MB. STANHOPE'S BOLD INNOVATION.
WE have often complained of that curious provision of our Constitution which debars the House of Commons from hearing the men who could beet tell it what it wants to
know. No one who has ever been at all behind the scenes of public life can fail to be aware how seriously that complaint is
echoed by the men who work. Oftentimes it is as difficult to keep a Minister in the House of Commons from making a
mess of the brief he holds, as to do all the other work that is involved in carrying out any great public reforms. Ministers feel the inconvenience of being Punch and Judy puppets to a ventriloquist behind, as keenly as any men. In military matters, they so often try to escape the difficulty by putting up Generals to defend their own positions in after-dinner speeches, that the very men who are slaving themselves ill in the public service are supposed to be idle talkers, loving speech over- much. We are not surprised, however, that all this should have been felt to be absolutely intolerable at a moment when the question of the safety of the Empire in presence of threatening dangers is exercising the minds of all who think seriously about the future. We heartily congratulate Mr. Stanhope upon the step he has taken to clear the air ; but we
must at the same time express our amusement at the curious—
very English—solution that has been found for the difficulty. That eminently respectable, most decorous, but as a rale not highly electrical body, which under the name of the United Service Institution holds its sittings in a grimy, obscure building in the corner of Whitehall Yard, has been chosen to receive what Lord Wemyse, who was present, declared to be " the most important and valuable military statement that has been made in my recollection within or without the walls of Parliament." Seeing that for the last thirty years, at all events, Lord Wemyss has probably heard, and has certainly read, every military statement of great political and public importance, that is a strong assertion. But it is not too strong. The cause which gave rise to it was this.
A paper about the use of Volunteer Field Artillery was being read. It had attracted a rather scanty audience. No one not in the immediate secret had had the slightest idea what was to follow when General Brackenbury rose, and, after a sentence referring to the lecture, continued thus :—" I speak with the responsibility which attaches to me as the head of the Intelligence Department of the War Office, and I think it may be of some interest to this audience gathered here to-day if I state how this question which has been brought before us bears upon the great national scheme of defence that has been lately matured at the War Office, and which is known to the public generally as the Mobilisation Scheme.
In order that I may make you understand clearly what this Mobilisation Scheme is, and of what it consists,"—
and then followed a complete statement, avowedly made by authority of the Secretary of State for War, of the scheme for the defence of the Empire to which Lord Wolseley recently alluded as representing more effective work done to that end than he had known during all the years he had been struggling to have our needs faced and dealt with. We most cordially agree with Lord Wemyss that the complete explana- tion ought to be widely circulated. It is most strange that it should hitherto have almost escaped notice by the daily
Press, and on the whole, we agree also that it is a "most comforting statement." For what it amounts to is this. On our Navy we, in the first instance, depend for the defence of our commerce, our Colonies, and our shores. But the Navy cannot act in the one way in which it can efficiently guard those sacred trusts unless it has secured points all over the world where it can procure coal, while an enemy cannot, and unless it has secured harbours at home and abroad for victualling and repairs. The defence of these is the first duty of the Army. The naval authorities absolutely require, in order to carry out their proper work, that they shall be relieved of all responsibility in regard to them. Yet, hitherto, no steps whatever have been taken to determine what garrisons we require in time of war to hold these places, on which the efficiency of our Navy depends, nor from what sources the numbers required are to be provided. We have lived from hand to month, depending on a condition of things which has long passed away. Now, first, steps have been taken to determine what the minimum garrisons are which are re- quired to hold our foreign coaling-stations; the local patriotism of the Colonies has been evoked to the fullest extent ; and, as far as possible, all numbers that could be provided on the spot have been arranged for. The whole RIM required has not been taken in the current Estimates ; but enough has been done to provide for such fortresses abroad as have their armament ready, and it is the purpose of the Secretary of State, on the assembly of the Committee of the House of Commons charged to look into the accounts of the great Spending Departments, to lay before them complete estimates of what will really be required to establish the forces of the country upon an intelligible footing, com- plete, so far as it goes, both as regards these garrisons and all other matters. It is clear, at all events, that facts have been at last fairly faced. The question of the duties to be under- taken during war time by the Volunteers has been taken up. The mode in which each portion should be employed in case of invasion has been fixed. The deficiencies of the force in regard to which, as Lord Wemyss says, the most active of the Volun- teer officers have been for years "knocking at the doors of the War Office in vain," are acknowledged. An effort is to be made to develop Volunteer Field Artillery, expressly on the ground that it is utterly impossible that the vast quantity of that arm required to supplement the existing Volunteer Infantry should be supplied by the creation of a force so expensive to keep up as the Regular Field Artillery is. So provided with a proportion of each arm for adding to the forces of the Regular Army taking the field, the Volunteer force and the Militia have been distributed on the following principles. It is considered that, while it would be indispensable that our great fortresses at home should be occupied with adequate garrisons before the actual declaration of war by a great Maritime Power, it would be impossible to withdraw from their homes the whole of a Volunteer corps for so long a time as the garrison must be maintained,—that is, throughout the war, and at a distance of an hour or two by train from where the men live. Hence it has been provided that one-half of the Volunteers living in any seaport to be defended may be considered as available for garrison duty. Employing in this way for the necessary garrisons at home almost entirely Militia and Volunteers, it has been found possible to complete the infantry garrisons without drawing to any large extent upon the Regular Infantry.
