TAKING STOCK IN NATIONAL DEFENCE. R AVE we enough gunpowder in
store ? That was a question raised the other day by the writer of a letter in one of the evening newspapers, who went on to point out how enormous is the waste of powder of all kinds in a modern war, and how absolutely essential it is that our home stores should be sufficient to meet the in- stant and imperative demands that will be made upon them the very moment that war breaks out. The writer whose letter we have quoted, was evidently convinced that his question must be answered in the negative. We have not, he asserts, anything like the necessary amount of powder in store, and since the manufacture of modern explosives is a very difficult and complicated process, it is very doubtful whether a supply could be im- provised on the declaration of war. Whether in reality our stores of gunpowder are so perilously low, we do not know, and have of course no means of finding out What we do know, however, is that there is a widespread alarm among men who have made it their business to consider the preparations required for national defence not only in regard. to our stocks of powder, but of all kinds of warlike stores. Ask any one who is competent to give an opinion on the subject, to say whether he fcels happy as to the state of our stores of war material, and if his mouth is not sealed by official etiquette, we venture to say that his reply will probably be of a very alarmist kind. "I suspect that even if we began to manufacture at once like mad, there would be a very bad quarter of an hour, as regards stores, at the beginning of the war. We should either have to econo- mise and go, as it were, on half-rations, at a time when we ought to be thinking of nothing but striking fast and hard, or else we should have to face the risk of running out of the material of war, and of having to tell Generals and Admirals, when they sent instant requisitions for more supplies, that we were out at present, but that probably we should be having some more shells and machine-guns and remounts in on Monday week." We do not, as we have said above, assert that this answer to the question "Is all ready ? " is the true one. It may be, for all we know, entirely misleading, and there may be fully enough war material in hand to keep every one well supplied while the new stuff is being got ready. All we can say is that if this is the case the general opinion is very far wrong, and that the Government have managed to keep the secret of their preparedness with wonderful success. But even if this should happily be the case, things still cannot be said to be in a really satisfactory condition. It is important not only that we should be ready, but that the country should know that we are ready. Such knowledge gives a strength to public opinion which is otherwise wanting, and prevents panics, which are as dangerous as they are unseemly. It is, however, at present very difficult to arrive at this knowledge, even granted that the ground for it exists. The Depart- ments charged with our defence by land and sea are of course obliged to declare that their stores are per- fect to the last button. If they did not, they would be writing themselves down as worthless, and no De- partment can be expected to do that. Unfortunately, then, we cannot regard the official assurances that there is enough of everything wanted in stock, except as pieces of common form which go into Ministerial declarations, like the phrases about the Royal prerogative and the will of the Sovereign. We know that even in the mouths of the most honourable of men, phrases about military or naval efficiency mean no more than, "We have done our best with the limited financial resources at our command." This was what a First Lord of the most patriotic kind meant when he said. that he wanted no more money for the Navy, and six months later accepted an extra grant of four or five millions as absolutely essential. In order, then, to arrive at an understanding as to our state of readiness in the matter of stores, we want something more than mere departmental assurances,—we want some- thing like an independent opinion.
How can that independent opinion be obtained ? We believe it might be obtained by the appointing of a small secret Committee of the House of Commons charged with the duty of conducting a national stock-taking as regards the materiel of the Army and Navy. In every great business, an expert, or committee of experts, goes once a year through the stores in hand, and pronounces whether the various stocks of material of all kinds are too low, too high, or just sufficient, and whether any, and if so what part, of them are obsolete and ought to be got rid of. Speaking generally, the stock-taking means the routing out of the material in hand, the getting rid of what is worthless and. old-fashioned, and the keeping up of the stocks to a proper level. We do not see why a small and secret Com- mittee of the House of Commons should not every year take stock of the materiel in the possession of the War Office and the Admiralty, hear evidence as to what should be the standard, and then learn at first hand how far the stocks in hand come up to the standard. The Committee should then make a confidential report as to the condition of the stores to each of the two War Departments, and add whatever recommendations seemed necessary. That would be the modus operandi of the first year. Next year the Committee would report to the House whether or not their recommendations had been carried out. If they had not been carried out in certain particulars, the Secretary of State for War and the First Lord of the Admiralty would state their reasons, financial or otherwise, for neglecting the recommendations ; and the House of Commons would then have to make up its mind whether it would or would not accept the explanations given to it by the Departments for not acting on the recommendations of the Stock- taking Committee. That, however, would be the extreme case. In all probability the Departments would usually carry out the recommendations of the Committee with- out further trouble. Besides noting whether the previous recommendations had been carried out, the Committee would of course again report confidentially to the Depart- ments in case any alteration of the standard were advisable.
