ELECTED OFFICERS. •
[TO TIER EDITOR OP TIER 'SPHCFAT011."
SIR,—In a recent interview with Mr. Will Thorne, M.P., the Paris Matin reports him as saying that in his projected Socialist Citizen Army "every man will choose his superiors, nomination of officers being by ballot of the men." All history proves this a blunder. It is subversive of discipliue, and indefensible from every point of view. It was last tried on any considerable scale during the American Civil War, with disastrous results. One of the popularly elected officers of the Confederate Army, a brigade commander, altered the order of march, and afterwards tried to defend his action by argument, whereupon General "Stonewall" Jackson rebuked him in these words: "Sir, you should have obeyed the order first and reasoned about it afterwards. Consider yourself under arrest." Any one wishing to read an interesting criticism on the subject may be referred to a book entitled "Four Years under Marse Robert," which was reviewed at some length in the Spectator of September 21st, 1907.-1 am,
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