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 ! C. K. OGDEN 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 
 LOED HALIBUETON
 
 
 LORD HALIBURTON 
 
 A MEMOIR OF HIS PUBLIC SERVICE 
 
 J. B. ATLAY 
 
 OF LINCOLN'S INN, BARRISTER- AT'LAW 
 AUTHOR OP ' THE VICTORIAN CHANCELLORS ' ' HENRY ACLAND ' ETC. 
 
 WITH A PORTRAIT 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDEE, & CO., 15 WATEELOO PLACE, S.W. 
 
 1909 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 

 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 1832-1872 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Parentage ' Sam Slick ' Called to the Nova Scotian Bar 
 Enters the Commissariat Department Transferred from 
 the War Office to the Horse Guards Minute on the Dis- 
 tribution of Military Posts Travelling Allowance Regula- 
 tions 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 1872-1877 
 
 Deputy-Accountant-General in the Indian Military Depart- 
 ment Votes of Thanks Returns to the War Office The 
 Control Department The Training of Supply Officers 
 Sir William Power 26 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 1877-1885 
 
 Director of Supplies and Transports Marriage Feeding the 
 Army during the Nile Campaign Praise from Lord 
 Wolseley The Suakin-Berber Railway Parliamentary 
 Tributes Is made a K.C.B. Some Personal Traits His 
 Relations towards his Subordinates ... 46 

 
 vi LORD HALIBUETON 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 1887-1891 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abolition of Haliburton's Office Mr. Stanhope's Appreciation 
 Placed on the Retired List The Singapore Military 
 Contribution Made Assistant Under-Secretary of State 
 for War 70 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 1891-1895 
 
 The Wantage Committee Haliburton's Position on it His 
 Dissentient Report Army Members and Short Service 
 The Effect of Haliburton's Action ^Lord Wolseley's 
 comment 85 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 1895-1897 
 
 Appointed Permanent Under-Secretary The Duties of the 
 Office Haliburton's Peculiar Qualifications Sir Henry 
 Campbell-Bannerman Minute on Short Service Re- 
 organisation of the War Office on Retirement of the Duke of 
 Cambridge Is made a G.C.B. The Close of Haliburton's 
 Official Career 114 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 1897-1898 
 
 The Short-Service Controversy Mr. Arnold-Forster's Letters 
 
 to the 'Times' Haliburton's Reply 145 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 1898 
 
 The Short-Service Controversy Continued Effect Produced 
 by Haliburton's Letters Attacks upon him in the 'Times' 
 Warm Appreciation by Lord Wolseley Lord Lans- 
 downe's Edinburgh Speech Letters of ' Reform ' And 
 of Mr. Amold-Forster Haliburton's Rejoinder . . .176
 
 CONTENTS vii 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 1898-1900 
 
 PAGB 
 
 The Echoes of the Controversy Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- 
 man He Defends Haliburton in the House of Commons 
 Extracts from Haliburton's Correspondence Ill-health 
 The Athenaeum The Boer War The Keserve Called 
 Out Their Splendid Response 211 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 1901 
 
 Sweeping Reorganisation in the Army Haliburton's Distrust 
 of the Changes His Pamphlet, ' Army Administration in 
 Three Centuries ' Summary of its Contents . . . 233 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 1901-1907 
 
 Changes at the War Office The Esher Committee Letters 
 to the 'Times' Mr. Haldane becomes Secretary for War 
 Haliburton's Expectations 'Nineteenth Century' Article 
 on Universal Service Disappointment at Mr. Haldane's 
 Scheme The End 265 
 
 INDEX 289
 
 LORD HALIBURTON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 1832-1872 
 
 Parentage ' Sam Slick ' Called to the Nova Scotian Bar 
 Enters the Army Commissariat Department Transferred from 
 the War Office to the Horse Guards Minute on the Distribution 
 of Military Posts Travelling Allowance Regulations. 
 
 THIS record of the official career of the late Lord 
 Haliburton does not pretend to be, in any received 
 sense of the word, a biography. No one would 
 have disclaimed such a project more vehemently 
 than Lord Haliburton himself. And when his 
 widow requested me to undertake the preparation 
 of a brief memoir of her husband, she impressed 
 upon me that it could amount to no more than 
 ' the bare truths of a strenuous, and intelligent, 
 and highly conscientious official life, whose high 
 sense of duty kept all other thoughts and aspira- 
 tions away.' Yet circumstances over which he 
 had no control conspired to bring Haliburton 
 
 B
 
 2 LOED HALIBUETON [1832- 
 
 before the public eye in a measure which seldom 
 falls to the lot of a member of the Civil Service, 
 whether on the active list or en retraite. His 
 powers as a controversialist, and the leisure which 
 was enforced upon him by his retirement, made 
 him the champion of causes which were unpopular 
 in proportion as they were misunderstood. 
 
