A CORRESPONDENT, whose letter we publish in another column, asks us
whether we had forgotten the Duke of Connaught when we wrote that the man to succeed Lord Roberts is Lord Kitchener. "Surely," be adds, "he has some claim to be Commander-in-Chief." We had by no means forgotten the Duke of Connaught, but wrote as we did with a full consciousness of his rightful claim to be .considered a sound soldier with a high sense of public duty. The Duke of Connaught has not been tried by holding high command in the field in an arduous campaign, though his short experience of actual warfare in Egypt showed. him to be a capable as well as a brave officer. We do not doubt, however, that if he had been able to attain to real war experience he would have done good service. Certainly he would not have failed for want of devotion to the public interest, or from s-ant of willing- ness to sacrifice himself to his duty. Again, we readily admit that at manceuvres, and in his counuands at Alder- shot and in Ireland, the Duke of Connaught has shown himself thoroughly efficient. But granted that the Duke of Connaught is not unfit, if judged merely from the military point of view, to be Commauder-in-Chief, there are, we hold, imperative reasons of State and reasons of administration which forbid his being appointed to the post.. Together these reasons make up, indeed, an °vet- whelming case against the appointment of any Royal Duke to be Commander-in-Chief. It is the fact that the Duke of Connaught is a Royal Duke, and that it is im- possible for him to divest himself of the qualities that attach to that position, which renders it impossible that he should ever be the military head of the British Army without serious injury resulting to the public interest. It is sometimes s. id that a Royal Duke ought to be placed at the Horse Guards in the interests of the Monarchy. There could be no greater mistake. On the contrary, a Royal Duke Commander-in-Chief would be far more likely to injure the Monarchy than to support it. It is, indeed, for this reason, among others, that we have always opposed the suggestion. Some years ago (August 3rd, 1895) we dealt at length with the arguments that are commonly used to support the allegation that the Monarchy is strengthened by having a Royal Duke as Commander-in-Chief, and we shall venture to repeat our views now. We held then, as we hold now, that it was a delusion to suppose that if the Royal power were ever threatened by revolutionary violence, a Royal Commander-in-Chief would be able to keep the Army on the side of the Monarchy,—a plea often put forward by those who think that the Commander-in-Chief should always be a Royal personage. He would, it is assumed, issue orders to the troops on his own account and initiative and use them to preserve the rights of the Crown. Possibly there was something in this theory while Parliament did not represent the nation, and the " mob " meant the majority of the people, and something external to the Government. Then lawless revolution might have been attempted, and might have been put down by bayonets. Now revolution, if it ever comes, will come by law, and in that case a Royal Duke at the Horse Guards will be a poor security. If the nation were mad enough to abolish the Monarchy, it would do it by repealing the Act of Settle- ment, not by violence. While the Mutiny Act is passed every year and the whole of the Treasury is at the disposal of the people, the idea of withstanding the people by force of arms.is absurd. The only result of an attempt to do so in a country like England would be to add force and volume to a revolutionary movement. We can conceive of no revolution put down by a Royal Duke at the head of the Army acting contrary to the will of Parliament, but we can conceive of a rash and anarchic movement, naturally destined to die away and work its own cure, turned into one that would be almost popular by the attempt to treat the Army as if it were not a national force, but merely a huge Swiss Guard, whose only duties were toward the Crown. The Monarchy in England rests upon the will of the people, and not upon bayonets. It gains no smallest iota of extra strength by having a Royal Duke as Commander-in-Chief.
It is as the most convinced and earnest supporters of the British Monarchy that we repel the notion that the Royal house can be strengthened by having some hold on the Army external to and independent of the people and their representatives in Parliament. The very contrary is the fact. In truth, if civil troubles should ever come, and on a considerable scale, it should be the wish of all loyal and responsible men to keep the Monarchy out of the dispute. But this would be difficult if a Royal Duke and a brother of the King were obliged, as Commander-in- Chief, to make the necessary arrangements and give the orders for putting down the riots. It is sometimes necessary for Governments to do very unpopular things in the preservation of public order and security. But in such cases it is surely better that the chief military instrument employed should be, not a Royal Duke, but a regular professional soldier. Putting aside, however, the case of civil trouble, which we admit is unlikely, there are plenty of other reasons which make it undesirable that the military head of the Army should be a Royal Duke. Suppose that, owing to a variety of unfortunate circumstances, the Commander-in-Chief makes a bad selection of commanders in the field, or advocates a policy which proves ruinous when carried into action. Theoretically the responsibility may rest solely upon the Secretary of State for War, but if the Commander-in-Chief is a Royal Duke, and so a great popular figure, we may be sure that the public, in a mood of anger and disappointment, would insist on fastening the blame on the Royal Duke. But can any one say that that would be good for the Monarchy ? That the people might be most unjust and unfair in saying, "This comes of putting the Army under incompetent Royal Dukes," is very likely ; but that they would say it, and would insist on making the Royal Duke bear the obloquy, is surely not an incredible proposition. But we do not want to teach the people to say, " This comes of having Royal Dukes.- The transition from that to ski)inc. ' This comes of ha-cine. Kings," is too easy to be contemplated with pleasure, at any rate by those who wish, as we do, to preserve at all costs the fabric of the Constitution unchanged. The Monarchy must never be brought into question on side- issues, and the only way to prevent that is by not placing Royalties in positions where they can be held responsible by popular feeling. As an example of how ready in cases of disaster the public is to put the blame on Royalty, we may instance the case of Sanna's Post. It was repeatedly asserted, and very widely believed, that no one was made responsible for that disaster because it was really due to a Royal Prince, and that he had to be sheltered. As a matter of fact, the gallant officer pointed at had nothing whatever to do with the disaster, and no blame whatever attached to him. Besides, he was not a person holding high command or well known to the public. Nevertheless, the fact that there was a Royal Prince in the force, and that a disaster had taken place, at once caused an outbreak of the accusation of "sheltering Royalty." Fortunately, such unjust and ill-natured talk could be ignored, and was very properly ignored, because the incident was com- paratively unimportant; but who can say that it could have been disregarded if the responsibility had really rested on Royal shoulders and if the disaster had been a great one? Surely we are not exaggerating, then, in saying that it may serve as an example of the danger we desire to indicate.
