SIR WILLIAM BUTLER.*

SIR WILLIAM BUTLER was all example of what might be Called the rebel mind. In this most interesting autobiography he proves that more surely (because undesignedly) than any biographer could have proved it for him. He was a man of fine qualities, brave both physically and morally, affec- tionate in his private relations, intensely scornful of every sort of publics meanness and wrong, a man with a poet's soul who saw the glory of simple and humble beings, and yet he 'was prevented from rendering his country the services he might have rendered it because he failed in all the senses of appropriateness and proportion. It may be said that if he had been less rebellious against authority he would have been unable to express the opinions which he held with a passion of sincerity; that he would, in fact, have recanted br pocketed his Convictions and been false to himself. But we do not mean that discipline or self-restraint would have kequired Butler to do anything of the sort. It is a man's duty to say what he firmly believes, and the higher his position the greater is his obligation to do so. Along his own lines Butler might have done notable service. Take his conduct in South Africa before the Boer war in 1899. He knew South Africa extremely well ; he was one of the few men who were not ready to fall into the vulgar error of under- rating their enemy. He might have warned the Government in such a way as to show that his earnest dislike of the British management of the political negotiations which preceded the war was being kept distinct (as it was his duty to keep it) from any purely technical advice he was asked to give on military affairs. He never made, and never seemed to attempt to make, that distinction. Perhaps the most remarkable instance of what we have in mind occurred on June 23rd, 1899, when he answered a request from the War Office for detailed information as to the number of mules, horses, oxen, -wagons, &c., which could be counted on in the event of war. This request for technical details ended with the suggestion that he should make " any observations " that occurred to him. Will it be believed that he seized this occasion to import political obser- vations into the returns—to the War Office, be it remembered =of mules, horses, oxen, &c. P He cabled :-

"You ask my observations. They might fill many pages, but they could be summarised thus : I believe that a war between the white races, coming as a sequel to Jameson Raid and the subsequent events of last three years, would be the greatest calamity that ever occurred in South Africa."

No wonder the Secretary for War replied :—

"LONDON, 6 P.M., 27th June.

"GENERAL, Cm Towa,—Concluding paragraph of your telegram of 23rd June. You have" evidently misunderstood my telegram of 21st June.

"You were invited to offer observations as to suitability of War Office proposals for securing object in view—viz.,increased efficiency in existing forces—not as to the general merits of policy adopted by H.M. Government. " You cannot understand too clearly that, whatever your private opinions, it is your duty to be guided in all questions of policy by those who are fully aware of our views, and whom you will, of course, loyally support. SECRETARY OF STATE."

Similarly, in 1888 Butler was instructed to inquire into the Army Ordnance Department and write a report. He says :-

" Piles of Blue Books and Reports were supplied to us, sufficient to have given occupation to a lifetime ; but the Nile and Natal had given me a practical acquaintance with Ordnance matters of far more use to me than the dead liturgies of the preceding fifty years ; and-by the aid of that experience I was able to run a line of sug- gested practical reform through the vast catalogue of congested compilations. Our Report was ready within four months. It bore date 17th December, 1888. It was all my own work, and rconfess that I was rather proud of it. But alas for the vanity of human

• Sir William Bettor : an Autobiography. By Lieut.-General the Rt. Hon. Sir W. F. Butler, G.C.B. With 4 Portraits in Photogravure. London Constable and Co. [Hs. nehl

wishes ! I have dug it up now out of a mass of old papers, and re-read it with mingled feelings. What buoyancy of hope, As hat heedlessness of personal profit there is in it I But, all the same, there are passages in it that make my old heart rejoice, and make me bless my stars that I was able out of the destruction Of the Report, which followed immediately upon its publication, to save just one single copy. I received a peremptory order from the Secretary of State, Mr. Stanhope, to withdraw my report, all the printed copies of which were recalled and ordered in for immediate destruction."

We never saw that Report, but perhaps one can guess its

manner from the Report which Butler wrote many years later on the War Stores Scandals in South Africa. The language of it was sometimes so inappropriate that one was astonished that an officer of Butler's experience should employ words which were unquestionably sincere, but which must have ap- peared to anyone who did not know him to be the epitome of levity. Thus the luxuriant but unschooled mind of Butler often stultified his great abilities, and made him in relation 'to a modern State a public servant mangui. There was room, and plenty, for his Liberalizing tendencies. It is necessary that such voices as his should be heard. But at the most critical moments in his life he intervened in the wrong way. The considerations we have set forth make us read this autobiography with a pressing sense of regret for truly fine qualities not always used to the advantage of the State. But let us return to the pleasant task of praising, as we honestly can, a delightful narrative of adventure and the revelation of a lovable character. Butler describes an eviction in Ireland which he saw when Itg was a boy, and the impression never left him. He had an inexhaustible fund of pity, and indignation quick as flame. He says if he had had a gun in his hand he would have fired on the "crowbar brigade" who battered down the wretched cottage. After joining the Army he went to India. There is a vivid account of a hurricane—an admirable example of Butler's rich yet easy style—between Rangoon and Madras.

On his way home he visited St. Helena. (Altogether, as became a good student of Napoleon, he visited St. Helena three times.) He talked with an old soldier who remembered Bony, and told him that at night the sentries used to "close up" round 'the captive's house. Butler comments on the forbidding natural ramparts round the house and the thousands of leagues of sea, and then—the " closing up " at night ! In the Channel Islands, where he stayed for a time, Butler came to know Victor Hugo. Once Hugo said to him, "I have examined your face, and if I was ever to be tried I would wish to have you for a judge."

Butler's employment in Canada under Lord Wolseley, then Colonel Wolseley, was an instance of the keenness of a young soldier overcoming all obstacles. Any subaltern who reads this will learn that employment is never hopeless for those who persist, and who, above all, turn up on the spot at the right moment. In Canada Butler's soldier servant, who had been with him for years, died, and Butler wrote for his tomb the following beautiful epitaph :—

" His Master's Friend, His Friend's Servant."

Butler next visited Paris and saw the Versailles -troops in the act of overcoming the Communists. The service under Lord Wolseley in Canada led to more service under the same chief in Ashanti, and afterwards in South Africa and Egypt. Butler, in fact, became one of "The Wolseley Gang," and describes his leader as " the best and most brilliant brain I ever met in the British Army." Occasionally there are passages of

characteristic exaggeration, as when the author describes the Army thus "An army the officers of which are dressed for the benefit of the London tailor, and the soldiers of which are administered largely in the interests of the War Office clerk." But the book is all excellent reading. Perhaps the most characteristic act of Butler's life, after all, was when he had resigned the command in South Africa just before the war. In the black week of December, 1899, he volunteered to go out again to South Africa and'fight "in any capacity."