The Sun.
London, England, 1854-03-03 00:00:00

vigils ally watching every step, and with full power to ar-
rest
a ny step inconsistent with economy. He thought that
the c heck applied by the War-office to the Horse Guards
ought to be applied by the War-office to the Ordnance..
That was a matter of private opinion ; he pledged no other
member of the Government to it. A further division
mig'nt be made, though there were difficulties in the wily.
Let the Commander-in-Chief command the personnel
of the army, and the Master-General of the Ordnance kinve
the direction of the materiel. That would be a plain line
of demarcation, and one that would tend to the sse-eater
efficiency of the military service. (Hear.) Butane was
aware that opinion was not shared by many who had con-
sidered the subject. It was not indispensable tso that he
had mentioned before, which he thought sound a,nd almost
indisputable, that the check over the military expenditure
now exercised by the Secretary at War can the Horse
Guards, might be applied, with great VI-vantage to the
publio service, to the Ordnance. (Hear.) Commissions
were at present drawn up in the office, of the Secretary of
State : he knew no reason why they should not be drawn
up in the office of the Secretary at War, and counter-
signed by him. The commission of 1837 stated, that when
arms were required, the commander-in-chief wrote to the
Secretary at War, who wrote to the Home Secretary, and
there the thing stopped. Properly, the Home Secretary
ought to have taken the King's pleasure, who would have
signed a warrant, and upon that warrant the arms would
have been delivered. But King George the Fourth had a
great aversion to immediately signing his name ; conse-
quently the Secretary of State ceased to send the warrants
to him ; the applications were waste paper, and the arms
were sent by private intimation to the office. But her
present Majesty chose to sign whenever she was required
to do ace; and, with the wish to identify herself with
every portion of the public business, she had continued to
sign (revery one of those warrants ; therefore they had
ceased to be waste paper. The commission which sat before
18'37—he thought in 1834—had drawn up a draft report,
hat which was not signed, taki g a different view from the
commission of 1837 with regard to the Master-General re-
taining in his possession the command of the artillery ;
but some of their recommendations had since been carried
out, as regarded the identifying in some respects the regu
lations of the artillery and of the line ; and there were
others which might be carried nut with greater facility.
'With regard to the commissariat department, he was of
opinion--keeping in view the general principle that the
commander-in-chief should have the control over the per
sonnet, and the Ordnancs-office over the materiel of the
army—that the commissariat might be transferred to the
latter, if the command of the artillery were transferred to
the Horse Guards ; but than he would apply there also the
financial check of the Secretary at War. (Hear, hear.)
He had explained unreservedly his own opinions to the
house, but he thought that whatever changes were made
should be made stop by step. They ha l a system which,
whatever its defects, gave practically, in emergencies like
the present, very efficient results. It sometimes happened
that gentlemen overrated the evils of a division of labour.
What was really of importance was that there should be
consentaneous action amongst different departments for thy
production of a given result. If colleagues were animate,'
with a firm desire to carry out the objects of the publi,
service, it was possible to combine their action together seas
to produce the same results as if they were under one head
Since lie had been in office it had been the custern to meet
periodically at the Home-office, Aran the Master General
of the Ordnance, the Inspector of Fortificetions, the First
Lord of the Admiralty, the Commander-in-Chief, and him-
self, went carefully through the different changes made with
regard to the home defences. Where colonial questions
were treated of the same thing was done, with the addi
tional presence of the Colonial Secretary. The Colonial
Becretary was, to a certain extent, a war minister, for
several of their foreign possessions were not colonies in the
strict sense of the term, but rather colonial garrisons, such
as Malta, Gibraltar, Bermuda, St. Helena, and Mauritius,
-which were held for war purposes. No one ever thought
of proposing to put the government of these colonies into
the hands of the Secretary at War. Of the three secre-
taries of state the Foreign Secretary's office had the most
onerous duties at Present ; the duties of the Home-office
were increasing, and those of the Colonial Secretary alone
wore likely to become much lighter. Where they trnste
the responsibility of self government to the colonies, the
administrative duties of the Colonial Secretary were
almost entirely cut off. Some 15 or 16 years ago Canada
gave more trouble and caused more anxiety in the
breast of the Colonial Secretary than all the rest put.
together. (Hear, hear.) There was no part of their
colonial empire which now gave less trouble to, or con-
sumed less of the time of, the Colonial-office than Canada.
