The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2

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He had made excisions and additions in the chapters as they had reached
him, and had closely scrutinized the expression throughout. The whole
book was read through by the two men together, and each point discussed
to complete agreement. Dilke then proposed that it should appear in
Wilkinson's name, as it was substantially Wilkinson's work, and that he
himself might write a preface. Wilkinison said that it was a joint work,
that the idea of the book was Dilke's, that its substance was the
outcome of the intimate exchange of views between them, and that it
ought to bear both their names. In his diary Dilke wrote: "Wilkinson's
part in it was far greater than mine, though we argued out the whole."
When the book appeared, Admiral Colomb wrote to Dilke: "On reading the
introduction and the first and second chapters, I am inclined to sing
'Nunc dimittis,' for, as far as I can understand the matter, you put
forward all the views for which I have contended; and coming thus from
your hands, I think they will henceforth be current views." Dilke sent
the letter to Wilkinson, noting on it: "Colomb thinks _he_ has converted
me. I reply, _he couldn't_. You did--after he had failed." He regarded
his collaboration with Wilkinson as an intellectual partnership in
regard to defence, and hardly ever spoke or wrote on the subject without
referring to it.

The development of Sir Charles Dilke's thoughts on defence has now been
fully traced and his method of work revealed. His mind was unreservedly
open to take in the thoughts of others, and he was incessantly trying to
know the best that was thought and said concerning the subjects that
interested him. He assimilated the substance of a vast correspondence,
and on every topic the ideas which he received became a part of him. His
intellectual life was thus an incessant dialectic with the best minds of
his time. But he never accepted ideas from others without the most
generous acknowledgment, and did not, as so many men do, proceed, after
assimilating another man's thought, to imagine that it was his own
invention. This intellectual candour, involving a rare modesty and
absence of affectation, was one of his finest characteristics.

CHAPTER LVI

ARMY AND NAVY IN PARLIAMENT

I.

In 1892, when Sir Charles Dilke returned to the House of Commons as
member for the Forest of Dean, his mind was made up in regard to the
subject of national defence, and from that time on he worked in and out
of Parliament to bring about an organization for war of the resources of
the nation and of the Empire.

At that time the management of both services was hampered by the
accumulated changes made by three generations of statesmen intent upon
home affairs, under which were buried and hidden the traditions of an
earlier period of wars. In 1857 the Duke of Cambridge had been appointed
Commander-in-Chief in deference to the belief of the Prince Consort,
inspired by Baron Stockmar, that in order to avert revolution the royal
authority over the army must be exercised through a Prince, and not
through the channel of a Minister responsible to Parliament. The Duke
thought it his mission to resist changes, and his obstruction had been
the bane of successive Ministers. Accordingly, the statesmen of Cabinet
rank and experience were anxious at all cost to establish the supremacy
of the Cabinet over the army, and for this purpose had welcomed the
proposal of the Hartington Commission to abolish the office of
Commander-in-Chief whenever the Duke of Cambridge should cease to hold
that post. The Commission had not considered that a change of persons
might solve the difficulty, and was led astray by the proposal to
appoint "a Chief of the Staff," who was to be, not the strategical
adviser of the head of the army, but rather its administrator in chief.
In every modern army there is a Chief of the General Staff to assist the
Commander-in-Chief, the principal executive officer, as well as an
Administrator-General to manage the business of supply. The Hartington
Commission proposed to give the name "Chief of the Staff" to an
Administrator-General. It further proposed the creation of a Committee
of the Cabinet to hold the balance between the requirements of the War
Office and those of the Admiralty.

Dilke recognized as fully as the occupants of either front bench the
necessity for the paramount authority of the Cabinet. He also felt the
need for co-ordination between the War Office and the Admiralty, and
considered that both these needs would best be met by a single Minister,
the Prime Minister, supervising or taking charge of both offices. The
essence of co-ordination would consist in framing the arrangements for
both services with a single eye to victory in war.

