TOPICS OF THE DAY.
• THE ESHER COMMITTEE AND THE 'AUXILIARY 1.HE Beal portion of the Report of the Esher Com- mittee, published last Saturday, completes a great work, and. one which, taken as a whole, deserves the gratitude of the nation. On one point, however, the final Report is *pen to very serious.objection, and if this mistake is not set right, as we trust and believe it yet may be the successful working of the scheme is likely to be imperilled. • But though the matter is of great and far-reaching im- portanee, it is happily not a matter of principle, but only of detail. The recommendation to which we refer can be altered without infringing in any way • the essential principles upon which the Report is 'based. This matter is the placing of the Auxiliary Forces under the Adjutant-General, and making. the Director of Auxiliary Forces one of the officials in the Adjutant- General's _Department. This may seem at first sight a• small matter, but we believe it to' be* one of supreme moment, and one also that involves' the whole future of the Auxiliary Forces. If the Auxiliary Forces are placed under the Adjutant-General, it is very unlikely that' they will ever emerge from their present position and.- become what they ought to be,—not imitation Regulars, not the Cinderellas of the Army, not a fortuitous collection of military atoms, but a coherent body of civilian soldiers endowed with an organisation . appropriate to themselves, and capable of giving them the form of efficiency they need. The Auxiliary Forces want to be developed along their own lines, and not on those . of a professional Army raised and organised under neces- sarily divergent conditions. The principles which should be applied. to them are totally different from those applicable to , the Regular Army: By this we do not mean that a laver standard of discipline and efficiency in essentials should be applied to them, but only that they slimild not be forced into a mould which does not suit them. But if the Auxiliary Forces are to be given an organisation that ' is appropriate to them, and if they are to be made into a force upon which real reliance can be placed, they must not be coerced. into an administrative scheme which will deprive them of the power to develop in obedience to the law, Of their being. In order to achieve their best development, we hold that the Auxiliary Forces should be place' d in a separate Department of their own. We readily grant that the officers in supreme control should be Rsigular officers, and Regular officers of the highest stand- mg 'and experience, 'but they should not be put under a ehief who must necessarily concern himself first with the Regular Forces, and will only be able to give a very small amount of his attention to a body which is full of special pi'oblems and special interests. The Adjutant-General cannot find time to devote to the Auxiliary Forces. His Mind must necessarily be full of the problems of the Regular Army.' But no division of a Department, in the Army at any rate, can flourish if the chief is not sympa- thetic, or if his head is full of other, and to him far more important, things. In other words, if the Director of Auxiliary Forces is simply to become a subordinate in the Adjutant-General's Department, the Auxiliary Forces will remain what they are now, nothing but the poor relations• of'. the. Regulars, and miss the evolution and improve- ment which.they so urgently require. - ' But if the Auxiliary Forces are not to be under. the. Adjutant-General,_ how are they to be fitted into -our military organisation ? In our opinion, a separate De- partment should be treated for them which should stand. outside the Adjutant-General's Department, but have rela- tions with the Departments of the Quartermaster-General and 'the Master-General of the Ordnance similar to the re- lations, which-the Adjutant-General's Department-has with thbse Departments. It must not be supposed that to do this would in' any way turn the Department of the Directer of Auxiliary Forces into a sort of imperium in imperio in the War Office. It, like every other Department, would be absolutely and • completely under the Army Council, responsible to it and directly controlled by it. Again, we do not suggest for a- moment that the Department should be specially represented on the Council. In truth, no Department is, or • ought. to be, represented on the Council. The Council is a corporate. entity, and the fact that its . members happen •to in several= cues heads of Departments, does not alter the fact. Agi a member of the Council the .Master-General: of • the Ordnance has quite as much power over the DePartment of the Chief of the General Staff as over his own. But though there is no sort of need for placing the Dirocior of Auxilii.ry Forces on the Council, and thoUgh, 'in fact,. he had better not be on. the Council, it . would be .fieeessary as a matter of adminiStratiye convenience that some member of the Council . should act