed to the collar, and that none of the traces are slack, so the foreman of the works sees to it that the whole of the gang are busy. In neither case must the idler be allowed to trot slyly alongside the real pullers, content with pretending, but only pretending, to do his share. Lord Kitchener, neither in Egypt nor in South Africa, allowed those pleasant shirkiugs. He was always on the look- out for the slack trace and loose collar. No one quite knew how, but somehow or other he always found out whether the men under him were idling or working; and the most insignificant subaltern had-an uneasy feeling that there was an eye upon him, and that even the remotest corner of the veld was not lonely enough or -forgotten enough to hide his supineness. No doubt, in spite of their fears, plenty of men did manage to escape working as energetically as they ought to have worked, but they snatched at best a fearful joy, and were always casting an uneasy glance at the Imperial foreman at Pretoria. The loafers and shirkers felt sure that sooner or later he would be down on them, and force them to keep the traces tight.
As we have said, LordKitchener is a great Imperial asset. But that being so, the important thing from the national point of view is to use him for appropriate work,—to get out of him the work he does best. We are far too apt as a nation to set our great men to inappropriate work, and not to study sufficiently what is the right " billet " for the particular man. Our national failing is carelessness about detail and about organisation generally, and we are fat too much inclined to think that when we have proved a man to be good at one particular job he will necessarily be good at all jobs. For instance, there is a story that when the Canadian Rebellion took place in the "thirties," and Parliament was greatly perturbed as to how to put an end to the disaffection, it was gravely proposed to send out the then Speaker of the House of Commons. He had proved an immense success in managing the House of Commons in the last unreformed and in the first reformed Parliament, and Members accus- tomed to obey him could not conceive that his word and look would not produce order as quickly in British North America as they did in Westminster. No one, they felt, could possibly resist the Speaker's decisions. Throughout our administration we see the same tendency to hold that• a man who has done well in one capacity will be sure to' do well in another. No doubt occasionally the plan answers- admirably, but it is also very' apt to lead to putting the round men into the square holes. We sincerely trust that it will be avoided in Lord Kitchener's case; and that we shall take the trouble to use his great gifts to the best purpose. It is clear to us that the use to which Lord Kitchener should ultimately be put is to be Commander-in-Chief. Happily Lord Roberts is still in full health and vigour, and there can be no doubt that he will be able to complete his full term of service at the War Office as Commander-in-Chief, and to complete it with the utmost satisfaction to the nation. Lord Roberts may be greatest as a strategist and as a commander in tho field. Indeed, we believe that there he has now no equal in Europe, and. that he- will' go down to history as one of our greatest soldiers. He did not command so many men as Moltke, but he successfully per- formed a harder military task on a far wider field. Moltke had a perfect machine in splendid working order ready to his hand. Lord Roberts before he could begin his work had to pick up and put together the scattered and - damaged fragments of a very imperfect machine, and when- he had got it in working order he had to use it against the most difficult foe that ever held an impossible country.: But though he is greater as a strategist and in the field than in an office, we cannot for a moment agree to the notion that he is out of place in an office. Lord Roberts is doing magnificent work in Pall Mall, and it is most for- tunate that the reconstituting and remodelling of theArmy after the war should be left in his hands. He will, we believe, be able to set the stamp of his genius upon our Army, and give it the best of military traditions. But when Lord Roberts claims his right to rest and retirement some four or five years hence theman to succeed him is clearly Lord Kitchener. With Lord Kitchener at the War Office as Commander-in-Chief, we should have a British Cannot filling exactly the right billet. There his gift for organisation, for combining efficiency with economy, for working himself and for making others work, and his knowledge of men and things, would prove of the greatest possible service. Meantime Lord Kitchener should—as we presume it is already settled he shall— go to India as Indian Commander-in-Chief. It is most important that Lord Kitchener, if he is to be at the head of the Army here, should know, and know thoroughly, the mechanism of the Indian Army. The Indian Army is the only portion of the Imperial forces of which he has had no experience, and it would immensely help him to take a wide view of our military affairs if he had had a first-hand acquaintance with the Indian Army. . In addition, we do not doubt that he would be able to do a good deal to improve the Indian organisation, —especially on the, financial side. That the Indian Army is.
in many ways a splendidly efficient organisation we gladly. admit; but we believe that if Lord Kitchener were given a free hand he could produce equal efficiency at less cost than now, and so, without adding to the burden on the Indian. Treasury, find money for military proposals which cannot now be carried out.
But it is perhaps not quite fair to map out so vast a programme of hard work for Lord Kitchener at the very moment of his landing. He deserves, and we hope will a period of real rest. The strain of the last two and a half years must have been terrific, and it would only be a matter of common prudence for Lord Kitchener to take a holiday. Even if happily the years before us should be years of peace, they cannot but be years of work for Lord Kitchener. He may well indeed have before him the hardest and most trying duties of his lifetime, and it is well that he should begin fresh and in full vigour of body and mind.
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