The Sun.
London, England, 1854-06-02 00:00:00

A MINISTER OF WAR.

(From the Times.)

We rejoice to be able to announce that the conduct of a
war against the greatest military power in the world is no
louver to be left to the leisure hours, if any, of the Minis-
ter who is charged with the superintendence of fifty colo-
nial Governments. It is finally resolved to separate the
Ministry of War from that of the Colonies, and the Duke
of Newcastle is now to decide, if he has not already de-
cided, which of these two he will retain. Such is his
Grace's appetite for work, and so elastic the spirit with
which he has met the accession of an Europan war to an
amount of business already beyond his time and his
strength, that we can readily believe he will feel it pain-
ful to give up to anybody else a function which has once
devolved upon him. As we have intimated before, there
is virtue in giving up as well as in retaining ; and, heroic
as excessive industry may be, it is still more heroic to
take care that the public weal shall not be jeopard-
ised. His Grace has now to choose whether he will
retain the duties which he was commonly believed
to undertake on his acceptance of office, or those others
which have suddenly anti unexpectedly fallen on his already
over-taxed energies. Should ho retain the colonies we
shall then have to look for a Minister of War. Probably,
the first name that will occur for this purpose is that of
the man who, with an almost unequalled experience of
European affairs, is now in a position which gives no scope
for his peculiar powers. Lord Palmerston would certainly
seem more in his place as Minister of War, directing the
forces of this country against what we may call his old
enemy, Russia, then engaged in a series of squabbles, from
which he reaps no glory, witti parochial vestries and sewers
commissions. There is little doubt that he would gladly
emerge to the larger and loftier sphere. and, if his powers
of annoyance should prove as formidable to the Czar as
they have usually bean to_ .his Parliamentary oppo-
nents, we shall have all reason to congratulate our-
selves on the change. The Home-office will then remain
to be filled, and, amens, other names that may be
mentioned, it is possible that Mr. Sidney Herbert
might be glad to,ta.ke it in place of his present office,which,
then under a separate Minister of War, would probably
become even more a matterof routine than it now is. There
are, however, others, perhaps, more qualified. Either Sir
G. Grey or Mr. Baines would discharge the office well, and
be a valuable accession to the Cabinet. Should the Duke
of Newcastle elect to retain the Ministry of War, we shall
then have to find a successor for the Colonies. The import-
ance of this office is beyond all ordinary estimate, for the
work to be done, and the distinction to be acquired in it,
depend entirely on the energy and talents of the Minister.
It is possible, of course, to undertake the government, or
rather the supervision of fifty States, and really do nothing
but return well written extinguishers to popular demands
and indignant remonstrances. But we have entered on an-
other phase of colonial administration. We have lately
given several of the colonies self-government ; we have
laid down the outlines of an Australian empire ; and we
have actually resigned into independent hands a con-
siderable territory in South Africa which we had learnt
to call our own. A Colonial Secretary may no longer do
nothing, but he may, if he pleases, do a great deal. There
is one member of the Cabinet in the anomalous position of
leading the House of Commons without any office. Lord
John Russell might possibly undertake a department which
gives more scope for inventive statesmanship and consti-
tutional science than any other, and might find in it that
employment for his peculiar powers which ho was expected
to find in Parliamentary Reform. Should his lordship
prefer his present comparatively inactive position —one the
very inactivity of which tempts him to political adven-
tures of a lesf necessary character—there are others who
have been thought of for the colonies, such as Lord Pan-
inure and Sir George Grey. But the Cabinet already pos-
sesses a man who has made colonies the study of his life,
who recoils from no labour, and who, besides the work of
his own office, has assisted at some of the most important
changes in our colonial system. In the eye of the British
public, nobody would seem so much at home in the
colonies as Sir W. Moresworth, The colonies them-
selves would possess in his numerous publications and
speeches the best guarantee for his doing as much for
them as Minister can do ; and Sir William himself would
doubtless be glad of the opportunity to carry out his
views. It is to be hoped that all the necessary
changes will be made before the recess is over, and
that when Parliament meets next Thursday we shall
have a Cabinet the work of which is somewhat
more evenly distributed to its members and more
adapted to their 'secular powers. Notwithstanding the
praiseworthy endeavours of a Parliamentary section that
nothing shall be done, and notwithstanding its triumphant
tone when that object has been partially effected, there is
much to be done. The first thing to be done, in existing
circumstances, is to provide for the honour end safety of
the empire, at stake as they undoubtedly are in the pending
struggle. As to those other measures, that aro expected
from every Ministry in proof of its power and in illustra-
tion of its principles, the best and safest aro those that
come in the most regular form from the several depart-
ments of the Administration. There is always a degree
of risk in those speculative measures to which Cabinets
are often forced by the pressure of the Opposition, by
the violence of controversy, or by tho undisciplined zeal
of political enthusiasts. Of such measures it often hap-
pens that, while they are less urgent, less wise, and less
elaborated than those which any ono Minister may
have to propose for the better administration of his
own department, they nevertheless assume the serious
character of Government measures, involving more
or less the existence of the Cabinet. Of course wo do not

__eny that every Government must do something, and that
a session without some remarkable achievement of legisla-
tion will be considered a blank. A Roman Consul was

thought small honour to his family or the State if he did
not achieve some conquest or procure some law, or other-
wise mark his year. There is much the same necessity to
be discharged every session of our Parliament. But it is
not every year that we are called on to attack a formid-
able enemy along some thousand miles of frontier or of
coast. We have this year to do it after forty years' peace.
We have to find out and repair innumerable deficiencies in
the material and conduct of war. We have to change
almost everything, and the first change is the most serious,
for it is in the very head and front of the whole affair, in
the Administration itself that is charged with this tre-
mendous responsibility. If that is done well, and if before
the end of the session the progress of the war indicates
greater concentration of personal energies at home than is
possible under the present system, that will be about as
much in the way of success as the most exigent and un-
scrupulous Opposition can have the decency to require.