Dilke's first step was to get into touch with those members of
Parliament who were most keenly interested in the army and navy.

'On February 21st (1893) I had a meeting, which I had suggested,
with Lord Wolmer, General Sir George Chesney, and H. O.
Arnold-Forster, and agreed on joint action in all service matters,
and to attend the meeting of the service members fixed for the next
day, to which, although civilians, Arnold-Forster and I were asked.
We wrote Wolmer's motion for him.'

At this time Campbell-Bannerman was Secretary of State for War. On March
9th the House was to go into Committee of Supply, and on the motion
"that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair" Lord Wolmer moved "that in the
opinion of this House the present system of military administration
fails to secure either due economy in time of peace or efficiency for
national defence." Lord Wolmer in his speech referred to the breakdown
in the system of recruiting which had been disclosed in the report of
Lord Wantage's Committee. He was supported by Sir George Chesney, who
referred to the report of Sir James Stephen's Commission as "a scathing
exposure of mismanagement," and to that of the Hartington Commission as
"an unqualified and alarming denunciation of our military system."
Arnold-Forster also supported the resolution, in favour of which Dilke
made a short and incisive speech. Campbell-Bannerman declined to take
the discussion seriously. "The first observation," he said, "that must
occur to anyone reading the motion is, What in the world has the report
of Lord Wantage's Committee to do with the present system of military
administration? It is as if the noble lord were to call attention to the
Tenterden Steeple, and to move that the Goodwin Sands are a danger to
navigation." But the breakdown of recruiting was the crucial evidence of
the weakness of the military administration.

In September, 1893, the question of the then recent appointment of the
Duke of Connaught to the command at Aldershot was raised in the House of
Commons by Mr. Dalziel. It was defended by Campbell-Bannerman on the
ground that the Duke possessed sufficient qualifications for the post.
If that had been the sole question, said Dilke, he should have supported
the Government.

"But there was another point. Aldershot was a training-school not
only for the men and regimental officers there employed, but also
for the Generals commanding. It might be said to be the only school
in the United Kingdom where a general officer could obtain
experience in commanding men in battle, and therefore only officers
who were likely to command armies in case of serious war ought to be
put in command of such a place. Was it likely that the Duke of
Connaught, under the circumstances, would be called upon to take the
chief command against a European enemy in case of war?"

In the division Dilke voted against the appointment.

On December 19th Lord George Hamilton moved a resolution "that a
considerable addition should at once be made to the navy." Mr. Gladstone
regarded this proposal as a vote of censure on the Government, and
delivered an indignant reply. Dilke deprecated making the navy a subject
of party controversy, and made an appeal to his Liberal friends:

"All naval experts who have been consulted on the question have
always laid it down that, for safety, you must have a supremacy of
five to three in battleships, that you require that supremacy for
the policy of blockade.... If ever we engage in war ... it is a
necessity of the position of this country that our frontiers should
be at the enemy's ports.... I know this is not a popular policy, but
the existence of the Empire depends upon it.... Liberals should give
up thinking of this question of national defence as a hateful one,
and as one against which they ought to close their eyes and ears. I
know that, in these days of great armaments on the Continent, the
old tradition of the Liberal party, that they should look to the
possibility of using the forces of this country on behalf of
Continental freedom, has become a dream of the past. They must
remember that our liberties at home depend upon the efficiency of
our fleet, and that, beyond this, the very existence of our Empire
is concerned in the question which the House is at this moment
debating."

The sequel to this debate was Mr. Gladstone's retirement in February,
1894.

