The Sun.
London, England, 1854-02-09 00:00:00

A MINISTRY OF WAR,

( From the Times.)
It may seem very preposterous, and not a little unbeseem-
ing the practical English character, if, just at the very out-
break of hostilities, we should discover that a Ministry of
War would be a desirable agency to carry a war on withal ;
yet some conclusion of this sort is not unlikely to be drawn.
There exists at present no Ministry of the kind—no depart-
ment of State taking cognizance, directly and responsibly,
of all the momentous exigencies which war would create.
Our constitution in this respect consists of au aggre-
gate of boards or offices, each charged with its own
particular duties, and scarcely so far combined as
to make an effective confederacy. There is indeed a
War-office, but that is no such comprehensive insti-
tution as its name would seem to imply. Besides the
War-office there are the Colonial and Home-offices, the
Horse Guards, the Ordnance-office, the Admiralty, and
the Treasury, each claiming their own undivided part and
share in the administration of that business arising from a
state of war. We can understand the difference between the
Army and Navy, though the Marines, besides their other
good offices, seem to unite the two services very kindly. We
can also understand the difference between personal and ma-
terial divisions—between battalions and their barracks—be-
tween men and money. But what we cannot understand is, why
every single department should be not only kept distinct
from the others, but subdivided again within itself, while all
are left without a general-in-chief. Questions like these are
best comprehended by an example, and an example was given
the other day. The British soldier as we informed the public
last week, had been reduced to such straits by the rise in the
price of necessaries, as contrasting with his stationary pay,
that the case was considered at the Horse Guards to demand
immediate attention. Now, if the Horse Guards had been
a department of State charged with the administration of
the army, this simple conclusion would have been sufficient,
and the detection of the evil would at once have been
followed by its remedy. But the Horse Guards repre-
sented no such establishment. They could only report to
the War-office, and the War-office, being equally helpless,
could only report to the Treasury. Between the three offices
the task stuck fast, and the poor soldiers remained for three
months without the relief which it had been already decided
• they ought to obtain. It was only yesterday, indeed, that
this most common sense question was resolved, and it was
determined that the soldier, instead of paying 6d. a-day for
his rations, should only pay the average of the last few
years, 41,c1.
The delay in settling this most simple matter of detail is
one plain instance of the defects alluded to ; but there are
others in abundance behind. Is is seldom indeed that the
Military or Ordnance Estimates come on for discussion
without some animadversions on the system which separates
one corps of the army from another, and makes the concur-
rence of half-a-dozen offices necessary for the execution of a
single decision. We do not forget that these arrangements,
though repeatedly complained of, have received the sanction
of high professional authorities. It has been said that the
artillery service could never, under a system of military cen-
tralisation, be so well managed as at present ; and when con-
solidation has been spoken of it has been elaborately argued
that consolidation could never be advantageous except when
the departments to be consolidated were homogeneous, and
the dimensions of the aggregate such as to come fairly within
the scope of a single presiding mind. These conditions, it
was said, were not satisfied by the number and variety of the
duties entering into the administration of the army, and the
project was disparaged aacordingly.
We do not presume these objections to have been altogether
destitute of weight, nor have we any wish to depreciate the
authority of the witnesses referred to. It is certain, how-
ever, that professional experience, if it gives knowledge and
judgment, has also a tendency to create an attachment, some-
times bigoted, to existing usages, and to indispose the mind
to any reforms, however desirable. Neither are we without
countervailing evidence on the other side. On the first night
of the session Lord Grey took advantage of the question
before the house to address himself directly to this very
point. Now, Lord Grey, it is true, is not a soldier, and has
had no experience of war as a profession, but he has
had unusual experience of military administration. He
has been Secretary at War and Secretary for the
colonies, and he has had abundant opportunities of observing
the methods by which the government of the army is carried
on. And what did his lordship say on this subject, now so
pressing and so important ? He said that, " from his own
experience, while holding for many years both the office of
Secretary at War and the office of Secretary of State for the
War Department, he could inform their lordships that a re-
form in the constitution of those Departments was more ur-
gently demanded than was generally supposed ; " that " if that
were a proper time for doing so, he could bring before their
lordships many cases of mismanagement, extending over the
last 50 years, directly traceable to the vicious organisation
of these departments, which would astonish their lord-
ships and the country;" and, finally, that, "if measures
should not be taken to improve the dilatory and cumbrous
arrangements existing in these departments for the transaction
of business, he ventured to prophecy that before war had
lasted many months some calamity would result." That Lord
Grey had but too good reason for such an augury is clear
enough, for, if an order judged to be desirable cannot be exe-
cuted at home, and in full peace, under three months' time,
if the rations of soldiers in London quarters cannot be im-
proved until the need has nearly passed away for im-
proving them, what are we to expect in the tumult and pres-
sure of actual war?
The objections to consolidation have been urged, we think,
too strongly, and with too unlimited an application. If there
is to be no such thing as unity of administration beyond the
point determinable by the capacity of a single chief for direct
superintendence, it is obvious that our existing system of
government must be indefensible, and that there ought
to be no chief of the Administration, or, in other words,
no Prime Minister, for certainly the entire affairs of
the State must be more extensive than the entire
affairs of the Army. And what is to be said of
the Russian Government, where a single man controls—no
doubt with much satisfaction to himself—not only the army
and navy of the empire, but all departments of State with-
out exception ? The Czar is his own Premier, his own Com-
mander-in-Chief, his own Foreign Minister his own Home
Secretary, and from all that is related of his doings, his own
overseer and inspector. Do the Horse Guards and Ordnance-
offices make up a larger whole than this ? Or, to put
the question still more closely, is the British army, with
its 100,000 men, more difficult to administer than other
armies of four times its numbers, which are nevertheless sub-
ordinated to a single Minister of War ? Could there not, in
short, be some presiding functionary to whom cases much
more difficult than that of the soldier's rations might be di-
rectly reported, with the certainty of immediate satisfaction
through some department or other ? The consideration of
such questions may soon be forced upon us rather strongly.

EN GLlsa MINES.