This sounds perhaps too simple and too easy a plan to be very much good, but for all that we believe that it would be of considerable benefit. No doubt merely getting an assurance that our stock of war materiel was in good trim, would not by itself secure us either a good Army or •a good. Navy. It would, however, give us security on one very important point. It may, how- ever, be argued that the Committee of the House of Commons which we suggest, would be no better than the present Departments. "Say the Committee consisted of five Members. Three of them under the usual rule would belong to the party in power, and two to the opposition. The supporters of the Government then, would be in the majority, and they would take care to do nothing to injure their own friends by reporting in a way which would not be relished by the First Lord or the Secretary of State for War." We do not in the least agree to this line of criticism. We believe that the sense of responsibility arising in regard to the simple and direct question, "Do you consider that the amount of powder now in stock is enough, considering the time required to manufacture more?" would prevent men saying, "Our business is simply to say ditto to the Departments, and support our friends." We believe, instead, that what the Committee would feel and say, if they had to recom- mend that more powder ought to be kept in stock, would. be something of this kind :—" Our recommenda- tions are secret in any case for a whole year, and there- fore, they can't embarrass the Government now. When we, or rather next year's Committee come again, they will probably find that the Department has carried out our recommendations, and they will therefore only have to report, 'The recommendations made last year as to stores of powder have been complied with." Again, the Committee would argue, "We would rather be grumbled at a little by the Cabinet for worrying, than run the risk of being lynched if war occurred and the powder gave out in the first month. Every one would be saying we deserved to be burnt alive for saying the stores were adequate when it must have been clear to us that they were nothing of the kind." Another objection is that the Committee, not being experts, would be unable to form a proper estimate of the requirements of the Services as regards stores. Our reply, "Nonsense." Five sharp men of affairs, capable of using their ears and able to call not merely upon the Departments, but upon any naval and military officer, active or retired, and to examine on oath and in secret, would soon get at a fair standard of the requirements. The prac- tice of foreign nations, information in regard to which could of course be obtained from the Intelligence Depart- ments, would be a great help, and the answers to a few 4/common-sense questions as to the experience of former wars in the matter of waste of materiel, would soon give a sensible Committee a pretty good idea of what was wanted. When, too, the standard had once been fixed, it would be -a -comparatively easy task for the Committee to see, partly by their own eyes and partly by the sworn evidence of ex- .perts, that the stocks were really in existence. Men will say generally that everything is perfectly right when they know that it is all wrong, but there is not much risk of an in- spector swearing that he has examined Magazine A, and • counted the shells there, and that it contains in all so many thousand. Men will not commit perjury of that kind in order to shield a Department. Probably the best result of all derived from the national stock-taking we propose, would be, as it were, automatic. The mere fact of five outsiders poking their noses into the storehouses, and asking disagreeable, or, as the departmental officials would -say, ignorant and totally unintelligent questions, would be most useful. Nothing keeps down the dry-rot of officialism like these so-called unintelligent questions by men of brutal common-sense. "I am, of course, not an expert, but oughtn't things which have been kept in stock six years to be tested, even if it is scientifically impossible that the material should suffer any change?" That sort - -of question may show gross ignorance of chemistry; but nevertheless it is often the putting of questions of this ikind. which prevents calamities. Depend upon it, if we could get a stock-taking in the matter of national defence once a year, the Services would be all the better for it, and the country would not, as now, be liable to suffer • ignominious panics every six months as regards the stores of cartridges, powder, shot, and shell in the public arsenals.
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