9. On the other hand, the efficiency and power of the navy, though perhaps less absolutely dependent on the army, must be governed largely by the amount of assistance which the army can be relied upon to give to it. The security of the military ports at home is a vital necessity for the efficiency of the navy; that of the military ports abroad is a scarcely inferior necessity; while the scope of action of the navy in distant waters must mainly depend on the amount of confidence with which it can calculate on the power of self-defence of the principal coaling stations, and reckon on finding there the necessary supplies.

10. It has been stated in evidence before us that no combined plan of operations for the defence of the Empire in any given contingency has ever been worked out or decided upon by the two departments; that some of the questions connected with the defence of military ports abroad, and even of those at home, are still, after much departmental correspondence, in an unsettled condition, and that the best mode of garrisoning some of the distant coaling stations is also undecided.

11. In all these subjects a question of principle is involved which no attempt has been made to solve by a final and definite decision. The naval authorities contend that it is essential to the efficiency of the fleet and the success of naval operations that absolute freedom of action shall be left to naval commanders in time of war, and that this freedom of action would be impaired by any regulations or understanding involving the retention of certain ships at certain stations in order to aid in their military defence. On the other hand, the military authorities consider that it is essential to the completeness and efficiency of their preparations that they should be informed what amount of assistance they can definitely reckon upon from the navy.

12. There does not appear to us to exist sufficient provision for the consideration by either service of the wants of the other. It seems to be assumed without adequate ground that each will be in time of need prepared to give the assistance essential to or highly necessary for the efficiency of the other; and there is a want of such definite and established relations between the Admiralty and the War Office as would give the opportunity to either department of calling the attention of the other to the condition of the establishments and preparations in which it is vitally interested.

Not unreasonably the commissioners described this as an 'unsatisfactory and dangerous condition of affairs,' obviously requiring immediate remedy. They accordingly considered specially two propositions for amending it: the first, the creation of a Minister of Defence as supreme and responsible head of both departments, the immediate control of each service being entrusted to a professional officer; the second, the investment of a professional officer, who would sit in the House of Lords, with supreme and responsible control of each department, the necessary link between the two being supplied by the appointment of a civilian minister, who would sit in the House of Commons. Both these propositions were dismissed by the commissioners as open to grave objection; but instead. of recommending or elaborating some third scheme, they contented themselves with suggesting that there might be some advantages in the formation of a naval and military council which should probably be presided over by the Prime Minister, and consist of the parliamentary heads of the two services with their professional advisers.'

Surely this is rather a poor sequel to the formidable prelude

quoted above, rather a feeble remedy for an unsatisfactory and dangerous condition of affairs.' No doubt the transfer of the problem to such a council-in other words the shifting of the burden of solution from one deliberative body to another-might be an advantage; but obviously such a body could have no executive function. As a means to an end it might be useful, but it could not of itself supply the necessary organisation.

Is there then no remedy for this dangerous condition of affairs'? I think that there is, and I venture to propound it for the consideration of the readers of this Review.

Let us, therefore, briefly restate the problem at issue, and then proceed to discuss the solution. Given, as they are at present, two mutually dependent services: so to organise them that they may efficiently perform each its proper function in the defence of the British Empire.

The failure of the Hartington Commission in its attempt to grapple with this difficult question seems to me to be due mainly to one principal cause, viz.: Inappreciation of the fact that Great Britain is primarily a naval power. It placed the army and the navy on the same pedestal, and starting from this false assumption failed (as might have been expected) to arrive at any conclusion which would square with actual facts. It is astonishing how often the. trite saying about Great Britain being a naval power is repeated without the least grasp of its significance. Talk as we may about the navy, we find the army continually appropriating an undue share of our attention. And yet what are the claims of the army, whether from its past historical record or its present importance, as compared with those of the navy? I am an old soldier myself, proud of the service, proud of my old corps, and proud of my brother officers in all branches; but I find it hard to answer the question.

Our first great national peril, since we became self-contained and lost our hold on France-that of 1588-was averted by the navy. The first British army in the modern sense of the term was, significantly enough, raised for service on British soil and for civil war. The very red coats date from Cromwell's time; and it is significant that Cromwell had to learn his business as a soldier from a foreigner. What work then was to be done against foreign powers even in Cromwell's time, was mainly done by the fleet under Blake. The one expedition sent to any distance from home (I allude to that despatched to Hispaniola) failed ignominiously, owing to the cause that has so often baffled us from those days to the present-want of harmony between army and navy. It was under a foreign king and for the furtherance of the policy of a foreign king, William the Third, that British regiments first did regular work on the Continent; and it is from that period that dates the first picture that we possess of a British military officer. It was, however, reserved for an English

general, Marlborough, to give the English people the first taste of military glory. Still the navy was yet uppermost in the British mind. The connection of the electorate of Hanover with the Crown of England again brought English troops on the continent of Europe. Pitt, it is true, was 'conquering America in Germany,' but this most effective part of the work (and the same is true of Clive's campaigns against the French in India) was done beyond sea, the maritime communications being secured by the fleet. No doubt Dettingen and Minden were victories, but they were chequered by the defeats of Lauffeld, Fontenoy, and Closterseven. In the wars of the French Revolution and of Napoleon, it was not until the fleet had swept the seas clean of hostile ships, that the army could settle down to serious work in the Peninsula. There the genius of Wellington raised its prestige to the height which culminated at Waterloo.