 His main task was to expound, at a very critical 
 period in the history of the British Army, the real 
 theory of Lord CardwelPs reforms ; and it is no 
 exaggeration to say that, but for him, the nation 
 might have found itself plunged into schemes of 
 reconstruction which would have rendered the 
 task of our soldiers in South Africa impossible of 
 accomplishment. In so doing he ran counter to 
 the full tide of popular sentiment, and he incurred 
 no small share of misrepresentation ; while only in 
 the limited circle of those who appreciated the true 
 nature of the problems of army administration were 
 his efforts acknowledged at their true value. Some 
 of the controversies in which he was engaged have 
 become obsolete, or have found their own solution ; 
 not always a solution of which Haliburton approved 
 or would have desired. But accurate thinking 
 and a complete mastery of the art of exposition 
 can never be out of date. And I venture to 
 think that there is room, even in this age of book- 
 making, for a sketch, however inadequate, of an
 
 1872| PARENTAGE 
 
 honest, clear-minded, and most capable public 
 servant, whose early bringing- up, in what is now 
 the Dominion of Canada, rendered him absolutely 
 fearless of official etiquette, and taught him to 
 maintain against all comers his honest opinions 
 founded on knowledge and true judgment. 
 
 Arthur Lawrence Haliburton was born at 
 Windsor, in Nova Scotia, on December 26, 1832. 
 To his dying day he was intensely proud of being 
 a Canadian, 1 and on his elevation to the Peerage 
 he quartered in his coat-of-arms the maple leaf 
 and beavers of his native Province, with the stags 
 and thistles of his ancestral home. His forbears 
 claimed descent from a famous Border family, 
 the Haliburtons of Mertoun and Newmains. Early 
 in the eighteenth century a bunch of Haliburton 
 brothers had emigrated to Jamaica, which, how- 
 ever, they shortly quitted for Massachusetts ; and 
 thence, after a temporary sojourn in Boston, 
 Arthur Haliburton' s great-grandfather removed 
 himself to Nova Scotia, where the lands, vacated 
 by the countrymen of Evangeline, invited settlers 
 of British blood. Here, in 1796, was born Thomas 
 
 1 In the autumn of 1897, shortly after his retirement from the 
 Civil Service, he was made the channel of an appeal to the Colonial 
 Office for the grant of a decoration to the descendants of the United 
 Empire Loyalists. It was refused, on the advice of the Dominion 
 Ministry. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 LORD HALIBUBTON [1832- 
 
 Chandler Haliburton, better known as c Sam 
 Slick,' the inventor, according to Artemus Ward, 
 of ' American humour ' ; a man whose pithy sayings 
 and whose abundant store of anecdote, jest, and 
 aphorism are lit up by the keenest observation, 
 and by no small political prescience. 
 
 ' Sam Slick,' the Yankee clockmaker, and 
 parent of the subject of this Memoir, was in real 
 life an accomplished lawyer, who at the early age 
 of thirty-two was appointed Chief Justice of the 
 Court of Common Pleas in Nova Scotia, and who 
 discharged high judicial duties in that Province 
 for nearly thirty years. In 1856 he finally retired 
 to England, where his reputation as a humorist 
 and man of letters was well established. He 
 mingled in the best literary society of the day, and 
 sat in the House of Commons as member for 
 Launceston, the little Cornish borough which in 
 later years gave Lord Halsbury his first introduc- 
 tion to parliamentary life. Memories of * the old 
 judge,' of his wonderful speeches, his geniality, 
 his whimsical talk, were current till very recently 
 among his former constituents, who no longer 
 enjoy the distinction of a representative of their 
 own. Among Judge Haliburton's most cherished 
 possessions were a walking-cane and snuffbox that 
 had belonged to Dr. Johnson. These, in due course, 
 descended to his son ; and when, in March 1897,
 
 1872] SAM SLICK 5 
 
 the latter complied with the request of Mr. Bayard, 
 the United States Minister, for ' a scrap of Sam 
 Slick's chirography,' he sent him these precious 
 relics as a further souvenir. The donor felt him- 
 self fully compensated for the loss of his heirlooms 
 by the charming letter in which Mr. Bayard ex- 
 pressed his gratitude for ' a gift which would 
 radiate its power to give pleasure in regions and 
 scenes beyond the broad Atlantic.' 
 
 Arthur Haliburton was one of a numerous 
 family; his mother, the daughter of Captain 
 Lawrence Neville, of the 19th Light Dragoons, died 
 during his boyhood, and some years later the 
 Judge married the widow of a Shropshire squire, 1 
 a lady who long survived him, and whose trenchant 
 and vivacious talk was within the present writer's 
 recollection the delight of London drawing-rooms. 
 Together with his two brothers, Arthur Haliburton 
 was educated at his father's alma mater, King's 
 College, Windsor, Nova Scotia, the oldest university 
 in the Colonies, and the only one possessing a Royal 
 Charter. The place of its original foundation had 
 been New York, but after the great disruption 
 of 1775 it had migrated to Nova Scotia, and in 
 that loyal atmosphere had retained the Tory 
 
 1 Sarah Harriet, daughter of William Mostyn Owen, of Wood- 
 house, Shropshire, formerly married to Edward Hosier Williams, of 
 Eaton Mascott, Shrewsbury.
 