As soon as they gave self-government to the Cape, to Aus-
tralia, and Van Diemen's La-ad, where they had now got
rid of the greatest of all their difficulties, the convict ques-
tion, the same thing would happen. The Colonial Secre-
tary and the Secretary at War were unfit to direct the ope-
rations of war ; but practically they had experience as to
bow the machinery worked under high pressure. They
were sending out now a larger force—le would not say
than ever left these shores—but it was a larger force than
was sent out with the Duke of Wellington to Portugal,
and was even a larger English force than went to Waterloo,
and it left with far greater attention bestowed upon their
efficiency and health than upon any previous force which
left their shores. They did this also in an unprecedenteilly
short space of time. All persons who saw the troops leav-
ing concurred in saying that troops never went forth in a
higher state of efficiency, both as to appearance and spirit,
than those who had recently left. (Hear.) They knew
by experience, therefore, that all these different depart.
ments of the Government worked harmoniously together,
and though he confessed it was his own wish to carry out
the changes he had stated, he should look with alarm to the
success of a motion which pledged them to put the whole
of the machinery out of gear, and to substitute in a time
of emergency for old arrangements which practically
worked well, others which might possess a greater degree
of theoretical perfection, but which were new and untried.
The success of departments depended on an accurate know-
ledge of routine. In the public departments of this coun-
try they had some men of very great ability. (Hear, hear )
There were other% who, though not possessed of such great
ability, were yet very useful from their long experience,
and who, from having their minds constantly fixed on on
object, were so -much master's of the details of business
that their information and action on the subjects of their
office was almost mechanical and involuntary. (Hear.)
But if they Chang el the position of these men ; if they
were asked to originate a now routine, if they were run
off the rails, as it were, it would lead to complete con-
fusion. (Hear, hear.) His right hon. friend the First
Lord of the Admiralty organised a change in that depart-
ment of the largest and most important kind. He (Mr. S
Herbert) asked him if he would have done that during
a war period, or a time of pressure. He sail that it took
years to get the different officers to accustom thernselve
to the use of the new machinery, and that it woul,
be impossible to attempt such a change (luring the pies
sure of war, which taxed the energies of all the department:
to the utmost. He thought the greatest credit was due to
his hon. friend the member for Montrose and the house
-generally for the support which they had given the Govern-
ment during the present emergency—(hear)—but he con-
fessed that if the present 'notion nece,sitated the immedi
ate adoption of so large a change and so great a consolidation
of departments, it would, militate most seriously. if feasible
at all, which he doubted, against the efficiency of th,
public service. (Hem-, hear.) Having expressed the
opinions ha entertained himself, with entire unreserve,
with respect to the changes which he thought should be,
made at the proper time, he hoped the hon. gentleman
would not press his motion on the present occasion.
Lord SEYMOUR said he joined his right hon. friend
who had just sat down in his liberal and well-considered
views with respect to the improvement of departments.
