ter, and to their disinclination to
insist upon practically the whole of the younger categories of male
adults joining the colours. The organization of the Tank Corps was
finally decided actually while I was acting as D.C.I.G.S. In so far as
the general control of Tank design and the numbers of these engines of
war to be turned out was concerned, it seemed to me to be a case of
"pull devil, pull baker" between the military and the civilians as to
how far these matters were to be left entirely to the technicalist;
but the technicalist was not perhaps getting quite so much to say in
the matter as was reasonable. The personal factor maybe entered into
the question.

When the War Office had been reconstituted by the Esher Committee in
1904, the Admiralty organization had been to a great extent taken as a
model for the Army Council arrangement which the triumvirate then
introduced. Thirteen years later the Admiralty was reorganized, and on
this occasion the War Office system of 1904, as modified and developed
in the light of experience in peace and in war, was taken as the model
for the rival institution. Whigham had played a part in the carrying
out of this important reform, lending his advice to the sailors and
explaining the distribution of duties amongst the higher professional
authorities on our side of Whitehall, especially in connection with
the General Staff. The most urgently needed alteration to be sought
after was the relieving of the First Sea Lord of a multitude of duties
which were quite incompatible with his giving full attention to really
vital questions in connection with employing the Royal Navy. For years
past he had been a sort of Pooh Bah, holding a position in some
respects analogous to that occupied by Lord Wolseley and Lord Roberts
when they had been nominally "Commander-in-chief" of the army. Under
the arrangements made with the assistance of the War Office in 1917,
a post somewhat analogous to that of D.C.I.G.S. was set up at the
Admiralty, and the First Sea Lord was thenceforward enabled to see to
the things that really mattered as he never had been before. Although
the amount of current work to be got through daily when acting as
Deputy C.I.G.S. proved heavy enough during the month when I was _locum
tenens_, it was not so heavy as to preclude my looking through the
instructive documents dealing with this matter amongst Whigham's
papers.

The glorious uncertainty of cricket is acknowledged to be