In this respect the authorities began at the right end of the stick. By calling into council some of the best educational authorities under the presidency of Mr. Akers Douglas, they have found it possible to revise the course of education for entrance to the army, to establish a more practical course at Woolwich and Sandhurst, and to lay down rules as to promotion which will make the life of the army loafer an intolerable one. In addition it has been made clear that staff appointments will no longer be monopolised by the favoured classes. In the past a youth with good connections has found no difficulty in obtaining agreeable staff billets, and so emancipating himself from regimental routine. In the future, staff appointments will be dependent on regimental excellence. After three years on the staff an officer will return to his regiment. The much-needed touch between regiment and staff experience will thus be obtained.

The announcement of these reforms has been received with almost unstinted praise. We have no doubt, however, that the carrying of them out by the military authorities will give the War Minister of the day, whoever he be, many unpleasant half-hours. The spirit of discipline does not exist in the British nation as it does among the Germans and the Russians. Every aggrieved relative carries his grievance to the House of Commons. The purging of the army of pleasant fellows, whose only crime is not having to make a livelihood out of their profession, and the wish to leave tactics and strategy to their less favoured comrades, will be an ungracious task. There is reason to think that many episodes on the Tugela, and some on the Orange River, would have been avoided if courage and good comradeship had not been reckoned in so many regiments as a sufficient requisite for advancement. Such traditions die hard. disease of criticism is not incident to the army only. It has permeated all classes of society. When Lord Roberts took office the outcry for the relief of the service from inefficient officers filled every article of the Press and every public speech. It would have been supposed that, for at least the period which has since elapsed, his word would have been law in this respect. The contrary has been the fact. Every step which has been taken in this direction has been loudly challenged. We hold that the persistence of the present authorities in a task which they know to their cost affects their popularity is one of their strongest claims to our confidence. At a heavy charge to themselves the army and the

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country have been shown that professional merit will be encouraged and discipline will be maintained. One powerful general has been removed from a prominent command, which, by all military laws, it was impossible for him to hold longer. The principle that officers sent home from the war for inefficiency should not be further employed has been strikingly vindicated. A number of these officers whose failures were well known in South Africa, but have not been prominently before the public, have been placed upon half pay. A colonel of the Guards who had allowed practices to go on in his regiment which would not have been tolerated in any Continental army, has been similarly dealt with. Several of these occurrences have been made the subject of animated discussions in Parliament, but Lord Roberts's decisions have been inflexibly supported by his civilian colleagues, and in each case the verdict has been overwhelmingly with the authorities. None the less, unless we misconstrue public opinion, the present unpopularity of the War Office has been as much fomented by partisans of disappointed officers as by any of the measures which have been carried through. It should be remembered also that it will take years for the country to realise how great and advantageous a change has been made in the training of officers under the present régime.

As regards the non-commissioned ranks of the army, the historian of the future will make no halt between 1870 and 1902. The soldier who, before this Government came into power, served for eight years with the colours and four in the Reserve, was paid 18. a day, and paid out of it 5d. for messing allowance and stoppages. His net return was therefore 7d. a day, or 4s. 1d. a week less anything he might lose for misconduct. While a single man could not be said to have attained affluence under this pay, to the man married 'off the strength' it was practical starvation. The soldier now receives 1s. a day clear, or 7s. a week, and if he reengages after two years' service he receives 18. 6d. a day, or 10s. 6d. a week, which, with all other things found, it would be difficult for him to obtain in any other unskilled profession. This boon has been given as a corollary to an enlistment for three years with the colours and nine with the Reserve, an additional 6d. being given only to the soldier who extends his service. It is early days yet to say whether this system will obtain for us the necessary number of longer service men to meet the Indian and colonial demands.

But we think Mr. Brodrick has been well advised in asso

ciating this great demand on the public purse with the raising of the standard and the institution of a character qualification for recruits. The conjunction of short service, better pay, and character, will unquestionably place the soldier's profession on a different pedestal from that which it has ever hitherto occupied. It will take two or three years to appreciate the full effect of this reform. Those who recognise the magnitude of the change will curb their impatience as to its results until it has had a fair trial.

The great improvements made in barracks, including the establishment of proper regimental institutes, and the encouragement of temperance, will, with the advantages named above, leave an ineffaceable mark on the army. If Lord Roberts's term of office were to close to-morrow, he could at least claim that his short period as Commander-in-Chief had enabled him to obtain for the private soldier advantages for which he had laboured throughout his life.

