WA ll OFFICE REFORM. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin.—You say in the Spectator of October 18th: "It is, we confess, with a sense almost of despair that we read the Report" ; but one notes that you do not confess to a sense almost of surprise at the finding of the Remount Commission. Is it possible that you had in mind the immortal word-painting of Charles Dickens in 1858 P- " But surely this is not the way to do business ? ' the spectator could not help asking. The airy young Com- mission was quite entertained by his simplicity in supposing for a moment that it was. This light-in-hand Commission knew perfectly that it was not. This touch-and-go Com- mission would have frankly told him that if the ship went down with the War Office yet sticking to it, that was the ship's look-out and not theirs." Perhaps the Spectator will draw the attention of Sir Michael Hicks Beach to the further words :— " A few bilious Britons there were who would not subscribe to this article of faith : but their objection was purely theoretical. In a practical point of view they listlessly abandoned the matter, as being the business of some other Britons unknown, somewhere, or nowhere. In like manner, great numbers of Britons main- tained, for as long as four-and-twenty consecutive hours, that those invisible and anonymous Britons ought to take it up ' : and that if they quietly acquiesced in it, they deserved it. But of what class the remiss Britons were composed, and where the unlucky creatures hid themselves, and why they hid themselves, and how it constantly happened that they neglected their interests, when so many other Britons were quite at a loss to account for their not looking after those interests, was not made apparent to men."
Finally, may one repeat the remarks of a young Indian civilian on this matter of War Office reform ?—
" It is against common-sense," he said, "to expect change to take effect from outside inwards ; reform begins at the bottom and works out to the top ; it may never reach the top, but it has revitalised all the same. Three hundred and fifty years ago a poor friar reorganised Church government, and if he did not reform the Papacy, yet he dispensed with it ! So the South African Campaign will have readjusted the point of view of the subalterns who took part in it; by the time they are Colonels, they and the men they govern will have dispensed with the War Office."
Perhaps this idea may be some comfort in our present dia. tresses.—I am, Sir, &c., B. M. P.
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