I have for
years fought his battle by urging that the Government ought to follow
the advice of its military adviser, a theory of which the corollary is
that the adviser must resign the moment he is overruled. I have never
meant that the adviser is to be a dictator, nor that the Cabinet should
follow advice of the soundness of which it is not convinced. The Cabinet
has the responsibility and ought never to act without full conviction.
The expert who cannot convince a group of intelligent non-experts that a
necessary measure is necessary is not as expert as he should be; and if
he still retains his post after he has been overruled on a measure which
he regards as necessary he has not the strength of character which is
indispensable for great responsibility. Now, though the relation between
a Cabinet and its advisers ought to be secret, in the present case each
side has let the cat out of the bag. Lord Wolseley's friends defend him
by declaring that he has been overruled. But that defence kills him. If
he has been overruled on a trifle it does not matter, and the defence
is a quibble; if he has been overruled on an essential point why is he
still Commander-in-Chief? No answer can be devised that is not fatal to
his case. Lord Lansdowne's friend, for such Lord Ernest Hamilton may be
presumed to be, says: "Supposing, for the sake of argument, that the
short-comings of the War Office in and before the present war were due
not to neglect of military counsels, but to the adoption of such
counsels, contrary to the more far-seeing judgment of the civil side."
That is a condemnation of the civilian Minister and of the Cabinet, for
no man in charge of the Nation's affairs ought to take the
responsibility for a decision of the soundness of which he is not
convinced. If Lord Lansdowne disagreed with Lord Wolseley and was not
prepared to ask for that officer's retirement, why did he not himself
retire rather than make himself responsible for measures which he
thought wrong or mistaken? These are not personal criticisms or attacks.
Lord Wolseley and Lord Lansdowne have both of them in the past rendered
splendid services to the Nation. But the Empire is at stake, and a
writer's duty is to set forth and apply the principles which he believes
to be sound, without being a respecter of persons yet with that respect
for every man, especially for every public man, which is the best
tradition of our National life. What at the present moment ough