Early in the autumn of 1893 Dilke had talked over with Spenser Wilkinson
the line to be taken in Parliament by the service members. Wilkinson had
urged as a preliminary some effort to obtain agreement among the
"experts," suggesting that Chesney as the ablest of them all should
first be approached. On November 8th Chesney and Wilkinson dined at
Sloane Street, and, Chesney having expressed his general concurrence in
the views as to administration explained in _Imperial Defence_, Dilke
proposed that Wilkinson should draft a letter to the Prime Minister,
embodying the main points, to be signed by all three and by Arnold-
Forster, if he should be in accord with them, and to be sent not only to
Mr. Gladstone, but to the leaders of the Opposition. The result was the
following letter, which was eventually signed and sent on February 12th,
1894, to Mr. Gladstone (then Prime Minister), to Lord Salisbury, the
Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Balfour, and Mr. Chamberlain:

Sir,

The late debate in the House of Commons on the subject of the navy
was one of many symptoms of a widespread uneasiness with regard to
the defences of the Empire. There is a doubt of the sufficiency of
the naval establishments and of the efficiency in some respects of
the systems under which the navy and the army are administered. This
failure of confidence has been of gradual growth. Those who think it
justified do not attribute the responsibility for it to any one
administration or to either party in the State. Yet it seems
difficult to discuss these doubts in Parliament without, at least,
the appearance of censure upon the Government of the day, a result
which is unfortunate, for the subject should unite rather than
divide parties, and upon its paramount importance there is no
difference of opinion.

For this reason a service may perhaps be rendered by the
communication to the Prime Minister and to the leaders of the
Opposition of suggestions which commend themselves to men of
different parties who have from different points of view for many
years given attention to questions relating to national defence.

No arrangements which aimed at or resulted in a subversion of the
principles which experience has shown to be essential to the working
of constitutional government could be seriously considered. But no
system of defence, however constitutional, can avail unless it be
shaped with a view to war. It is to the conciliation of these two
necessities, that of compatibility with the constitution and that of
adaptation to the purpose of war, that our attention has been
directed.

If the preservation of peace depended upon the goodwill of the
British Government, there would perhaps be little need for a navy or
an army. The existence of these services implies that this is not
the case, and that safety in time of war depends upon forethought
and preparation in advance. Such preparation involves a view of the
nature of a possible war and an estimate of the intensity of the
effort it would impose, this view and this estimate furnishing the
standard for the quantity and quality of the means to be kept
available.

The design, without which even a defensive war cannot be carried on,
and in the absence of which preparations made during peace must fail
to serve their purpose, is properly the secret of the Government.
Yet, where the Government is responsible to a Parliament, it is
indispensable either that so much of the design should be
communicated to Parliament as will enable it to judge of the
necessity and of the sufficiency of the preparations for which
supplies must be voted, or that Parliament should know who are the
professional advisers upon whose judgment the Government relies.
Neither of these conditions seems to us at present to be fulfilled,
and as a consequence of the omission there has arisen in the public
mind that distrust to which we have alluded.

The leading decision in the administration of the national defence,
governing the whole course and character of any future war, is that
which settles the total amount of expenditure upon preparation and
apportions it between the naval and military services. For this
decision the Cabinet is, and must ever be, responsible. Yet in the
distribution of the business of the Cabinet into departments there
appears to be no office specially entrusted with the consideration
of war as a whole, embracing the functions both of the navy and of
the army. Of the sums usually devoted each year to warlike
preparations, the larger part is spent upon the army, and only a
lesser part upon the navy, upon which the maintenance of the Empire
and the security of Great Britain must ever chiefly depend. It is
difficult to believe that this apportionment is the result of
deliberate examination of the requirements of war. It would seem
more probable that the separate existence of a department of the
navy and a department of the army leads in practice to the
management of each for its own sake rather than as an instrument
serving a more general purpose.

In order to secure the special consideration by the Cabinet of
national defence as distinct from and superior to the administration
either of the navy or of the army, we would suggest the appointment
of one and the same Minister to the two offices of Secretary of
State for War and First Lord of the Admiralty, or the amalgamation,
with the consent of Parliament, of these two offices.

We would further suggest that the Cabinet should select for each
service an officer whose professional judgment commands its
confidence, to be at once the responsible adviser of the Cabinet
upon all questions regarding the conduct of war so far as his own
service is concerned, and the principal executive officer of that
service.

