is destructive of economy and efficiency. A re-assessment of the functions of government and an amalgamation, reduction, and re-organization of the instruments of government under a comparatively small cabinet of Secretaries of State is overdue. And the internal organization of these departments of State might with advantage follow the basis, suggested for the defence services, of co-ordinated staffs or thinking departments for the preparation of policy, and executive or administrative departments to give effect to policy.

Finally, there is the argument of the status quo: willingness to accept a single ministry as entirely suitable if we were in the position of starting defence arrangements for the first time, but a surrender of the principle to the difficulties created by established interests and frames of mind. Having admitted the desirability of the change, this plea is not so much an objection to reform as a call for postponement. Otherwise, and unless the circumstances which make the change desirable are likely to diminish, it would be an acceptance of an inefficient and uneconomical organization for all time. But we only know the beginnings of the effect of air power in military strategy. As we have seen, it will increaseif not in this country, then in others—and the future organization of defence will be increasingly aerial even if, as in an organism economically dependent on sea communications, aerial defence cannot for many years become a predominant consideration. So the development of power in the air and its relation to power on land and sea will require more, not less, consideration as time advances. Nor is there any justification for postponement. Unless we are to wait until after a future war, which Heaven forbid, the time to effect a radical re-organization of defence forces is when the nations are exhausted by war and the period of their recuperation, daily growing shorter, offers time to reorganize. And while the strategic necessity will not grow less, even more pressing is the need of the country for the economies which the proposal offers. Domestic prosperity is the primary condition of imperial defence.

The argument, however, has this value, that it corrects any impression that might exist that the change is one that could be brought about semi-automatically by the stroke of a ministerial pen or the passing of an Act of Parliament. It is a change which is needed to make defence efficient, and it is one without which

defence is extravagant; but it clearly entails the uprooting not only of material things but, more difficult still, of habits of thought. Reorganization must not be hampered by past decisions or established precedents, but must be thoroughly canvassed on its merits. Delay increases the need and the difficulties, no small portion of which have been created in the years which might have been used to initiate the reform. An extension of the functions of the Committee of Imperial Defence has been tried and is now inadequate. The Colwyn Committee on Economy in the Defence Services affords an excellent opportunity for reconsideration of the subject. For, without a radical reorganization on a new and generally constructive policy, only piecemeal and quite inadequate economies can be secured. The position should be examined by them together with the suggestions here put forward and a policy of reorganization drawn up prior to the presentation of any further service estimates.

The problem is to reform defence organization by abolishing the present false division on the lines of geographical elements, and to work towards a combination of units of organization common to war in the three elements. Under such an organization control would be invested in a single Defence Board consisting of a Minister of Defence (the Prime Minister); a Deputy Minister of Defence, and three or four Under-Secretaries of State; a Chief of the War Staff; members responsible for personnel duties; for stores, equipment and works in the service; for obtaining supplies; for research and development, including the maintenance of reserves from the industrial life of the country; for finance and accounting; and for secretarial and legal functions.

The basic essentials are to segregate from administrative duties the policy services, in which, in all the arms, there exists only a loose and varying line of demarcation, and to unify defence policy services in their component sections-operations, intelligence, organization and training. To effect this reform it would be necessary to hold a special combined staff-course for selected staff officers, so as to get the greatest breadth of working knowledge amongst those who are to constitute the defence staff. This course would be the forerunner of a permanent combined defence staff college. In due course there would be instituted a common entry and a unified Services Discipline Act; a joint elementary technical training school and a joint cadet college.

From these common pools personnel would be distributed to naval, military or air training centres of their arms. Flexibility of transfer would be allowed, as for instance in the case of flying personnel, who by reason of age or other cause were no longer fit for air duties. And an improved all-round value would be obtained through a broad policy of seconding personnel between the fighting branches, and an extensive interchange of staff.

The re-organization would occasion a problem of some little difficulty in the allocation of governmental responsibility for the fostering, in so far as it is necessary, of those services of military necessity which the government does not directly control: such as the mercantile marine and air transport. Self-supporting reserves can only be achieved by commercial development, operation and maintenance, and any form of military control, however sympathetic, is unsuited to the direction of commercial enterprise. On the other hand, there are distinct advantages in maintaining a direct liaison between military services and their industrial sisters, and, where the stock of knowledge, as in air operation, is limited both in extent and distribution, and where development calls for intensive research and experiment, concentration of knowledge and effort is desirable. The solution, therefore, as matters are, would appear to be to place these responsibilities upon the Defence Minister but to leave them, including research services, with a complete independence from military control.

