Arizona republican., 1902-09-17
N1NCoMPooP OFFICERS.
It Will Be a Great Task to Create a
 British West Point.

The extreme reluctance of the British
 war department to adopt really radical , measures to improve the efficiency of the British officer is quite natural and 1 inteHigible The British army is the last fastness of the British aristocracy,
 unless the church be excepted, the last profession in which the theory that the gentry are the natural leaders of the people. irrespective of their fitness, is still the working theory of the profes sion. But the backwardness to attack
 an intrenched and privileged class is amusingly shown in the reported pro- posal of the war office so to cut down
 the cost of living in the cavalry regi- ments that an officer can live on 1.000
 besides his pay, instead of the present
 minimum of $3,000. Some ot the meaEs
 by which this result is to be effected is
 the assumption by the government of
 the cost of regimental messes and of
 every officers service outfit.
 The author of An Absent Minded
 War" has already shown how impossi
 ble it was that the average British of
 ficer should be competent profes-
 sional, or a professional at all. Ac-
 
 subaltern were not at all that he should
 know his business, or even that he should have shown a disposition to
 learn it, but that he should be we'll con-
 nected, well hammered, and have "pri- vate means" ranging from $1,OO0 year in line infantry regiment to five and six times that in a crack cavalry regi- ment. Evidently instructed officers. capable leaders of men, cannot be looked for under such a system. The definition of amateur and "profes- sional" adopted in sport will do as well for war as for any other business. A professional is one who gets his living by his occupation; an amateur is ole who does not. When the great macs of men who practice any profession co not live by it. as is the case of the British army, they are not properly professions als. By the nature of the case, while the German officer. the French officer. the American officer is a professional. the British officer is au amateur.
 But for the appalling fortress of in- fuence and privilege which confronts 1t. the British war office would doubt less take the straight and short cut to Its object. It would "open the career to the talents and, having exacted some real proof of preparation and training from applicants for commis- sions, not the farcical pretense of proof furnished by crammer's eXamina ton, it would pay its officers enough to en- able them to live on their pay, de- gently. but not sumptuously-enoug in consideration of the social advan- .ages, the permanent tenure and the final pension on retirement, to secure the fittest men. But deliberately to tell the British army that it is too expcns- i've and that you mean to pay, say. two thirds of your officers necessary expenses, leaving him to pay the other third, instead of vice versa, as in the | present arrangement, is a most absurd | proposition. You have not altered | your principle at all. You have made | it just as likely as before that nincun:- poops whose only claims are their | manners and their money and their | sporting tastes will get into your ser vcie. You have merely lowered some what your requirements of the amount | of money they must have. Your off Ger will still under your new arrange | ment be an amateur, and will remain | so until his government pays him enough to live on.
 The gingery and ineffective way in | which the war office has handled the | problem so urgently presented to it by | the South African war shows what a tremendous task a real reform Of the British army, converting it into a body of professional soldiers commanded by professional officers. will be ard how it is to be performed except | some still more grievous and appalling admonition is given to the British m- pire. In particular it shows what a. herculean labor Colonel Kitson has un- dertaken in attempting to create "d British West Point out of the tradi- tions and the material of Sandhurst For the very essence of West Point is that it is the nursery of the army Of