But I go further than this.  It is now more than thirty years since I served under the War Office.  I am, therefore, less intimately acquainted with the present than with the past.  But, during those thirty years, I have been constantly brought in contact with the War Office, and I have seen no reason whatever to change the opinion I formed in Lord Cardwell’s time, namely, that it will be an evil day for the army when it is laid down, as a system, that no civilian should be Secretary of State for War.  My belief is that, if ever the history of our military administration of recent years comes to be impartially written, it will be found that most of the large reforms, which have beneficially affected the army, have been warmly supported, and sometimes initiated, by the superior civilian element in the War Office.  Who, indeed, ever heard of a profession being reformed from within?  One of the greatest law reformers of the last century was the author of Bleak House.

It may, indeed, be urged—­perhaps Lord Wolseley would himself urge—­that it is no defence of a bad system to say that under one man (Lord Cardwell), whom Lord Wolseley describes as “a clear-headed, logical-minded lawyer,” it worked very well.  To this I reply that I cannot believe that the race of clear-headed, logical-minded individuals of Cabinet rank, belonging to either great party of the State, is extinct.

I have been induced to make these remarks because, in past years, I was a good deal associated with army reform, and because, since then, I have continued to take an interest in the matter.  Also because I am convinced that those officers in the army who, with the best intentions, advocate the particular change now under discussion, are making a mistake in army interests.  They may depend upon it that the cause they have at heart will best be furthered by maintaining at the head of the army a civilian of intelligence and of good business habits, who, although, equally with a soldier, he may sometimes make mistakes, will give an impartial hearing to army reformers, and will probably be more alive than any one belonging to their own profession to all that is best in the outside and parliamentary pressure to which he is exposed.

I turn to the second point to which allusion was made at the commencement of this article.

Speaking of the Chinese war in 1860, Lord Wolseley says:  “In treating with barbarian nations during a war ... the general to command the army and the ambassador to make peace should be one and the same man.  To separate the two functions is, according to my experience, folly gone mad.”  Lord Wolseley reverts to this subject in describing the Ashantee war of 1873-74.  I gather from his allusions to Sir John Moore’s campaign in Spain, and to the fact that evil results ensued from allowing Dutch deputies to accompany Marlborough’s army, that he is in favour of extending the principle which he advocates to wars other than those waged against “barbarian nations.”