These are arguments from the highest political point of view ; but the arguments that spring from administrative convenience are in their own way hardly less cogent. The Commander-in-Chief is the administrative head of the War Office and of the Army, and must be held responsible by the Secretary of State for War for the good working of the military machine. In the last resort that responsibility is enforced by the power to dismiss the Commander-in-Chief. But no Secretary of State for War could dismiss a Royal Duke who proved to be inefficient as a Commander-in-Chief. And every subordinate would know this, and would feel, also, that if things went very wrong in his particular work or department, he need have little to fear in the way of exposure. He would have to be protected in order to prevent any scandal coming out which would make the public say, "How could the Commander-in-Chief possibly have allowed such things to go on?" If the Army is ever to be made a sound and efficient piece of machinery, there must be a chain of responsible persons running direct from Parliament down to the bottom. The Secretary of State must be directly responsible to Parliament; the Com- mander-in-Chief must be directly responsible to him ; the principal military chiefs to the Commander-in-Chief; andso on and so on. But since responsibility cannot for reasons of high politics be directly and effectively enforced against a Royal personage, the chain snaps at the second link when you have a Prince of the reigning house as Commander- in-Chief. Another administrative argument worth con- sideration is this. A Commander-in-Chief must occasionally be prepared in the interest of the Service to make himself very disagreeable, to do an infinity of "unkind things," and generally to set his teeth and risk a storm of unpopularity overwhelming him. The Secretary of State, owing to his Parliamentary position, may be unable to do this himself, but has to let the disagremble task be performed by his subordinate. But no Royal Duke can possibly be expected to make himself unpopular, and to resist popular clamour in this way, in order to help a Secretary of State. His whole training as Royalty is against him. To be kindly and gracious and to bow to popular feeling is ingrained in him, and the spade-work of clearing out an administrative Augean stable is one which he cannot be fairly asked to undertake.
If:the arguments we have already used are not sufficient, as we hold that they are, another of great practical force is to be found in the fact that the Duke of Connaught has not taken part in the war that is just over. That he did not do his share was most assuredly not his fault. No man was more willing, nay, more eager, to serve. But the fact remains that he was not allowed to go to the front. There- fore he not only did not see war under the new con- ditions, but he did not get to know the men who now officer the British Army. To put at the head of the Army a General without recent war experience, and without that minute knowledge of the personnel of the Army which is obtained when a quarter of a million men are in the field and at work for two years and a half. and to miss over a
man who has these qualifications, would be absurd. Cer- tainly we should not envy the position of a Ministry which appointed the man without experience should mistakes take place or any unfortunate choice of men be made. The public would at once, and not unnaturally, demand: "Why did you give the chief military power in the Army to the man who did not know rather than to the man who did ? " No doubt it seems extremely hard that the fact that the Duke of Connaught was not allowed to serve in South Africa should be used as an argument against his appointment, but it can only be said that the argu- ments which were deemed sufficient to prevent his employ- ment in South Africa operate to prevent his being chosen as Commander-in-Chief, and with redoubled force.
But though we think that it would be most unwise, both from the political and the military point of view, to make the Duke of Connaught Commander-in-Chief, we by no means think that he should be excluded from military command. Let him be commander of an army corps, as he is. All we plead against is his being made Commander- in-Chief out of a mistaken idea that it will strengthen the Monarchy, even if it will not be the best thing for the Army.
Before we close our article we ought in justice to the Duke of Connaught to say that we have not the least reason to sup'pose that he is personally urging his claims to be Commander-in-Chief. For all we know, he may regard the proposal as as unfortunate and impracticable as we do, and of this we are sure, that he would never attempt to force himself into the position. If he were appointed he would doubtless obey his orders like the loyal soldier he is, but he would not, we feel sure, think of doing anything to encourage a movement in favour of receiving the appoint- ment when it becomes vacant—and may that day be long removed--and of passing over Lord Kitchener.
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