Since the days of the Great War, it cannot be said that the navy has had a chance of coming to the front on active service. We remember, it is true, Nelson as well as Wellington. We place the one on a pedestal so high that he cannot be seen; we set the other within reach of the naked eye in a crowded thoroughfare. Their statues are typical of their destinies in our hearts. The army, unlike the navy, is always before our eyes. It has been constantly employed for the past fifty years on active service in all parts of the world, and almost invariably with honour and success. Not unnaturally, therefore, nor, I am proud to think, undeservedly, it has attracted the greater attention of the public. The wars of other nations have given us an impetus in the same direction. Our difficulties in the Crimea in 1854-6, the Franco-Austrian war of 1859, the DanoGerman war of 1863, the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, the FrancoGerman war of 1870-71, the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-8-all these, unvaried by anything like a great naval engagement-have diverted our attention from our first great instrument of attack and defence, the navy, to that entirely secondary weapon, the army. There is proof enough of this in our whole system and method of proceeding. Our military arrangements are made as if our army were at least of equal consideration with our navy. The navy is looked upon simply as a movable force charged with seagoing duties. Its stations throughout the world, which exist avowedly for naval purposes and are indeed essential to the efficient action of our fleets, squadrons, and cruisers, are held by forces solely under the control of the Army Department. The very names of our offices uphold the prevailing error. The politician at the head of the Army Department is called the Secretary of State for War; the politician at the head of the Navy Department is called the First Lord of the Admiralty. As if war were the business of the army alone.

Naturally enough the army has become more deeply infected with the fallacy than any other body in the community; and the result is

that our officers have come to regard strategy on land and matters connected therewith as of paramount importance in the defence of the Empire, to the comparative exclusion of questions of greater or at least equal gravity. And yet, when all is said and done, nobody imagines that a British army could hope to cope with any one of the large continental armies; though, as is sometimes urged, a compact British force of, say, 30,000 men might turn the scale in the case where two contending continental powers were equally matched. But be this latter consideration as it may, it will probably be admitted that the main business of the British army in Europe will be to act as a centre for the militia and volunteers in opposing any force which may, in spite of our fleet, have succeeded in obtaining a footing on our shores.

Am I then, it will be asked, against the study of land strategy by our military officers? Certainly not. No one rejoices more than I do at the earnestness and zeal with which many of our officers now seek and master their profession. We have always a field for a continental war in India, where operations may have to be conducted on a grand scale; and outside Europe, the chief function of our army will be to serve as the backbone of our Indian native forces, and in connection with this duty to have troops quartered at coaling stations on the route to India. India, however, though the grandest, is not the only arena in which our army may be employed. But I do assert emphatically that land strategy, as commonly understood, differs materially in character from service required for the defence of British ports and coaling stations. An understanding of the meaning of the manœuvres of hostile ships; a knowledge of how and when to work the ordnance on land opposed to them; training in the laying and working of submarine mines; skill in the production and employment of the electric light; experience in the management of torpedo-vessels; practice in the movement of boats and other craft-all these, no less than the defence of a fort or battery against the attack of an enemy landed in the vicinity, are duties wherewith the force charged with the naval defence of the Empire should be especially conversant. Surely these are matters which should not be entrusted to troops of a movable field army. But what do we find in fact? Coast and harbour defences are made over to the army instead of to the navy department, and are committed to men who, however well versed in the art of war on land, however well read in the campaigns of Napoleon and Moltke, are torn from their legitimate calling to do the work that belongs properly to the naval service. The result is natural enough. Officers and men of the army, when employed on coast and harbour defence, are generally anxious to escape from it and rejoin the forces, whose movements they regard as more likely to lead to distinction and consequent advancement. There then remains one of two evil alternatives. Either men must

be engaged upon service distasteful to them; or probably positions on which the efficiency of the operations of the seagoing navy must largely depend, will be denuded of their garrisons at a critical time. The army has its legitimate functions, and kicks against doing what it probably conceives to be the drudgework of the navy.

Assuredly our system on this point is altogether wrong; but where is the remedy? Improvements may no doubt be made in the organisation of the army departments to fit the army better than at present for the duties of harbour and coast defence. But these would necessarily be but patchwork, based on a false system and therefore inadequate to the exigences of the case and the requirements of the nation. We have to recognise and act upon our position as the greatest of naval powers, and to put an end to the 'dangerous condition of things' which arises from the excessive dependence of the two services on each other. No reform in the army department will accomplish this.

What, then, is the solution? Simply this: the navy must not be dependent on the army for the defence of its ports and coaling stations, nor must there be laid upon the army department the burden of finding garrisons for places which are held purely as foci for naval action. The forces for the defence of naval stations, both at home and abroad, should be under the orders and control of the navy department. They could then be relieved, not only, as at present, by change from service abroad to service at home, but also, where desirable, from service afloat to service ashore. Moreover, it should be the duty of the naval department to determine not only the details and movements of ships, but also the armament and garrisons of existing forts and batteries, the position and strength of new ones, and all details as to the employment of submarine mines. In short the naval department should be responsible for everything, whether under the head of matériel or personnel, relating to the defence of the ports, on which, as I have said, the efficiency of the action of the fleet must in great measure depend. Under this system, all ordnance, whether required for harbour defence or for the armament of ships, together with carriages, machinery, ammunition, and other appliances connected therewith, would be under the naval department; field guns and siege artillery being of course, as at present, under the control of the army department. By such an organisation the navy would be self-sufficing and self-contained, independent of the army for all its own requirements, and absolutely responsible for its own efficiency in respect not only of seagoing vessels but of the various stations to which those vessels must resort for coal, refit, and repair. It would secure what it chiefly needs-unity of purpose and direction. The field army, thus relieved of coast and harbour defence duty, might then be reduced in numbers, and employed, as occasion demanded, on its own legitimate work, unhindered by