and he did not even object to the statement by which he
qualified his argument, when he said that this was not the
fitting time to effect it. He heard with no dissatisfaction
an argument of that kind from a member of a cabinet by
whom that plea had been treated with such scorn and con-
tempt (Hear, hear.) The office of Secretary at War was
created in 1795, and in 1801 the colonies were transferred
to him. At that time the Secretary of War had little to do
with regard to the colonies ; they did not give the trouble
'which they did at a later period. He hoped his right
hon. friend's prophecy with respect to the colonies would
prove to be right; but seeing that they had forty colonies,
with only one secretary to superintend and answer all
the correspondence, and to make himself acquainted with
the details which were brought under his notice, he
thought that wits quite sufficient for one man,
without his having also to be responsible for the
management of a great war. Earl Grey, who had been
Secretary at War, stated before the committee, when Se-
cretary for the Colonies and Secretary at War, that it was
perfectly impossible for him to exercise a constant super-
intendence over the military affairs of the country. (Hear,
hear.) In former times, during the last war, he believed
the Colonial Secretary had an under secretary who was a
military man. At present there was nothing of the kind.
He wanted to know if any assistance would be afforded to
that officer in this respect, so that he might not labour
under any disadvantage, as compared with the Secretary
at War during the last war ? The real question after all
was, had the present system worked well ? They had at
one time the Duke of Wellington Prime Minister, Sir G.
Murray Colonial Secretary, and Lord Hardinge Secretary
at War, but even at that time, with all these military men
in office, Lord Grey stated that the arrangements were so
complicated that the system by no means worked well.
The noble lord proceeded to quote official letters from the
Governor of the Bahamas, complaining of the unhealthi
nese of the officers' quarters, and also those of the men, and
showing that bad health, and frequently mortality, resulted
from this state of things, and yet in consequence of the
press of business in the colonial department these letters
went for a whole year without answer. At last a letter,
signed James Stevens, admitted that the early portions of
the correspondence had been lost, and that the delay in
answering the remainder arose from the fact of the matter
having had to pass through five departments. (Hear,
hear.) It was this multiplicity of correspondence, and con-
e•gnent delay, of ;which they complained. (Hear.) In an-
°r case a question arose as to the repair of barracks in
-Llark's Island, and after a year's correspondence it was
aseer,_,rtaiatned that the island was not under the Board of
ce at all. Another and a strong case of hardship
dung from the present system wag connected with th
agnoPi.Pl,7_of, food to the troops in the West India slandse.
medie7e(itee en years there had been complaints from the
Howick becamesub-
stitute Secretary at War he endeavournd to
respondence
aferar salt provisions. There was no end of cor-
the change wasoenfiall the officers, aed it was a year before
ected, and then it was found that the
change was not effecter?,
healthful but economical, and that (luring
the nineteen
heesearnight have been saved and health
preserved had there
prompt and efficient means of
making a necessary change.a
=our) would leave it tth (Hear, hear.) He (Lord Sey-
to say what troops were e Secretary for the Colonies
for the places under
his superintendence, but nheceasessaorYuld place the general
civil administration
Hof() thCisherrto in the hands of the
Secretary at War.
however, that
every member of the committee hadsay'been deeply im-
pressed with the efficiency of every one in
at War's department, and their only rthe Secretary
Was that they
had not a little more to do. Althoughehgreedi
presenut
motion, nor
it
fitting
necessary to divide the house on the
would he assert that
. the present was a
timei h, nor
for
to the
im-
portant changes, still be thought that by transferringmuch
good would be done both to the
of the duty now performed in the Colonial-office
Secretary at War, much
service and the country.
Sir J PAKINGTON thought that the hon. member for
Montrose had done service to the house and the country by
introducing this subject. (Hear, hear.) He agreed in the
spirit of much that hail fallen from the right hon. Seem-
Lary at War, but did not think he had been successful in
answering many of the points raised by the hon. member
for Moatrose. The hon. member had adverted to the
clothing system, and the system of purchasing cavalry
horses, and other points, which from time to time had
brought much scandal on the service, but the main point
was the manner in which the several departments connected
with the army were governed. (Hear, hear.) He (Sir J.
Pakington) was not ashamed to express his approval of the
report of the commission of 1837, signed by such names as
Palmerston and J. Russell, although it would seem from
the speech of the Secretary at War that neither of those
noble lords was prepared now to carry out their own views