We understand by a responsible adviser one who stands or falls by
the advice which he gives. He would, of course, have at his
disposal, in the formation of his views, the best assistance which
the professional staff of the navy or of the army could supply. But
the opinion which, after mature consideration, he would submit to
the Cabinet, and formally record, would be his own and would be
given in his own name. It follows that a difference of opinion
between the Cabinet and its naval or its military adviser upon any
important matter of naval or military policy would lead to the
resignation of the latter. In our view, the essence of
responsibility for advice is that the officer giving it is
identified with it, and remains in the post only so long as his
judgment upon the professional matters with reference to which he is
consulted is acceptable to the Cabinet which he serves. In order to
facilitate his independence in this respect, provision should be
made, in case of his resignation, for his employment in another post
or for his honourable retirement.

If these suggestions were adopted, the passage in case of need from
peace to war would take place without personal or administrative
change. The adaptation of the whole service, whether naval or
military, to the necessities of war, as understood by a competent
officer studying them with full responsibility, would be assured.
The House of Commons and the public would have in the person of the
naval and of the military adviser a guarantee of the sufficiency and
of the efficiency of the navy and of the army. The authority of the
Cabinet and the control of the House of Commons would be unimpaired.

We are, sir,

Your obedient servants,

Charles W. Dilke.

George Chesney.

H. O. Arnold-Foster.

Spenser Wilkenson.

In December, 1893, Dilke had communicated to Mr. Balfour the draft of
this letter and his plan for sending it to the leaders of both parties.
Mr. Balfour thought the best plan for co-ordinating the two services
would be by a Defence Committee of the Cabinet, of which Dilke put his
finger on the weak point, that it gave no guarantee of meeting the
requirements of war. [Footnote: The letters printed in Appendix I., p.
451, embody the substance of previous conversations between Dilke and
Mr. Balfour. In Appendix II., p. 456, are given the replies of Mr.
Gladstone and the other leaders to the joint letter, which was
afterwards published in the newspapers.--Ed.] It was after these
communications that Mr. Balfour made his speech at Manchester on January
22nd, 1894, in which he said:

"It is responsibility which is chiefly lacking in our present
system. If anything goes wrong with the navy, you attack the First
Lord of the Admiralty. If anything goes wrong in the army, you
attack the Secretary for War. If anything goes wrong in the Home
Department, you attack the Secretary to the Home Department. But if
the general scheme of national and imperial defence is not properly
managed, there is nobody to attack but the whole Cabinet; and the
Cabinet as a whole is not, in my opinion, a very good body to carry
on the detailed work of that, any more than of any other, department
of the State."

These private discussions between Dilke and Mr. Balfour foreshadowed the
actual course which reform was to take. It began in 1895 with the
adoption of Mr. Balfour's plan of a Committee of the Cabinet; it ended
in 1904 by Mr. Balfour as Prime Minister adopting Dilke's plan, and
undertaking himself, as chairman of that Committee, the co-ordination of
the two services. Then and not till then the fundamental principle of
the primacy of the navy in the defence of the Empire was formally
recognized.

The next step of the signatories to the joint letter was action in
Parliament. Dilke gave notice that, on the introduction of the Army
Estimates, he would move the following resolution:

"That this House, before voting supplies for the maintenance of
military establishments in the United Kingdom, seeks an assurance
from Her Majesty's Government that the estimates for that purpose
submitted to it are framed upon consideration of possible war by sea
and land, and upon a consideration of advice tendered in that behalf
by such officer of either service as is fitted to command in war Her
Majesty's forces of that service."

The debate took place on March 16th, 1894. In the course of his speech
Dilke said:

"What I want to know, and what the Cabinet in framing the estimates
ought to know, is this: Are the proposals before the House those
which alone are capable of securing the safety of the country and of
the Empire?... I wish to know whether the Government present these
estimates as representing the least, but still what is sufficient,
for the needs of the country for the next twelve months, not only
for the protection of the whole country and the Empire, but for the
protection of our trade in all parts of the world....

