The Special Committee appointed to make recommenda- tions as to
the reorganisation of the War Office has published its Report. Some of its counsels are rather vague, as, for example, "to simplify all such regulations as cannot be dispensed with," but one at least is definite enough. This is to entrust all power, subject to the responsibility of the Secretary of State, to a War Office Board, which would con- sist of the heads Of all the great war departments, military and civil, with the Commander-in-Chief for its chairman, and the permanent Under-Secretary of State for vice-chairman. This Board, which seems copied from the Council of the India House, would supervise all War Office work, and submit its decisions to the Secretary of State for War. This is in principle the system at the Admiralty, and if the Board is not too cumbrous it may succeed. At first sight our main doubt is whether individual genius is not too carefully shut out We have no King William of Prussia here to snatch an obscure officer from Turkish service and make him the soul of the governing staff.
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