lect of these branches of study
and training? Who is responsible to the Nation for the training of the
Army? The Government and the Government alone. If any military
officer has not done his work effectively--if, for example, the
Commander-in-Chief has not taught his generals rightly or not
selected them properly--who is responsible to Parliament for that?
Not the officer, even if he be the Commander-in-Chief, for the
Commander-in-Chief is the servant of the Cabinet and responsible to the
Cabinet, which if it were dissatisfied with him ought to have dismissed
him. Authority over the Army is in the hands of the Secretary of State
for War as the delegate of the Cabinet. Lord Lansdowne has held his post
only since 1895, and cannot be held responsible for the training of the
older generals; but before him came Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman who for
some years had charge of the preparation of the Army for war as the
delegate of the late Cabinet. For the state of the Army, for the
strategical and tactical training which has resulted in so many
failures, the politicians of both front benches, who in turn have
neglected these vital matters, are responsible.

Here we are, then, in the middle of the war, without a Government, but
with a body of men who fill the place of a Government while admitting
themselves incompetent to do the work entrusted to them and for which
they are paid. The war so far has consisted of a succession of repulses,
which at any moment may culminate in disaster. Sir Redvers Buller has
twice led his Army to defeat and is about to lead it a third time--to
what? Possibly to victory; we all hope that it may be to victory. But
possibly to a third defeat which would mean not merely the loss of the
force at Ladysmith; it would mean that Sir Redvers Buller's Army in its
turn would need succour, and that the plan, so much favoured by the
strategists of the Army, of a march through the Free State would be
hampered. For the final and decisive defeat of Sir Redvers Buller would
be followed by the long-deferred general rising of the Cape Dutch, and
probably enough by the action of one or more of the European Powers.
_The Times_ of to-day announces that a foreign Government has ordered a
large supply of steam coal from the Welsh collieries. That can mean but
one thing, that some foreign Power is getting its Navy ready for action.

What, then, is the situation to-day? That any day may bring the gravest
news from South Afri