Any review of the reforms connected with the personnel of the army effected during the past two years would be incomplete without an allusion to their training. We were promised the substitution of practical exercises for barrack square drill, the adoption of service uniform and of training under service conditions. These proposals are in a fair way to be realised. This country will never be an ideal training ground, but the large tracts which since 1895 have been bought by the Government on Salisbury Plain, in Ireland, and in Scotland, will prove an excellent investment for the country, and the mere fact that nearly 100,000 men were under canvas, or at tactical centres in different parts of the country in the month of August, shows that the pledges given in this respect are being carried out.

While these considerable changes have been carried out, the experience of the war in regard to various departments of the army has not been neglected. A great deal might be written about the break-down of the medical department. It is more pertinent now to note that in the brief space of time which has elapsed since its failure came to light, it has been reconstituted and brought into touch with the civilian medical profession. Opportunities for the most modern scientific training are being afforded to officers already in the department, new candidates of good quality are coming forward, and the whole nursing service has been reorganised under the presidency of Her Majesty the Queen. We do not labour the subject, because we may couple the organisation of the medical department which has been accomplished

with the proposals for the military education of officers, which have yet to bear fruit, as items of the new military programme, which have met with little but praise in any quarter.

It is unnecessary here to dwell at length on the other considerable reforms recently introduced. The attempt to cut down the expenses of officers; the provision of chargers, which will open the mounted arm to men of moderate means; the opening of various courses of instruction to officers of the auxiliary forces; the increased provision for rifle practice, form no inconsiderable chapter in themselves. Yet, if the Commissioners are not satisfied that enough is 'being done to place matters on a better footing in the ' event of another emergency' they must have some serious defect in their minds. We think they should have explained it. An army which has no compulsion behind it must always be an imperfect machine in the Continental sense. But our army is not our first line of defence. No system akin to that of Germany or France would be permanently acquiesced in, if any Government had the temerity to propose it, and the strength to carry it. With auxiliary forces which must be nursed rather than coerced the task of organisation is complex, and however carried through must always be open to criticism. The facts, however, speak for themselves. In two years since the war the army has in all respects been brought up to a new standard, its proportions and duties have been laid down, it has been fully equipped and provided with stores for mobilisation, the artillery has been nearly doubled, and the insufficiency of mounted troops has been compensated by substituting 30,000 yeomanry trained on practical lines for the force of 9,000 trained as indifferent cavalry which existed up to 1901. Can any army be cited in which an equivalent progress has been made in any similar period?

Reviewing the Royal Commissioners' Report by the light of the above facts, we are forced to express disappointment with the document they have placed before us. It would, we think, have been better to have summarised the evidence much more tersely and conclusively than they have done in the hundred and fifty pages of matter through which we have had to wade. We should prefer the opinions of the Commissioners to quotations from the evidence. We should like to know whether the Commissioners really believe our position to be now 'as in 1899.' No man who reads the report, however carefully, can assign to the present Govern

ment, to the soldiers, or to the War Office officials, their share of blame, and we regard this as the more serious because, without knowing who is to blame, we cannot find the remedy. For the Commissioners, afraid of wounding anyone's feelings, have hesitated to say directly that Lord Wolseley, or Lord Lansdowne, or the Cabinet failed in their duty. They draw a picture of confusion, and, being unwilling to wound individuals, charge it on the War Office system. If we were persuaded that they were right in this conclusion, it would not carry us much further, as the majority of the Commissioners, even though persuaded that the system is at fault, have given us no intimation of how they would amend it. They are not prepared to have a military Secretary of State, they do not say that the present Commander-in-Chief has insufficient power, they do not disapprove the present Army Board or War Office Council, though they would like to make both more active and permanent. They do not tell us whether the Defence Committee provides, in their opinion, a sufficient security for the necessary access of the Commander-in-Chief to the Cabinet. They do not propose to clip the powers of the Secretary of State, nor, though they evidently consider him overworked, do they explain how his labours could be delegated to others. A more inconclusive document was probably never put before a public hungering for precise guidance.

The minority of the Commissioners, however, have given us, through Lord Esher and Sir George Goldie, an alternative for the present system. They want the War Office to be administered, like the Admiralty, by a Board. They wish to abolish the Commander-in-Chief. They believe that the public will accept from the Board what it will not accept from individuals, that the military authorities so assembled will have a greater sense of responsibility, and that the Secretary of State will in this way be relieved. This proposal deserves the serious attention of the Government on three main grounds-first, that the present system does not command confidence; second, that the proposed system has been successful at the Admiralty; third, that Lord Hartington's Commission arrived at similar conclusions twelve years ago.

To our mind the whole question to be considered is, what is to be obtained by the Board of Admiralty system? Is it desired to deprive the Secretary of State of the final veto on all War Office proposals which he at present exercises?