(Prone the Daily Xews.)
If the war does nothing else, it seems likely at all event,
to give us an additional member of the Cabinet. It is now
understood that we are to have a Minister of War, who
shall be specially charged with the control of the whole
military forces of the country, in order that when it be-
comes necessary for that force to be used, it may be put
into active operation without the crippling delays that
have hitherto so often marred our military success. At
present it is not that showy servant of the Crown, the
Commander-in-Chief, nor that notable parliamentary per-
sonage, the Secretary of War, who has power to move our
forces. Both those high officials aro in fact mere subordi-
nates to a third person whose style and title would never
lead any one to suppose that he was the real and original
Mars of England. Yet so it is ; for the Secretary of the
Colonies is the man heretofore and at present possess-
ing the power of sending our armies into the field. We
need not go into any long historical explanation of the
way in which this strange result has come about. It
is enough for present purposes to state the simple fact,
that the Minister who has charge of the interminable busi-
ness of our vast colonial dependencies is also in possession
of the duties properly belonging to a totally distinct de.
partinent. Whilst wo were in comparative peace—for we
seem never wholly at peace—it was with difficulty this
anomalous system dragged its involved and cumbrous
weight along. It was found to work so badly on all occa-
sions that even a conflict like that with the Kafirs went
far towards upsetting it. The demands of the financial
reformers also put the system from time to time in peril.
The separation of the different military departments—
Ordnance and Horse Guards, for instance—leads to a
double staff of public servants, with (of course) double
burthens of pay and pension, and these facts have more
than once been powerfully urged as good reasons for a
change. But so strong are official abuses—so catlike in
their vitality—that not until we had positively declared
war against the Czar did any sign of active reformation
show itself. Those signs, however, have really come at
last, and, as we have just stated, it is now understood that
the actual establishment of a Minister of War is a mere
question of weeks—and of personal arrangement.
The chief remaining difficulty is said to bo the one which
ever has, and ever will, perhaps present itself under simi-
lar circumstances—Who shall fill the new place? Who is
to be the man ? At present the twin ministry of Colonies-
and-War is held by a Peelite, who may not be quite will-
ing for any change at all, but who, if constrained to give
way, might prefer the portfolio of War to that for the
Colonies. But then he has been rather a good Colonial
Secretary, and is not at all likely to be a good War Minister.
And here may come a hitch. To bring the present war to
a rapid and honourable close, we want an acute, clear-
sighted, prompt, and practicalistatesman—like Lord Pal-
merston, for instance—not a well-meaning, mediocre,
even-tempered, and decidedly prosy Peelite Duke. In
speaking thus to the point, we are impelled by no wish
to say anything personally distasteful to his Grace of
Newcastle. But truth must in such urgent cases be
told. The Duke of Newcastle is not the..cm.ann
his
the now place, and it would be more . pat
honourable
part to go on with the duties of the highlynhonourable
and important Secretariat of the Colonies,which tbhaanntoowdesire
to retain that control over our forcest
exer-
cises. The despatch of onurt_
those
eops Turkey has not
by Sohose management
brought any great honour o h
The military stoppa.ge at the
the process was carried out.
Malta half-way house and the ill-figure we cut in compa-
rison with tho French on landing
.at Gallipoli gave a sig-
nificant foretaste of tho probabilities which attach them-
selves to any appointment of his Grace the Duke of New-
castle as War Minister. Hitherto the Horse Guards and
the Cabinet at large have borne all the blame of any
ourde-
military arrangements for the war, but fair
pfelcat; ren quires that a due share of the odium should now
' fall upon the shoulders really responsible for it. Those
shoulders belong to his Grace of Newcastle. Under the
contemplated now arrangement, too, the duties of the
War Minister would be more onerous than ever. Of
course, when anticipating the appointment of that official,
we assume that the reforms we long since contended for
will be effected—that the Horse Guards and Ordnance, for
instance, would be united, and the whole mass of employes
now ranged in our different warlike establishments be com-
bined as one whole. Such combination would involve the
need for a chief not only of eminent but of more extended
experience than the present Secretary for the Colonies can
boast ; and for these and various other reasons his bast
friends must hope that the Duke of Newcastle will not stand
in the way of the expected reform by making an unwise
claim to the new post. If for the War-office lie is unfit, and
if, as simple Colonial Minister, he is unwilling to serve—
might he not find a still more ambitious and far more lucra-
tive appointment by becoming the successor of Lord Dal-
housie in Hindustan? In that part of the world there
is scope enough for the talents and the industry of the
most ardent official. Honour and profit may both be won.
British India is in itself an empire literally more noble
than even that of the Czar. A hundred millions of sub-
jects must surely satisfy the desire for rule of any Viceroy.
Unbounded opportunities for reforms and improvements
of all kinds may be found there, and to that field for the
exercise of his abilities let us commend the attention of
our present Colonies-and-War Secretary.
If our view of this Ministerial arrangement should be
e
realised, we may before the end of the Session see
Cabinet office established, and two Cabinet vacancies occur
—the Duke of Newcastle becoming Governor-General, and
Lord Palmerston Minister-at• War. The Home-office and