TOPICS OF THE DAY.
DOUBLE GOVERNMENT IS HALF GOVERNMENT. WE have sueeeeded in calling attention to the double government in the Army. We doubt whether it is advantageous to the Army. We are sure that it is not so to the tax-payer ; and that, while it impairs efficiency and creates extravagance, it renders the acts of those whose motives ought to be unsuspected liable to mis- construction. We are, therefore, desirous of stating somewhat more in detail a few of the events which led to the present state of things.
The existing arrangement owes its origin to the unlucky time of the Crimean War,—or rather that most lucky visitation, which roused us out of a fool's paradise with the sound of a remote danger, and instead of inflicting upon us any other positive in- jury than some horribly tedious debates and a few millions to pay, awakened us to the necessity of putting our house in order against worse contingencies. But the exposure was sudden, the exigency was urgent, the old military arrangements had to be broken up hurriedly ; and the very lodging of the new War Department behind Whitehall, with its provisional look and messengers that hardly knew their own passages, showed the makeshift character of the system which was constructed to order. To the Duke of Newcastle is due the credit of having seen the necessity of the reconstruction, and of having begun the work with a sincerity and a self-sacrifice of exertion not then appreciated ; though accidental circumstances enabled us to know something of the official life of the War Minister of that day, stranger as the man himself was to us, and is. Lord Panmure took up the work with not less zeal, but with more strength of will and technical knowledge. His first en- deavour was to carry out, as far as he was allowed, the general union of all the departments. He had to work the Ordnance and old War Office, to bring the Commissariat from the Treasury, the Militia from the Home Office, to direct the new Topographical Department, to manage all the Foreign Legions, and to provide arrangements for clothing the Army in place of the ancien regime of Clothing Colonels, officially guillotined by a stroke of Mr. Her- bert's pen. Besides these minor departments, he was responsible to the Crown and Country for the management of the war. Much was done, but the last grain of the pomegranate was left untouched—the grand misfortune of these reforms was that they did not include the Horse Guards. We need not now pause to examine the reason which makes it difficult for a public man successfully to attempt change there ; the source of it is well known, and well understood. It must, however, in fairness to the Commander-in-chief of that day, Lord Hardinge, be admitted that, during the war, notwithstanding the existence of the Horse Guards, the whole authority in military affairs practically de- volved on Lord Panmure. Whatever strength there was left in the former, it was not devoted to antagonism of any kind. It was given willingly and freely to the forwarding of any measure that could better the condition of the army in the field, or the organization at home. At the conclusion of the war, on the death of Lord Hardinge, the command at the Horse Guards fell into stronger but less ex- perienced hands, and from that time till the gaining of Captain Vivian's motion for an inquiry in 1858, a series of contests went on between the two great centres of military authority. During the Crimean war, the greatness of the danger, the visible rotten- ness of all the military departments, and the absence of most military men of importance, had kept the authority very much in the hands of the Secretary of State. But when the host of gal- lant officers, constituting what is usually meant in speaking of " the Army," returned with all the lustre derived from action in the field, and with a Royal personage to give effect to their wishes, hopes, and prejudices, the Horse Guards was enabled to dispute the right of dictation with the Secretary of State. An opposition in the House of Commons and press was then made to every plan which emanated from the War Office ; and to a certain extent the contest continues to the present day, though it is pur- sued less violently. The Horse Guards has thus far come off with some éclat, for, as we showed last week, it has succeeded in forcing the double government into almost every branch of the military machine. It obtained the nominations of its own mili- tary officers to the clothing department. It obtained the presi- dency of the Council of Education, and the nominations of all officers in that sub-department. And as Colonel of the Guards, and representative of the Court interest, the Commander-in-chief was enabled to get rid of that Magna Charta of military effi- ciency, the Warrant of 1854. After Captain Vivian's motion in 1858, the military authorities discovered that there did exist a tribunal which was not quite so pliable as successive military commissions and committees ; and they found it necessary to take some step towards disproving the sensations of antagonism between the two offices. Instead therefore of perpetuating the contribution of epistles between the two offices, heretofore accumulated by reams in the vast nnprinted library of Redtape, the military authorities resolved that once a week a meeting should be held to settle any disputed points—a weekly Congress between the high contracting Powers. But what does this act prove ? It constitutes an instant and direct acknowledgment of the necessity of united action. But if these meetings be held,--if the Quartermaster-General, the Adju- tant-General, and the Military Secretary meet the Under Secretary of State at the War-office,—under whom are they all acting ? Trace back the authority they represent. If it is really an united department, why two presidents ? We have often heard the sys- tem of competitive examinations abused as being no more than a bad copy of Chinese institutions, but this military administration is a still worse copy of Japanese customs. Why are we to be Japanned?
