Among those who want a more living and present authority, there is the attempt to commend again the system and methods of the medieval Church as really meeting the religious ideas and needs of the world to-day.

These are the two tendencies which at present struggle together for control of the Church of England, and the Birmingham controversy is an episode in this larger conflict. The Catholic movement may be regarded as a reaction against modern ways of thinking. It began as such (Newman had a pious horror of "liberalism "), and it has developed according to the same principle. The sympathies of the public will be divided partly according to temperament, and partly according to knowledge. It has been said that Modernism is really a question of knowing or not knowing certain facts. It is indeed probable that those who detest Modernism most are least aware (save where they are sceptics) what is the extent of the undermining which the medieval position has recently undergone. Nor is it the natural sciences that have done the most damage, but historico-critical studies, besides psychology and comparative religion. Though at the same time it is true that these two last branches of study have done much to create a sympathetic attitude towards religion in circles which fifty years ago were indifferent to it.†

One remark remains to be made, and that is that the invective poured upon the head of Bishop Barnes does nothing to assist that cool and careful consideration of our problems whereby alone we can hope to solve them. Righteous indignation is one of the least profitable forms of self-indulgence, and its holy poison is deleterious to charity and common sense.

J. C. HARDWICK

"The Way of Modernism," p. 18.

Compare, for instance, Prof. Julian Huxley's recent "Religion Without Revelation "-a definitely religious book.

AN

CHANGES IN ARMY ORGANIZATION

N army is beset by dangers in peace as well as in war, and they are none the less to be feared when they are not openly manifest. In war, misfortune at once arrests public notice and the nation strives to put matters right. In peace, wrong methods in training or in organization may pass unheeded, except by those with inner knowledge, but they may breed a virus within the system which may finally prove fatal in the testing time of war. We emerged from the Peninsular War victorious and experienced. The laxity of peace culminated in the scandals of the Crimea. The next trial of any size came in South Africa, and the best anybody can say is that the army then somehow muddled through to victory.

Neither the public nor parliament can divest itself of responsibility for blunders in peace, any more than either can escape the consequence of disasters in war. It is a totally mistaken view of public or of parliamentary responsibility to say that the army consists of experts whose action must never be questioned, and who can only be held to account when things go amiss. Errors may not be discovered until the outbreak of war, when it may either be too late to correct them or recovery may only be possible at large sacrifices of lives and money. The time for politicians to leave to soldiers a free hand is when they are in the face of the enemy. In time of peace, when soldiers of eminence disagree on some question of fundamental change, the public should be alert and strive to influence a proper decision.

Looking back at the history of the army during the past sixty years the nation has every reason to be proud, and the army itself to be grateful, for the services rendered by laymen in military affairs. The two outstanding names in connection with army reform and betterment are those of Lord Cardwell and Lord Haldane. They brought clear thought to bear on problems which required for their solution detachment and common sense rather than technical knowledge. They were able to take the long view, and to cut themselves away from all the complex trammels that experts so tediously weave. They were happily free from those

personal prejudices and predilections which inevitably influence people who are at actual variance, and they possessed above all that strength of courage and conviction which enabled them to follow their reasoned judgment, even though it may have been contrary to the advice of experts.

Lord Haldane's term of office afforded a good example of this. He was vigorously assailed both by the politicians and the press for his decision to reduce the number of regular batteries and to establish artillery as an arm of the territorial force. He was told that the gunner was a peculiar product that required long and intensive technical training, and that without this training, efficiency could not be obtained. The war has shown who was right. When experts agree laymen must inevitably hold their peace, even though dangerous heresies may lurk in such agreement. When experts disagree, and disagree profoundly, it is time for the layman to try to understand the issue and to adjudicate between them. This is the position that confronts the country at the present juncture.