"The Cabinet must obtain the best advice possible. I, for my part,
should prefer that the advice should be concentrated for each
service, because I think it is far more responsible advice if it
comes mainly on the responsibility of a single man as regards the
army and navy respectively than if you dispersed it among a great
number of people.... As far as I am concerned, form in this matter
is immaterial. I have stated what I want to secure, and I will put
two or three different ways of securing it which would very often
come to the same thing. What I ventured to suggest at first was that
the Prime Minister should be brought to take more personal concern
in the defence of the country than is the case at the present time;
that he should consider himself mainly responsible for the joint
consideration of the whole defence proposals; that he should hear
the Secretary for War, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and their
advisers, if he is doubtful, and that they together, more seriously
than has been the case in the past, should go into the difficulties
of the problem, and he should then advise with them as to the
estimates.... There was another suggestion made--that a Defence
Minister, a Minister who should represent the army and navy, should
be the person charged specially with the responsibility to this
House.... But I am not wedded to any particular form. Whether the
Prime Minister specially undertakes the duty, whether it is
undertaken by a Defence Minister, or whether the suggestion is
adopted--which, I believe, is that of the Leader of the Opposition
(Mr. Balfour)--that a Defence Committee of the Cabinet, which I have
heard was instituted by the late Government, should be provided with
a more avowed and distinct position, armed with permanent
responsible advisers, and equipped with records so as to hand over
its work to those by whom they might be succeeded in office--all
these plans would come at the present moment to very much the same
thing."

The resolution was seconded by Arnold-Forster, and supported in a clear
and relevant speech by Sir George Chesney. In the debate which followed,
Mr. Balfour expressed his adherence to the third of the plans described
by Sir Charles Dilke. "I rather contemplate," he said, "that the Prime
Minister, with or without his colleagues, or a Committee of the Cabinet,
with or without the Prime Minister, should constitute themselves a body
with permanent records and confidential advisers." Campbell-Bannerman
expressed general agreement with the object Dilke had in view, and
added: "I entertain almost identically the opinion which has been
expressed by the Leader of the Opposition." Having thus obtained the
concurrence of both parties to one of the plans which, it was thought,
might fulfil the purpose in view, Dilke withdrew the motion.

In 1895 (March 11th) a resolution couched in the precise words of that
of 1894 was moved by Mr. Arnold-Forster on the introduction of the Navy
Estimates. In supporting it Dilke said:

"The sole purpose of all this very large expenditure was to enable
us to achieve victory at sea, which was essential to our very
existence as a nation; and what the resolution asked was an
assurance that the Government had had under its consideration the
nature of the efforts that would be called for to secure victory and
the distribution of these efforts between the land and sea forces."

On March 15th, in the discussion of the Army Estimates, Dilke raised a
doubt "whether there was in our system of military administration any
security that those we put into positions of high command, where they
were able to get military experience, were only those men who were
fitted for such posts and would hold command in time of war."

On June 21st, 1895, Campbell-Bannerman announced the retirement of the
Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Cambridge, and his own intention to
adopt the main lines of the scheme of the Hartington Committee. He would
appoint a Commander-in-Chief with reduced powers who would be the
principal military adviser of the Secretary of State, and he, with the
other heads of departments, who would each be directly responsible to
the Minister, would constitute a deliberative Council, so that the
Secretary of State, when he gave his decisions, would be guided and
supported by the express opinions of all the experienced officers by
whom he was surrounded.

Thereupon Mr. Brodrick, now Lord Midleton, moved to reduce the salary of
the Secretary of State by way of a vote of censure on the insufficiency
of the supply of cordite ammunition. A brief debate followed in which
Campbell-Bannerman failed to convince the House that the supply was
adequate, and in the division this vote of censure was carried by 132
against 125. This division overthrew the Liberal Ministry. Dilke took no
part in the debate, but voted in the majority. For this vote
Campbell-Bannerman never forgave him.