 6 LORD HALIBUETON [1832- 
 
 traditions of its Oxford prototypes. It preserved 
 the ancient and orthodox classical curriculum ; 
 it was faithful to Lilly's Latin Grammar, and to 
 the Latin grace before and after meat. Among the 
 pupils of a generation senior to the Haliburton 
 brothers were the two distinguished soldiers, Sir 
 John Eardley Inglis, the defender of Lucknow, 
 and Sir William Fenwick Williams, the defender of 
 Kars. In 1899 the University conferred upon 
 Lord Haliburton, as he had then become, the 
 distinction of an honorary D.C.L. degree. 
 
 His original vocation was for the law ; it ran, 
 indeed, in his blood, for his grandfather, 1 as well 
 as his father, had been Chief Justice of the Nova 
 Scotian Court of Common Pleas, and his elder 
 brother Robert 2 was already practising in the 
 Colony with success. Arthur Haliburton was duly 
 called to the Nova Scotian Bar in 1855, and his 
 legal studies and legal training were destined to 
 be of invaluable service to him hereafter. But the 
 outbreak of the Crimean War turned his ambitions 
 into a different channel. These were the days of 
 purchase, and a commission in the Line was not 
 within his reach ; an opening, however, was found 
 which brought him into that close connection with 
 
 1 William Hersey Otis Haliburton. 
 
 2 Thomas, the eldest of the three, died early in life at Boston, 
 but not before his musical accomplishments had earned for him 
 the title of the American Mozart.
 
 1872] THE CEIMEAN WAR 7 
 
 the British Army which subsisted to the end of 
 his official life. 
 
 The outbreak of hostilities had caught England 
 without even the nucleus of a commissariat estab- 
 lishment. In spite of all the warnings of the 
 past, and the memories of the Peninsula campaigns, 
 a Parliamentary Committee, appointed to inquire 
 into the Army and Ordnance expenditure, had 
 recently reported that there was no necessity for 
 the existence of such a department in Great 
 Britain and Ireland. It had formed its decision 
 on the ground that the arrangements of the Com- 
 missariat Department were all based upon a state 
 of war, ' which seems to be unnecessary, inasmuch 
 as it appears on the highest evidence that no 
 training in time of peace will fit a commissary for 
 his duties in the field during war.' 
 
 This ' highest evidence ' was Lord Fitzroy 
 Somerset, 1 then Military Secretary at the Horse 
 Guards, who, as Lord Raglan, was destined, 
 within four years' time, to see a British army 
 
 1 Reports from Committees (1850), vol. x. 240. For Lord 
 Fitzroy-Somerset's evidence on this point see answers to questions 
 3203-3212 ; and General Sir George Brown was characteristically 
 positive ' that the Commissariat in time of peace affords no training 
 whatever for field service in time of war,' see questions 7810, 7811. 
 On the other side, see questions put to Sir Charles Wood, 7346 and 
 7347, and Sir Charles Trevelyan's evidence before the Chelsea Com- 
 mittee on the Condition of the Army before Sebastopol (the ' Whom 
 shall we hang ? ' Committee), question 14126.
 
 8 LORD HALIBUBTON [1832- 
 
 rotting in the Crimean winter for the very want 
 of that peace-trained staff the utility of which 
 he had decried. The recommendations of the 
 Committee were carried out and the existing 
 arrangements swept away in spite, it should be 
 added, of strong opposition on the part of the 
 Treasury, which at that date was the Victualling 
 Department. So, when, in the spring of 1854, it 
 was necessary to transport a formidable fighting 
 force to the Black Sea, a field-commissariat the 
 life-blood of every movement in a campaign 
 was not in existence in the British service. The 
 disasters of the Crimea are matters of history; 
 once more the impossible task was attempted of 
 improvising, at a moment's notice, the com- 
 plicated machinery of military administration. 
 Forty years later Sir Arthur Haliburton tersely 
 described the experiences of that gloomy effort : 
 
 The struggles of the few trained Commissariat 
 officers to infuse knowledge, subordination, and 
 efficiency into the mass of untrained recruits, 
 collected from civil life and cast upon their hands 
 as officers and subordinates, were untiring. As usual 
 they began in disgrace and failure, and, as usual, 
 they ended in success ; but a success purchased by 
 a lamentable expenditure of lives and of treasure. 
 
 Haliburton himself was one of these ' untrained 
 recruits.' In 1855 he received a commission in 
 the recreated Commissariat Department of the
 
 1872] THE COMMISSAEIAT DEPARTMENT 9 
 
 Army, now, for the first time, transferred from the 
 Treasury to the Secretary of State for War. He 
 was promptly despatched to Turkey, and though 
 he was never actually at the seat of hostilities in 
 the Crimea, he learnt invaluable lessons connected 
 with the needs of an army in the field ; while the 
 experience thus acquired convinced him that the 
 situation of a civil commissary attached to a fight- 
 ing force was one of extreme delicacy and difficulty. 
 