At these meetings, then, we say, as we have said before, there are actually two War Ministers, one of them the Acting and the other the Responsible,—the Prince and the Whipping Boy. And so it has come to pass that we have two Ministers of War and no Commander-in-chief—no General Commanding
the First Military Division,—no officer charged with the defence of the very heart of the empire. The first military division ought to be the first military post in the State. It ought to comprise the military part of Woolwich, Aldershot, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Essex, and -Middlesex ; and the General in com- mand should have the Horse Guards for head-quarters, while Aldershot is his proper country residence for summer. His Army, —irrespective of its numbers—ought to be the cream of the Forces; and his staff, not a permanent incorporation of gentle- men provided for, but selected for efficiency and appointed for the usual term of years. Will military men deny this ? We have several among our readers, we believe, and there- fore we speak on such a point with all due deference. But if we have rightly interpreted the information we have sought, men who know anything of the brigade of Foot Guards, of the best batteries at Woolwich and the Household Cavalry, hold it mani- fest that a very small army of such troops, well led, accustomed to act together, sufficiently provided, and scientifically disposed, would be competent to act against a very superior force. The more so if every corner of the country attacked contained a popu- lation partially trained, armed, and very angry. Now the materials for such a First Division exist—we have the ground, the troops, the materiel. But who is to lead ? Where is the General of that Division ? Everybody will point to the Com- mander-in-chief. And then what is to become of all his adr ministrative work all over the world ?
We will not be mistaken. We will not leave it to be supposed that we are aiming to contract military authority in military matters. Quite the reverse. We have no share in the feelings of those who depreciate military men, any more than we can admit the wisdom of military men when they rail at civilians. " The Secretary of State," we have heard it said, " is a mere civilian,— guided by civilians,—advised by civilians, who know nothing of military affairs, are mere quill drivers, and have no care for the feelings of military men, being incapable of understanding what is meant by military honour." This of course is simply saying that civilians are fools, without perception, or the sense of gentlemen. On the other hand, we fear there are persons in civil departments who indulge the habit of looking upon military men as so many angry school-boys,- persons not governed by ordinary worldly judgment, who have to be pacified and humoured a is Rarey, and whose opinion except upon drill, is worth nothing. Of course men who are likely to have any weight in promoting or arranging military and administrative reforms are not the men to be governed by absur- dities like these. Such men will perceive that many public offices will be the better for being filled by military men. Others can as well be filled by soldiers as civilians, the one condition being that such posts, to be legitimate places for professional distinction, must be maintained up to a high standard ; and that, therefore, when soldiers are taken for them, as well as civilians, they must be chosen for their administrative qualities, and not for good heart or gallantry in the field.
The Secretary of State happens to be a civilian, but he is not Secretary of State because he is a civilian, but because he is a statesman who, in many an arduous campaign of words, has won his way to the Queen's confidence or to the heart of the nation. Now, are soldiers incapable of attaining precisely the same distinc- tions ? We believe nothing of the kind. The #3ecretary of State must be a man possessing the confidence of the Crown and of the country ; but so long as he possesses those titles to office, with the power of understanding administrative as well as military matters, he may be either civil or military. And perhaps there would be positive advantages to the country in having an alternation of soldier and civilian, each bringing the special experience of his own school to throw ventilation and light upon the routine of de- partmental business. And of the remaining departments there are several which might be in the hands of military men, xhe exceptions being, for obvious constitutional reasons, those which relate to pay, audit, and account. We need not say that all matters which relate to discipline and inspection with reference to mili- tary standards ought to be directed by military men. There are offices for the supervision of manufactories which might benefit by the kind of alternation to which we have referred,—a practical engineer or manufacturer sometimes introducing or refreshing the ideas upon the subject of technical standards—a soldier sometimes renewing the standards of military requirement in active service. It is the same with the Commissariat ; only a civilian might occasionally be in- troduced on the principle of special personal qualifications, such as a knowledge of the resources of a country and the means of supplying the wants of an army. There are other departments which require combinations of training, both 'military and scientific, such as the directorships of Artillery, of Fortifications, which combination is found among the officers of the Scientific Corps. We are far, therefore, from desiring to abate either the number of offices held by military men or the authority of each man in his own office. On the contrary, we anxiously desire such a more complete division of employments as would shield us against the present enervating, and may we not say vitiating, division of authority.
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