My own merits, such as they were, were of a purely negative character.  They may be summed up in a single phrase.  I abstained from mischievous activity, and I acted as a check on the interference of others.  I had full confidence in the abilities of the commander, whom I had practically myself chosen, and, except when he asked for my assistance, I left him entirely alone.  I encouraged him to pay no attention to those vexatious bureaucratic formalities with which, under the slang phrase of “red tape” our military system is overburdened.  I exercised some little control over the demands for stores which were sent to the London War Office; and the mere fact that these demands passed through my hands, and that I declined to forward any request unless, besides being in accordance with existing regulations—­a point to which I attached but slight importance—­it had been authorised by the Sirdar, probably tended to check wastefulness in that quarter where it was most to be feared.  Beyond this I did nothing, and I found—­somewhat to my own astonishment—­that, with my ordinary staff of four diplomatic secretaries, the general direction of a war of no inconsiderable dimensions added but little to my ordinary labours.

I do not say that this system would always work as successfully as was the case during the Khartoum campaign.  The facts, as I have already said, were peculiar.  The commander, on whom everything practically depended, was a man of marked military and administrative ability.  Nevertheless, I feel certain that Lord Kitchener would bear me out in saying that here was a case in which general civilian control, far from exercising any detrimental effect, was on the whole beneficial.

To return to the main thread of my argument.  The passage which I have quoted from Lord Wolseley’s book would certainly appear to point to the conclusion that, in his opinion, the Secretary of State for War should be a soldier unconnected with politics.  Even although Lord Wolseley does not state this conclusion in so many words, it is notorious to any one who is familiar with the views current in army circles that the adoption of this plan is considered by many to be the best, if it be not the only, solution of all our military difficulties.

I am not concerned with the constitutional objections which may be urged against the change of system now under discussion.  Neither need I dwell on the difficulty of making it harmonise with our system of party government, for which it is quite possible to entertain a certain feeling of respect and admiration without being in any degree a political partisan.  I approach the question exclusively from the point of view of its effects on the army.  From that point of view, I venture to think that the change is to be deprecated.