 ' The position, of the civilian,' he wrote long 
 afterwards, * in camp and garrison, in constant 
 contact with soldiers who grudgingly recognised 
 his rank and authority, was anomalous and un- 
 satisfactory. His authority and usefulness de- 
 pended almost entirely on his personal qualities, 
 and gained nothing from his official rank and 
 position.' 1 
 
 When the Peace of Paris was signed the Depart- 
 ment was again reduced, after the evil precedent 
 of 1815. Only ten officers were retained on the 
 home establishment ; but abroad, and in the 
 Colonies, the services of a trained commissariat 
 staff were still utilised. In 1857 Haliburton was 
 posted to the forces stationed in Canada. He 
 received his commission as Deputy- Assistant Com- 
 missary-General in November 1859, a commission 
 which was renewed in June 1862 and May 1866. 
 
 1 Army Administration in Three Centuries, p. 34 ; the genesis of 
 this pamphlet, published by Haliburton in 1901, is given below, p. 234.
 
 10 LOED HALIBUKTON [1832- 
 
 Though the terms of his appointment placed 
 him under the Rules and Discipline of War, his 
 duties were, in the main, of a purely civil order. 
 
 The Commissariat officers made all important 
 contracts ; and if the General Officer commanding 
 gave orders for expenditure not provided in the 
 estimates, or not in accordance with the Regula- 
 tions, it was the duty of the Commissariat officers 
 to point it out to him, and to report the matter to 
 the Treasury. He was also expected to write to 
 the Treasury in detail upon the various proceed- 
 ings at the station and to call attention to what 
 he considered to be unnecessary expenditure. 1 
 
 To perform these duties properly, considerable 
 knowledge of a mercantile character was required ; 
 and in the days before the telegraph the control 
 of financial operations of no small magnitude was 
 thrown upon the Commissaries. Such a position 
 was admirably calculated to develop the sense of 
 responsibility and to enforce a thorough mastery 
 of detail, while giving scope to that cool judgment 
 and insight into the character of those around him 
 which was to distinguish Haliburton through life. 
 In 1860 he was recalled to England, and he then 
 began that period of desk and office work which, 
 with a single break, was to continue until his 
 retirement, in 1897. The Commissariat was then 
 a separate department, with its headquarters in 
 
 1 Sir R. Biddulph, Lord Cardwell at the War Office, p. 5.
 
 1872] THE COMMISSARIAT DEPAETMENT 11 
 
 New Street; and here Haliburton's assiduity and 
 administrative capacity attracted the attention 
 of the Commissary General-in-Chief, Sir William 
 Tyrone Power, a veteran whose military service 
 dated from the China War of 1843, and who still 
 survives at the patriarchal age of eighty-nine. 
 
 In November 1866, a Committee, presided over 
 by Lord Strathnairn, took into consideration the 
 question of transport, and the general administra- 
 tion of the supply departments of the Army. In 
 the following year they recommended that a 
 Controller-in-Chief should be appointed at the War 
 Office, with control over the various executive 
 departments of supply the Commissariat, the 
 Military Store, and the Purveyor's which were 
 to be fused together and staffed in the upper 
 ranks by controllers, with deputy and assistant 
 controllers in due gradation. 
 
 In 1868, Sir Henry Storks, fresh from his inquiry 
 into the suppression of the Jamaica revolt, was 
 appointed, in conjunction with Sir William Power, 
 to reorganise the Supply Departments on the 
 basis of these recommendations ; and nearly two 
 years were occupied in getting the new control 
 establishment into working order. Sir William 
 Power had brought Haliburton with him from the 
 old office as his personal assistant. The duties 
 which were now required of him had hitherto been
 
 12 LORD HALIBURTON [1882- 
 
 entrusted to men of much higher standing in the 
 Department, but Sir William had not been deceived 
 as to the very exceptional capacity which he had 
 detected in one who held the subordinate rank 
 of Deputy-Assistant Commissary- General. Few 
 officers, whatever their position, he declared in a 
 quasi-official communication l to Sir Henry Storks, 
 the newly made Controller- General, could have 
 displayed equal zeal and ability in the discharge 
 of an exacting and absorbing task. In addition 
 to routine duties, which meant an eight hours' 
 working day, from ten to six, Haliburton was 
 employed on all the committtees formed to 
 facilitate the process of reorganisation, and he 
 took a leading part in their deliberations. They 
 dealt for the most part with the drafting of 
 regulations for the paymasters on home and 
 foreign service, and with the exceedingly complex 
 and difficult business of correlating the various 
 sub-departments of control. On one of them, 
 Haliburton, utilising, it may be surmised, his 
 Turkish and Canadian experiences, proposed a 
 reform in the manner of conducting the Treasury 
 and War Office accounts abroad, by which a very 
 large reduction of clerical labour was effected, the 
 accounts simplified, and the security of the public 
 funds increased. This recommendation was at 
 
 1 Dated March 4, 1870.
 
 1872] THE GOMMISSAEIAT DEPARTMENT 13 
 
 once approved by the Treasury and put into 
 immediate practice at every foreign station. 
 
