THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE AS A WITNESS.
Jr is natural if bureaucratic wrath is aroused against the Duke of Neweaetle for his' conduct before the Sebastopol Committee. The Duke has been too candid for afield- etiquettes. He may be looked upon as a man who tarns King's evidence is regarded by his.areompliees. Thee is a great esprit de corps among officials, in or out ; and from their point of view the Duke was not "game." He-tommitted serious offences; he had not only suffered himself tote.examined and cross-examined by the Committee, bet he was the rdverse of an unwilling witness. 'The fate of the Duke of Newcastle is indeed curious. He was driven from office by an outcry against him as incapable. After he had departed, many itiaprovements came into play'; but it was discovered that he was the originator of the improvements. He had found that, during a long peace, the departments 'had fallen into a condition that would not work during war; and, instead of endeavouring to patch up matters, to get through the routine business, or be satisfied by the clerkly look of the papers, he had endeavoured to begin a gradual improvement in the organization of the War departments,—a tentative procedure imposed by ne- cessity as they were actually at work. Many mistakes, no doubt, occurred ; some which must be traced to the disorganized condi- tion of the department, some to errors in the endeavour to correct those faults, some to an over-trusting tardiness in imputing blame or perceiving the necessity for change, and some to the ,fact that after all the work *as too great to be performed within the time or by any one man. Hercules had as it were to cleanse the Augean stable while he was fighting ,the Nennean Lien, and the offioial Hydra teased him in the rear. While he was engaged in that appalling task, some wiseacres looked in and discovered that the stable was dirty ; so they turned out the Duke as the negligent hostler. That is the epitome of his official career. The service which the Duke of Newcastle has now performed for his country is not less distinguished, and not less a provocative of bureaucratic anger. The War department was bad in its con- struction' it followed that its working must be bad; and when there are bad workings in the affairs of the war, there are disas- trcnis results. The plan of our public service seems to have been designed by some nervous person whose peculiar bugbear was offi- cial peculation, and who desired to render peculation impossible by division of employment and intricacy of cheeks. The beau ideal of a wet department would be a subordination like that in any branch of the army, where the will of one man communicates itself to the whole mass, passing unadulterated and undiluted to the minutest ramifications. In the military departments of our Government the ease is exactly reversed. The au- thority is divided into almost as many sections as there are kinds of service : Men, Marine, Ordnance, Transport, Commis- sariat, Horse Guards, War Secretaryship, all had to a great ex- tent their separate field of notion. The division of authority be- gets a peculiar kind of ambition to exercise that authority. The Commander-in-chief, desiring to be Commander-in-chief, commu- nicates with.the Crown, but shows signs of jealousy in communi- dating with the Civil Minister. Thus, Lord Hardinge appointed Lord Lucan, General Torrens, and General Goldie, without in- forming the Secretary of State for War. Lord Raglan, supplied with officers by the Commander-in-chief, received instructions by the Secretary •' but, in not fulfilling the instructions which directed him to make very careful inquiry into the state of the Crimea and its forces before attempting a blow, he seems to have vin- dicated his independence by striking the blow first and examining afterwards. For he reported that he was unable to obtain the in- formation which he.was desired to procure before starting. There is no wonder that poor Dr. Andrew Smith found himself with so many masters that he did not know what to do, althopgh in fact the Duke of Newcastle 'volunteeredto be the responsible master for Dr. Andrew Smith's purpose, and actually did override many offi- cial regulations in order to get the most essential things done. To send out wines, for example, the Duke was obliged to break down the barriers of the service. The attempt to multiply checks upon corruption or improper administration has created a system that may be called all.cheek ; and when there is serious work on hand, the practical administrator is compelled to break down the System. But what is the grand offence of the Duke of Newcastle ? It is, not his having failed to do this or that; not his having disbelieved too long that the management of the hospitals in the last was in- famous.; not in the fact that under his administration hundred- guinea horses were destroyed in attempting the labour that five- pound ponies could have executed. No; the failure of the Duke was rather an official advantage, because his departure from office had the appearance of removing the man under whose administra- tion these things had happened. What, then, is his offence ? It is his telling them things. It is his confessing that there is not perfect accord between the several departments into which the military administration is divided. It is not his admitting failure in the ambulance and the old pensioner—failure in the original idea about the attack in the Crimea ; but it is his admitting that these failures are inherent in the manage- ment of the public departments. He is regarded as having broken the good old rule of "honour among thieves." It is not, however, that the officials are bad or regardless of their duty ; the Duke is "bound to say that he met with great cor- diality from everybody under him"; he does not attach any blame to individuals; "generally speaking, those connected with the de- partments did their duty to the best of their power"; but their powers were overridden by cheeks, isolation of the individual, and division of authority. The officials know that to their cost, as much as anybody ; they sit and tremble lest their case should be found out ; and suddenly the Duke, overriding the rule that they have set to themselves of hushing up the state of things in the public departments, goes before the Sebastopol Committee and tells exactly how it is. It is, no doubt, a great gain to the coun- try to have these facts clearly and accurately divulged by a man who has been a Secretary of State; but if there is a person who is suspected in the public departments, it is a patriot, for he acts on principles that are regarded as secondary to the etiquette of the bureau.
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