But a certain number of artillerymen trained to work the enormous engines which now form the armament of great fortresses is absolutely indispensable, in order that our harbours may be considered to be armed at all. Hitherto we have been placing huge guns in Malta, in Gibraltar, at Portsmouth, and at Plymouth, and we have taken no steps whatever to pro- vide the numbers of men adequate to make those weapons of any avail. A great deal of the mechanical work can be done by Militia, by Volunteers, or by infantry ; but there are large portions of the duties of the garrison artillerymen which are more special than those of any other men who are employed in fighting. How tremendous our deficiency in that respect is, may be judged by General Brackenbary's statement that the garrison of Plymouth alone requires in case of war 5,300 artillerymen. " The very greatest number of Regular artillerymen that can possibly be spared for that is 1,100. We can only count upon 500 Volunteer artillery- men out of the 1,200 who are actually living within two hours' distance, and the remaining 3,700 have to be pro- vided by bringing Militia from all parts of the Kingdom. We have had to utilise all the Volunteers possible. Every Volun- teer artilleryman living within a reasonable distance of any port " has been reckoned on, and still" we have a deficiency of 3,000 garrison artillerymen for the defence of the United Kingdom." It is clear that, if the logic be sound that our Navy depends on secure ports, and our ports depend on getting at least this proportion of trained artillerymen to work the guns, the provision of this weakness is our first and imperative necessity. Hitherto it has been absolutely ignored.
But, further, there is a special form of power which England can exercise in defence of her Colonies or of India which is in its way unique, provided our condition is such that we are able to utilise actively the strength we possess. When we went to Egypt in 1882, we were able to deliver our little army, about 30,000 strong, at the very point where we needed to strike, without loss of man, horse, or gun, beyond such casualties as effiux of time naturally brings with it. We did this because of the extent of our mercantile marine. The Russians, as we noticed last week, were only able, at the end of their struggle with the Parks, to pass Adrianople in 1878 with a much feebler 30,000 men than went to Egypt in 1882. If, therefore, we really had available for embarkation such force as we now maintain in the United Kingdom, the strength of which is actually determined by the necessities of our Indian reliefs, we should be able to make that force available at any of those points in which we are interested in a way that enormously increases its available strength as compared with the vast masses of foreign Powers. But it is essential that the force should be made up into an organic whole available for immediate action as are the forces of the Powers against which we may have to act. So examining it, it has been found that we can, if certain necessities are pro- vided for, in addition to our garrisons, make up a complete army, such as could as a whole be transported from these shores for active service, of two corps. But it was also found that, though in these corps a larger proportion of Horse Artillery was allowed than is the case with any other Army, a surplus of this brilliant arm remained which, under these circumstances, would, as far as all human probability is concerned, never be employed in war at all. Seeing that the garrison artillerymen of whom we have spoken, who do not in any way attract public attention, are really needed for the safety of the Empire, it will easily be understood now why Mr. Stanhope has been so firm in resisting the pressure of the military Members of Parliament, and in refusing to avoid making the economy he could, whilst he was actually proposing to prepare those means which are indispensable at once to enable the Fleet to act, the force we keep at home to be effective, and the force we send abroad to be able to move. We cannot follow General Brackenbury into his explanation of the steps that are proposed for that end, but we most earnestly trust that his statement itself will be widely circulated, and we cannot too strongly urge Mr. Stanhope to stand firm against all remonstrances in putting our forces upon a footing of genuine efficiency, no matter what hostility he may evoke from those who, we are convinced, do not realise how great is the real boon offered us, and how small relatively is the sacrifice proposed.
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