 4 Mr. Haliburton has been indefatigable in his 
 work,' continued Sir William Power, * and, not only 
 as a reward for the past, but on account of the 
 services which may be expected from him in the 
 future, I consider that he should be placed in a posi- 
 tion more commensurate with the duties he 
 performs and with his admitted ability than that 
 which he at present holds. If this be not done, 
 the reorganisation of the Departments will leave 
 him, in spite of his valuable services, in a worse 
 position than he was when I brought him here 
 in 1868.' 
 
 A fate, it may be added, that has been known 
 before now to attend junior members of the Civil 
 Service whose premature advancement has excited 
 surprise not unmingled with envy. 
 
 The estimates for the coming year had provided 
 for two Assistant- Controllers at the War Office, 
 and there was at the very moment a vacancy. 
 To this post, for which he had shown such special 
 aptitude, Sir William Power most earnestly recom- 
 mended the appointment of Mr. Haliburton : 
 
 * It has always been laid down that control 
 appointments are to be filled by selection, and 
 although he is junior in the list he has by his 
 labours and abilities fairly earned a position which 
 he is fully qualified to fill. This opinion is shared 
 in, not only by the officers of his own Department,
 
 14 LORD HALIBUETON [1832- 
 
 but by the heads of the Military Store and Pur- 
 veyor's branches in this office ; and although the 
 appointment would be exceptional, it can, I 
 submit, be fully justified by the exceptional cir- 
 cumstances which have led to it.' 
 
 The proposal was too revolutionary for the 
 time and place ; but Mr. Cardwell was at the 
 War Office, and the good work that Haliburton 
 had done was not lost upon him. The public 
 mind had for some time past been much exercised 
 over the ' dual government ' of the Army. The 
 separate existence of the ' Horse Guards ' at 
 Whitehall, and the War Office in Pall Mall, was 
 symbolical of the gulf between the civil and 
 military branches, 1 and it was not easy to defend 
 on principle the existence of two concurrent and, 
 in some respects, conflicting institutions. The 
 military staff under the Commander-in- Chief still 
 remained a comparatively independent body, con- 
 ducting their intercourse with the Secretary of 
 State and his subordinates almost entirely by 
 correspondence. Mr. Cardwell was resolved to 
 bring both branches under one roof, as far as the 
 amount of available cubic space would allow; 
 primarily for the sake of convenience and economy, 
 but with the ulterior object of making the supre- 
 macy of the civil power more easily enforceable. 
 
 1 Colonel Verner, Military Life of the Duke of Cambridge, i. 403.
 
 1872] DUAL GOVERNMENT OF THE ARMY 15 
 
 The Duke of Cambridge foresaw clearly that the 
 removal of himself and his headquarters to Pall 
 Mall meant the eventual subordination of his 
 office to that of the member of the Cabinet who 
 was responsible to Parliament for the administra- 
 tion of the Army, while it involved an immediate 
 lowering of his prestige and authority. He wrote 
 pathetically that : 
 
 ' The removal of the Commander-in-Chief to the 
 office at Pall Mall, deprived, as he must be, more- 
 over, of all his military surroundings, would 
 place him in a position of subordination which 
 would virtually deprive him of all his specific 
 attributes, and would in fact place him more or 
 less on an equality with the Controller-in-Chief, 
 or any one of the Under-Secretaries of State. 
 This would be a degradation which would altogether 
 alter his status in the estimation of the Army and 
 the public, and would, in my opinion, be most 
 injurious to the interests of the Crown, the real 
 head of the Army, and also to the public service.' l 
 
 Mr. Card well was obdurate; but the establishment 
 of the Commander-in-Chief in that labyrinth of 
 dark staircases and blind passages which, as I 
 write, is being cleared away to make room for the 
 Auto-Mobile Club, 2 was delayed by the structural 
 deficiencies of the building. Mahomet being un- 
 able to come to the mountain, Mr. Cardwell deter- 
 
 1 Vernor, i. 409. 3 Now a, fait accompli.
 
 16 LOED HALIBURTON [1832- 
 
 mined that the mountain should go to Mahomet ; 
 and, pending the preparation of suitable quarters 
 for his Royal Highness, he decided to send a section 
 of the War Office to the Horse Guards. 
 