I shall endeavour to show that, even though the present conflict is between experts, the basic elements of the dispute are clear and simple, and such that any thinking person should be able to understand. For this purpose it is not necessary to go back into army history earlier than the South African War. That campaign, in spite of its ultimate success, was not a credit to our army methods. It produced a crop of scandals in connection with contracts and supply which were afterwards investigated by a Commission. It also revealed that the higher staff organization, both at home and abroad, was not suited to meet the realities of war. Accordingly, in 1904, a committee known as the Esher Committee was appointed to advise on the subject of army reorganization. This committee consisted of three members, Lord Esher, Sir George Clarke (now Lord Sydenham) and the late Lord Fisher. Their report is a model of lucidity and brevity. Its comment on the South African War was that " it had outraged feeling throughout the Empire"; that arrangements at the War Office as disclosed were "unsatisfactory and inefficient in the last degree," and that "changes carried out in accordance with the predilections of individuals and not based on any principle have been frequent at the War Office and have contributed to the confusion of its administration." The report proceeded to present a logical plan for general army reorganization.

The main features of the scheme as regards the War Office itself were that army policy was to be entrusted to a council modelled somewhat on the lines of the Board of Admiralty. This council was to consist of seven members, three civil and four military. The President of the Council was to be the Secretary of State for War, and inasmuch as he alone was responsible to the nation and to Parliament for army affairs he was not to be bound to accept the advice of his colleagues. All the members of the Council had their functions clearly prescribed by the Committee. Special stress was laid on this definite allocation of these respective duties in order that there might be no escape for incompetence by the shifting of responsibility, as had so often happened in the past. This allocation of duties was to be secured by a large measure of decentralization without which the committee considered there could be no improvement.

The report is full of those sound views which everybody admits in the abstract and so many violate in practice. For instance, it said: "Under a good system, personal shortcomings produce the minimum of disadvantage and they are more easily detected. It is the essence of a bad system that mediocrity or worse is effectively shielded." The records of the past are fertile in such examples. The report further pronounced that " Members of Council cannot be experts in the entire work of their branches and they should superintend rather than directly administer." The line of cleavage between the duties of staff officers was to be strictly preserved, and the bad old practice of a Chief of the Staff attempting to direct overlapping duties was to disappear. The committee also laid special stress on the necessity for conformity between the organization in peace and in war, and regarded it as a vital element of the scheme that the principle of devolution established at the top should be "carried down throughout the whole structure of the army in peace as in war."

Applying these principles in the concrete to the actual duties of the four military members, first came the Chief of the General Staff. He was to be responsible for the fighting-side of army work, the training of the army in peace, intelligence and operations What he was not to do is really of more importance. in war. He was to have no concern with administration. In the German army the necessity for this clear separation of duties was so insistent that the offices of the general staff were located in a

building two miles away from the administrative centre. To a layman the reasons for this rigid separation may not be apparent, but they are vital deductions from past and bitter experience. In the Crimean and South African Wars there had been a Chief of the Staff-an altogether different person from the Chief of the General Staff-whose duty it was to co-ordinate the work of the other members of the staff. When divergent views on matters of administration arose, as they frequently did, the chief had to decide. This inevitably led to unnecessary talk, writing and delay, diverted the attention of the chief from his proper task, which was that of "operations," and reacted generally on the efficiency of the army. In the Peninsular War the Duke of Wellington himself dealt direct with the various branches of his staff. The Esher Committee accordingly prescribed that the Chief of the General Staff, while dominant and primus inter pares, “should not interfere with the responsibilities of the administrative branches."

On the administrative side there were to be two members of council, one the Adjutant-General to deal with personnel and discipline, and the other the Quartermaster-General (Q.M.G.) to deal with all matters of transport and supply. Finally, there was to be a technical member to deal with research and design. For this last member an old historical title of Master-General of the Ordnance (M.G.O.) was revived. It is around and between the functions of the two last members, the Q.M.G. and M.G.O., that incessant differences, culminating in. the present crisis, have taken place. Following the principle of no overlapping," which the committee had taken as their headline, it was laid down that the Q.M.G. should be responsible for all administrative services other than personnel, that is for movement, for transport, accommodation, and supply, as well as for the storage, issue, and maintenance of all material. These lastnamed duties had hitherto been under an officer known as the Director of Ordnance. The committee specifically stated that "the only logical arrangement is to make the Q.M.G. the holder and issuer of all military stores in peace and in war."

The fourth military member, the M.G.O., was nominally charged with armaments and fortifications. In effect he was to be responsible for scientific research, for the design, manufacture, inspection, and provision of all technical stores of a warlike character, non-technical stores such as clothing being provided

VOL. 247. NO. 503.

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