THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE ON OUR DEFENCES.
IS it not time that the long-standing and unseemly differences between the military experts and the Ministers who are responsible for our military adminis- tration should be put an end to ? We say this, as we imagine the great majority of Englishmen will say it, with no bias towards one side or the other. We are at one with the experts in wishing to have a thoroughly effective Army ; we are at one with the Ministry in wishing to get this thoroughly effective Army as cheaply as possible. What we complain of is that the Government do not seem to think it necessary to reconcile the two views. The experts declare that such-and-such things are wanted to fit the Army for the work it has to do. The Secretary of State proposes estimates which plainly will not give us the things the experts have declared necessary. We do not for a moment contend that in military matters experts are always right and civilian Ministers always wrong. But we do contend that when an expert holding high official position has made a statement of this kind, it should be answered by the Minister. It argues a very low estimate of the sense or patriotism of Englishmen for a War Minister to treat grave assertions of inefficiency as something which may safely be passed over. These statements must be either true or false. If they are true, why do they bear no fruit ? If they are false, why are not the officials who make them confronted with the proofs that they have blundered ?
This week we have had two of the statements we have been describing, one from the Duke of Cambridge, the other from Lord Wolseley. The Duke of Cambridge tells the House of Commons' Committee on the Army Estimates, in the first place, that an immediate increase of 11,000 men is absolutely necessary to make the Army efficient under ordi- nary circumstances. This is not a demand based on the threatening state of affairs on the Continent; that may at any moment land us in a position which would require a much larger increase. The Duke is speaking of common- place every-day necessities. Eleven thousand more men are wanting to put the Army on what ought to be its peace-footing in quiet times,—to make it strong enough, that is, to meet the unforeseen demand which may grow up at any moment. Next comes the question of officers. The present plan is to dispense with a certain proportion of them, and trust to the officers who have retired to fill up the vacancies in ease of emergency. The Duke of Cambridge thinks this a bad plan. Every regi- ment, he holds, should have its complete complement of officers. Retired officers do not, as a rule, keep touch with the Army ; and, for want of this, they would be of no use in war,—at least, not at first. The consequence is, that the Commander-in-Chief himself does not know where he would get the necessary complement of officers if he wanted them. The third point is, that the Horse Artillery ought to be restored. Thus there are three specific measures which, if we are to believe the Duke of Cambridge, ought to be taken at once. Yet they are not taken, nor does the War Minister give any reason for not taki g them. The Duke of Cam- bridge is not a, mere irresponsible subaltern. He is an officer of great experience, and he is in supreme command of the British Army. He may be mistaken in what he thinks the Army requires ; but he is not likely to be speaking without thought. Indeed, he says expressly that he is "prepared in his official capacity to give an estimate of all that is required to make the Army in all its branches thoroughly efficient." It is not for him to do so unasked, because he is "not the Government ;" he is only a per- manent official of the Government. But when a permanent official holding the position of the Duke of Cambridge, and having all the motives the Duke of Cambridge has for keeping on pleasant terms with the Government, makes such a statement as this, the Government has, to our minds, but one course that it can take in justice either to the country or to itself. That course is to call upon the Commander-in-Chief to give the estimate he declares him- self ready to give, to make that estimate public, and then either to ask Parliament for the money, or to explain the reasons which lead Ministers to think the estimate exaggerated. As it is, Mr. Stanhope and his colleagues are in the position of the Directors of a railway who should pay away all their balance in dividend, without taking any notice of the report of their engineer that the permanent way was dangerously out of repair. Why does Mr. Stanhope consent to occupy this posi- tion? Lord Wolseley has an answer ready to this ques- tion. It is the result, he thinks, of party government. The moment a new Ministry comes into office, its first thought is how to cut down the Estimates. The Liberals call the Tories extravagant ; the Tories retort that, win n everything has been taken into account, they have spent less money than the Liberals. It never seems to enter the mind of either party that the proper thing to do would be to claim credit for having told the nation the exact truth, for having discovered what the Army and Navy ought to be, if it is to be adequate to the demand made upon it, and then for having asked Parliament for the money required to make it what it ought to be. Lord Wolseley is less precise than the Duke of Cam- bridge—perhaps because he takes a still lower view of our present military condition—but he is precise enough to be alarming. The system on which both the Army and the Navy are worked in England must sooner cr later, he says, land us in disaster. That is not his own opinion only ; it is the opinion of every Admiral or General who is in office, or who has been in office. He says this openly, because he feels that we have arrived at an epoch in our history "when it behoves public men to speak the truth, and not only the truth, but the whole truth." These would be strong words in the mouth of any officer cf repute ; they are additionally strong in the mouth of Lord Wolseley. He would not, we may be sure, give a warning of this kind—a warning which involves the gravest censure on all the Governments with which he has acted, and in some sort on himself, for his previous. silence—if he were not profoundly impressed by its truth. Lord Wolseley does not wish to be the Marshal Lebceuf of the English Army, and though he speaks late, he speaks while there may be still time to repair the error which successive Governments have committed.
We differ, however, from Lord Wolseley as regards the share that party government has in the business. In the same speech he quotes Lord Derby as saying that the people of this country have never refused the Ministry for the time being any money they have asked for, either for the Army or the Navy. Consequently, all that a Government need have to nerve it to tell the taxpayers the plain truth, is a little courage. If some of their predecessors had told the plain truth and suffered for it, it might need a good deal of courage to repeat the experiment. Ministers might be re- fused again, and actually have to give up office As it is, the chances are the other way. The risk that the taxpayers would deliberately prefer costly insecurity to costly security —for even insecurity, as we know it, is not cheap—is very small indeed. But small as it is, it seems to be more than Ministers can bring themselves to face. We trust that the Session will not be suffered to go by without strong pressure —strong enough, we mean, to be effectual—being put upon Mr. Stanhope to call upon the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Wolseley for a full statement of what the Army needs to make it effective, and then himself to give an equally full statement of the reasons which lead him to think that we can safely do with less than they say. It is the duty of a Minister to do these things ; it is equally the duty of the House of Commons not to allow that duty to go any longer undone.
Previous page