 For this unenviable duty Mr. Cardwell selected 
 Haliburton ; it was a commission of no small 
 deb'cacy, for the welcome that awaited the intruders 
 in Whitehall was not likely to err through excess 
 of cordiality. But to an absolute fearlessness 
 Haliburton united that peculiar blend of tact and 
 force which is only found in strong men. He was 
 one of those fortunate people who, without being 
 thick-skinned in the vulgar sense, are impervious 
 to hostile atmosphere. He marched his staff of 
 clerks into their new surroundings as if they were 
 merely moving from the west to the east wing of 
 the old buildings in Pall Mall. It was not a case of 
 smoothing over difficulties ; they simply ceased 
 to exist. On the morning upon which the transfer 
 was effected the Duke came down in choleric 
 mood, prepared to criticise the new department 
 as if it were a regiment with a black mark 
 against it paraded for annual inspection. He 
 found everything working with the smoothness of 
 a well-oiled machine. H.R.H. was an outspoken 
 prince, and he ever gave frank expression to his 
 feelings. ' Well, I'm d d,' was his only com- 
 mentary, and he passed on to the order of the
 
 1872] TRANSFERRED TO THE HORSE GCJARDS 17 
 
 day ; but from that hour, till his resignation of 
 the command of the British Army, Haliburton had 
 a supporter and friend in the Duke of Cambridge. 1 
 The work assigned to him at the Horse Guards 
 related to the transport and travelling allowances 
 of the Army, the regulation of which was placed 
 under his complete control, subject to the decision 
 of the Quartermaster- General, with whom he was 
 placed in direct personal communication. A post 
 of such responsibility could not be held decorously 
 by a junior officer in an Army Department, and 
 Haliburton accordingly resigned his commission, 
 and was transferred to the Civil Service as Assistant 
 Director of Supplies and Transport. From the 
 first he showed a conception of his duties and of 
 their wider bearing upon questions of Army ad- 
 ministration which stamped him as a man of 
 very different calibre from the average Deputy 
 Commissary. He rapidly made the discovery that 
 much unnecessary expenditure was caused by an 
 unsound and wasteful method of posting the 
 troops ; and, as a specimen of his breadth of view 
 and his clear and graphic style, I venture to quote 
 at length the following minute, addressed by him, 
 
 1 Haliburton, on his part, never failed to express his regard 
 for the Duke's shrewdness and straightforwardness. ' Always a 
 great stickler for constitutional observances,' he wrote of him, 
 ' and always taking a common-sense view on such questions ' 
 (Army Administration, 32). 
 
 O
 
 18 LOED HALIBUKTON [1832- 
 
 in November 1870, to Lord Northbrook, then the 
 Under- Secretary of State for War : 
 
 ' The accompanying books give the barrack 
 accommodation and the distribution of the Army 
 at home and abroad. It will be observed that the 
 military posts in the United Kingdom are as 
 various as they are numerous, and that they are 
 scattered far and wide over the kingdom. 
 
 ' This method of posting the Army at home is a 
 remnant of a past age, the circumstances of which 
 differed entirely from those of the present day. 
 When neither telegraphic nor railway communica- 
 tion existed, and troops had to be moved by the 
 slow and tedious " march route," or by the scarcely 
 more expeditious sailing craft of that day it 
 was necessary to traverse the country with a 
 chain of military posts, the heavier links resting on 
 places which were then of political or social im- 
 portance. As it was impossible to move troops 
 with rapidity on any point threatened with insur- 
 rection or riot, the Army was posted in bodies, large 
 or small according to the character of the district, 
 in or near all the manufacturing towns, and in 
 localities where mining or other operations brought 
 large numbers of workmen together. 1 Some few posts 
 were, no doubt established from wider considera- 
 tions ; but, speaking generally, it may be said that 
 our system of posting the Army was founded on 
 
 1 It may be added that the absence of any efficient constabulary 
 was one of the main causes which reduced the Army to the level 
 of a police force. The disadvantages and dangers of the dispersal 
 of the troops on home service were a constant source of complaint 
 and remonstrance on the part of Sir Charles Napier during his 
 command of the Northern District, 1839-40. See his Life and 
 Opinions, ii. 7, 23, and passim.
 
 1872] DISTRIBUTION OF THE ARMY 19 
 
 local considerations rather than on broad strategical 
 and general grounds. 
 
 ' The necessity which gave rise to this system 
 no longer exists. Troops can be concentrated in a 
 few hours in any part of the kingdom, and it is 
 therefore as unnecessary to keep up the majority 
 of the old military posts as it would be to keep up 
 the old Posting Inns which were equally necessary 
 in their day. These ceased to exist when no longer 
 suited to the age, because the " voluntary contribu- 
 tions " by which they were supported ceased to 
 flow in ; those survived, like many other institutions 
 supported by the State, because active measures 
 were wanting to displace them. 
 