as spokesman of the 'Auxiliary Forces and 'be 'able- to explain the peculiar character of their service. That being so, it seems . to us that. either the' Secretary of State himself, or else the Civil Member—preferably the latter— should be the member of the Council charged With the duty of keeping in touch with the Director of Auxiliary Forces. The Army Council themselves would of course 'see that this official does his duty, carries out their policy in his Department, and does not attempt to evade their control; but an individual member of the Connell is needed' to undertake the work of laying the requirements of the Department before the Council. It is appropriate that this' person should be a civilian, and so likely 'to be sympathetic to a force which is non-professional in its 'character. It • need not • be feared; however, 'that the Civil Member will be too 'Sympathetic, 'for' it will be the Army Council, not he; who will decide' whether the reqUests of the Department are reasonable. It May be said, of course, that the Adjutant-General could-discharge the duties of spokesman quite as well as the Civil Meniber, and that therefore. no change in the scheme of 'the Esher Committee is necessary. 'To 'this' We would reply that we must not consider the Adjutant-General as a machine,. but as a human being. A very little reflec- tion will show. how. the fact of: being placed under the Adjutant-General, and having him as its mouthpiece, must depress the Department. Lithe War QfficA as :in other administrative affairs, the question of money is the supreme question. When the Adjutant-General each autumn sets forth his requirements for the coming year, can Wereipect that he will pay any very great attention to the needs of the Auxiliaries ? The Regulars will naturally come 'first in his mind. Their demands must be satisfied before any others can be thought of. And in this the Director of Auxiliary Forces, if he is the subordinate of the Adjutant- General, will, with proper military obedience, acquiesce. Thus, if the Auxiliary Forces are under the Adjutant- General, the Connell will find that their Director never does anything, but concur in his chief's views. If the Council Want to hear, as unquestionably they will want to hear,' the authentic voice of the Militia, 'Yeomanry, and "Volunteers, they can only hear it through 'a Department which stands in direct relation to them, and is not swamped bp.the greater 'interests of a Department'of which it only :forms a subordinate part. One may imagine the kind of 'con- versation that 'will take place when the 'Director of Auxiliary Forces urges the Adjutant-General to put such- and-such a demand involving expenditure before the Council. ' Impossible. I shall have a hard enough job to get.their assent to 'the half-a-dozen far more important -things I am pressing on them. Your "dog-shooters ". must really wait another. year.'
It. will perhaps be urged that we are throwing the whole .selieme • out of- harniony, and creating an, Army within an Army by our proposal with regard to the Auxiliary Forces. This is not the - case.. The Esher scheme treats . the Auxiliary Forces as a separate Army just as much as 'We do,—the only difference being that we desire to give that Army • room,enough to. develop,: while the Committee's proposal squeezes • it into a narrow place between the Medical Department and that of the Judge-Advocate-General. If the Com- mittee held that the Auxiliary Forces ought not 'to be treated as in a sense a. separate Army, they' would not appear. in the scheme at . all. They would' be as visible for the purposes of the scheme as the Rifles -and. the Rifle Brigade or the Hussars, and would be distributed ..anonymously throughout the. Departments. There. could no more be . a separate administrative diriaion for .them than for the Guards. ' The fact that they 'appear- as a special entity in the Adjutant- General's -Department is the' proof that the Esher Com- mittee consider that they must be treated as in principle a separate Army. Thus no administrative confusion, and . no violation of the main principles laid down by the Committee, would NI entailed if the Auxiliary Forces were lifted out of the Adjutant-General's Depart- ment and placed in 'that of the Civil Member. No other . alteration or readjustment would be required. We are not, then, asking that the Government should reject any essential recommendation of the scheme, but merely that they should in one particular alter the analysis of adminis- trative functions set forth by the Committee. To do this will in no way reflect upon the very remarkable achieve- ment of the Committee. Their work is of a monumental qharacter, and we are convinced that when once the Army has got accustomed to the workings of the Council, and its fruits are visible, the nation will feel a deep sense of gratitude to the Committee for their anxious and arduous labours on its behalf.
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