Minor problems would no doubt arise, but the principle of a unified machinery once established, the amalgamation of the present triplicated administrations would present no difficulties sufficient to call for the perpetuation of their comparative inefficiency and extravagance.

F. H. SYKES

THE DIPLOMACY OF RUSSELL AND

PALMERSTON

The Later Correspondence of Lord John Russell. Edited by G. P. GOOCH. 2 Vols. Longmans, Green. 1925.

THE

HE later correspondence of Lord John Russell, as edited by Dr. Gooch, follows the admirable model of the Wellington Despatches, in including not only the letters of the principal but the replies of his correspondents. Thus we have a crowd on the stage as in Dickens, not a solitary image as in so many" Lives and Letters." This method is peculiarly appropriate in the case of Lord John. Always near the centre of action, Lord John can seldom be made to stand forth alone from the canvas. Hence he is best placed in perspective by being associated with the opinions of others. Probably also Dr. Gooch is right in confining himself to a short introduction of some seventy pages, and in prefixing only two or three pages to each chapter. More of such matter from an editor of such powers might have tended to obscure the letters themselves. Dr. Gooch has adopted the policy of dedicating chapters to problems, and has abandoned the more strictly chronological method.

He seems justified by results. The selection of letters seems generally happy though (as is usual in most private collections) there are some tantalising gaps for which the editor is certainly not always responsible. What were the contents of the Queen's letter to Lord John at the close of his official career, to which he replies obsequiously at the end of the second volume? And there are several other original letters or replies which appear to be missing. A most serious gap is that the great incident in which Lord John remonstrated with Russia over Poland in 1863 is wholly omitted. This is unfortunate, for it is one of the severest tests applied to the statesmanship both of Lord John and of Palmerston, and one from which neither emerged with credit.

This collection is also incomplete from another point of view. The Foreign Office records are now open till 1878, but they do not seem to have been collated for the purpose of this edition, though all printed sources are laid under contribution. Probably

this decision is right, for it will be many years before historians are fully acquainted with the diplomatic records of the epoch 1840-67, and it would have been unfortunate to have delayed publication for this reason. For this collection, admirably edited and selected, throws the brilliant light of a private correspondence, or rather of private correspondents, on a period still dark enough to our view. No such light is likely again to be thrown upon it, until the private papers of Palmerston yield their secrets to a curious public.

One feels tenderly towards Palmerston and Lord John in that mid-Victorian world, which included that trinity of perfections, the Prince Consort, Lord Shaftesbury, and Sir Robert Peel, which beheld the cultured suavity of Granville and Clarendon, the intense worthiness of Graham and Cornewall Lewis, the ascetic genius of Gladstone, the scriptural fervour of Bright, and the pathetic virtue of Aberdeen. Beside these men the figures of "Pam " and " Johnny " are human and living indeed. Irascible and pugnacious, plunging rashly into the fray, resigning without hesitation, pledging their followers by hasty declarations, lecturing one another and the whole world with the same colossal impudence -they figure sometimes as bullies or as blunderers, never as saints or as bores. Their letters contain phrases quite incredible in those of other men of that generation.

Thus Lord John informs Edward Ellice (November 2, 1852; II, 110) that he cannot "help feeling hurt at being compared to a bull in a china shop"; unfortunately his correspondent's reply is not recorded. He instructs our minister not to follow the Neapolitan King, if Garibaldi captures Naples. He does not care where the king lays his "false head and uneasy pillow." He writes to Clarendon (September 23, 1854) that this is "the worst government I ever belonged to," and Clarendon replies, "I happen to have heard more facts on the matter "(II, 171-2). Then the interchange with Palmerston, at the time of the latter's dismissal at the instance of Queen Victoria, must be almost unique in official literature. After making an appointment for "Pam" to give up the seals," Johnny" adds, " I cannot, of course, expect you to admit my assertion of violations of prudence and decorum,' and it would be an ungracious task for me to enumerate them (December 24, 1851). To which "Pam " replies on the same day: "You do not, of course, imagine that I do not feel that just