 ' Of the good and evil which characterised this 
 system the good has long since ceased to exist, 
 while the evil not only survives, but is becoming 
 more pernicious every day. Any system which 
 divides regiments into small detachments, and 
 scatters them miles apart, materially impairs the 
 efficiency of the corps. On a recent occasion, when 
 two regiments were to interchange stations in 
 England, I was informed, in reply to my question 
 why such an expense was incurred when each 
 corps had been scarcely more than a year at its 
 post, that, while one corps had been kept together 
 for that period, the other had been divided into 
 numerous detachments, and that it was necessary 
 to bring it together to restore its efficiency. Thus, 
 while one was concentrated to have its efficiency 
 restored, the other was scattered to have its 
 efficiency destroyed. This is repeated all over the 
 kingdom. We build up to-day what we destroy 
 to-morrow, and this game of " see-saw " costs 
 us thousands which are worse than thrown away. 
 
 a 2
 
 20 LOED HALIBUBTON [1882- 
 
 ' What is true of a corps is true of the whole 
 army. If the companies of a regiment require to 
 act together to make an effective corps, equally 
 do regiments require to be brigaded together to 
 form an efficient brigade. The more an army is 
 disjointed and scattered in time of peace, the less 
 efficient it will be when suddenly called together in 
 time of war. This system is, I believe, not only 
 detrimental to the service, but costly to the State. 
 There is a perpetual movement of troops between 
 the headquarters of a corps and its detachments, 
 and of whole regiments from one post where they 
 have been scattered to another where they can be 
 concentrated. 
 
 * Strategically the great majority of our military 
 posts have no value whatever. The only value 
 they possess is that of the ground on which they 
 stand. This, if properly realised and applied, 
 would go far towards establishing a better and 
 more economical system. With the exception of 
 the forts capable of defence, all our minor military 
 posts should be dismantled and sold, and replaced 
 by a few large garrisons near towns, if necessary, 
 or more isolated, like Aldershot, if that plan be 
 considered best on military grounds. The sites 
 selected for the new posts should be chosen solely 
 on strategical and general considerations. The 
 railway system of this country is tolerably com- 
 plete, and the addition which time will develop 
 can be foreseen. There exist now certain great 
 centres of communication which command the 
 whole country. These, no doubt, would be largely 
 considered in forming any general scheme, as they 
 would be most valuable on strategical and on 
 economical grounds. If large military posts were
 
 1872] DISTRIBUTION OF THE ARMY 21 
 
 formed at or near them, we could not only at once 
 reinforce any part of the kingdom without the troops 
 having to change train, but, by them, we could 
 tap the whole country for supplies instead of being 
 dependent on a district. These large military 
 posts could gradually, by the labour of the troops, 
 and, as it were, in the course of their tuition in 
 field works and military engineering, be made into 
 strong entrenched positions. In addition to the 
 advantage which we should gain from substituting 
 a few strong positions for the thousand weak ones 
 which we now occupy we should gain immensely, 
 not only in the training of our army, but in having 
 in each military district a centre where the reserve 
 forces could meet and be brigaded with regular 
 troops. Those who have compared the progress 
 made by a militia regiment trained at Aldershot 
 with that of one billeted in the county town, will 
 understand how great this advantage would be to 
 the Keserve Forces. 
 
 ' Were such a scheme carried out, it would en- 
 able us to overcome many difficulties in recruiting 
 regiments abroad, in the depot system, which is 
 far from satisfactory, and in establishing a clearer 
 connection between the Reserve and the Regular 
 forces. It is, however, only necessary at present 
 to draw attention to the principle which should be 
 adopted, not to the detail advantages which would 
 flow from it. If such a plan be adopted, the sites 
 to be selected and the general scheme should be 
 considered as a whole, and be fully matured before 
 any portion be carried out. If we began with one 
 section of the country without due regard to the 
 other we might find that we had spent time and 
 money on an object which marred rather than
 
 22 LOED HALIBUBTON [1832- 
 
 advanced the general design. If some general 
 scheme could be developed by those whose military 
 education and abilities have qualified them to frame 
 it, it might then be carried out gradually in detail, 
 each detail leading up to the complete design. 
 It would only be by the adoption of some fixed 
 design with a determination to adhere to it that 
 the sectional jealousies, and local political opposi- 
 tion, sure to come, could be successfully resisted. 
 
 ' The first outlay would be for huts or barracks 
 and sites. Against this should be set the value of 
 the land which we hold in the heart of many 
 manufacturing towns and districts, which would 
 make a large set-off against the expenditure. But, 
 apart from this, the annual saving in the movement 
 of troops (both in Army and Navy votes) would be 
 very considerable, and would soon recoup us any 
 first outlay. 
 
 * It is on these grounds that I have ventured to 
 bring to your notice a subject which is far wider 
 than the nature of my duties entitled me to deal 
 with.' 
 
 4.11.70. 
 
 While examining the regulations relative to 
 the moving of troops by land in the United King- 
 dom, Haliburton made the discovery that for 
 many years past the Government had been paying 
 excessive rates for railway conveyance. When 
 fixed by Parliament in 1844 l they had been con- 
 siderably lower than those applicable to the general 
 public. In time the rates to the public fell, while 
 
 1 7 and 8 Viet. c. 85, s. 12.
 
 1872] AEMY KAILWAY KATES 23 
 
 those to the Government remained unaltered, the 
 result being that the Government at length paid 
 more instead of less than the public. He repre- 
 sented to the railway companies with all the force 
 at his command that this was contrary to the 
 spirit of the Act. The companies refused to give 
 way ; there were no means short of legislation by 
 which they could be compelled to do so, and, in 
 spite of the favourable report of more than one 
 Parliamentary Committee before which he pleaded 
 the case of the War Office, it was not until 1883, 
 when the Cheap Trains Act was passed, that he 
 succeeded in getting the rates reduced. 1 It was 
 estimated that between 1847 and that year 
 Government had overpaid the railways to the 
 extent of a million and three-quarters sterling. 
 The concession effected a saving of 35,000?. per 
 annum, which would have been 55,000/. if Ireland 
 had not contrived to obtain exemption. Other 
 administrative reforms in connexion with the 
 supply and transport service which were effected 
 through his instrumentality had the effect of 
 increasing the net saving to 68,000?. per annum 
 without in any way retrenching the pay or allow- 
 ances or the comfort of the soldier. 
 
 And it is important to observe, in view of pop- 
 ular misconceptions, that Haliburton's first efforts 
 
 1 46 and 47 Viet. c. 34, e. 6.
 
 24 LOBD HALIBUETON [1832- 
 
 when in a position of responsibility and influence 
 were directed towards decentralisation, and to- 
 wards abolishing the system by which every ques- 
 tion relating to transport and travelling allowances 
 was referred to the War Office. The initial step 
 was to shift all executive details to the Generals 
 Commanding Districts ; but a grave difficulty arose 
 from the utter chaos into which the regulations 
 governing these allowances had been suffered to 
 drift. Such as existed were scattered through 
 many volumes of circulars, some wholly obsolete, 
 some partially cancelled, and all overlaid by un- 
 published decisions unknown outside the War 
 Office and completely inaccessible to the Army. 
 Haliburton at once undertook to compile and revise 
 them, and in due time the whole of the regulations 
 governing the allowances of the land forces were 
 issued in a small volume which could be carried 
 in the pocket. The consequent saving of time 
 and correspondence was equally appreciated in the 
 War Office and in the Districts. 
 
 A few years later, after his return from India, 
 Haliburton was placed at the head of a Committee 
 which was appointed to examine in minute detail 
 into the working of every branch of the War Office, 
 civil and military alike. The Committee found an 
 enormous amount of unnecessary duplication of 
 work and a ridiculously over-staffed clerical esta-
 
 1877] ECONOMIES AND EEFOEMS 25 
 
 blishment. Their drastic recommendations paved 
 the way for reforms which simplified the routine, 
 brought about a much-needed decentralisation, 
 and effected substantial economy. The authorised 
 establishment of clerks of the higher division 
 stood at two hundred and five in 1876 ; it is now, 
 and has for many years been, under sixty.
 
 26 LORD HALIBUETON [1872- 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 1872-1877 
 
 Deputy Accountant-General in the Indian Military Department 
 Votes of Thanks Returns to the War Office The Control 
 Department The Training of Supply Officers Letter from 
 Sir William Power. 
 
 IN April 1872 Lord Mayo was assassinated as lie 
 was visiting the convict establishment on the 
 Andaman Islands, and he was succeeded by Lord 
 Northbrook, who, as Under- Secretary for War, had 
 been brought into close contact with Haliburton. 
 In October of the same year the new Viceroy 
 applied to the Duke of Argyll 1 to sanction his 
 appointment as Deputy Accountant- General in the 
 military department of the Government of India. 
 The place was one of dignity and influence, and the 
 offer most flattering to a man of Haliburton's 
 standing in the Home Civil Service. But there were 
 features on the other side of the account which 
 might well make him hesitate before returning an 
 unconditional acceptance. He was just forty ; his 
 
 1 Then Secretary of State for India.
 
 1877] SERVICE IN INDIA 27 
 
 position in the War Office was most satisfactory, 
 and there was every probability of his remaining 
 on the employed list for the next twenty years, 
 and eventually retiring on a liberal pension. 
 
 'If I now proceed to India,' he wrote to the 
 Duke of Argyll, *I relinquish all the advantages 
 of my past service and my future prospects in 
 this country, with the certainty that I can never 
 complete the full period of service l in India, and 
 with the risk of being invalided from the effects of 
 hard work no inconsiderable risk in that climate 
 if I render, as I shall endeavour to do, such service 
 as I feel sure His Excellency expects from me.' 
 
 The difficulty was adjusted by the assurance that 
 the Secretary of State for India would sanction 
 any pension arrangement that the Viceroy might 
 recommend, and Haliburton still further secured 
 himself by the arrangement that he should proceed 
 to India ' on leave of absence ' for the period of 
 twelve months, and thus retain the option of 
 going back to his old billet with his position and his 
 prospects unimpaired. 
 
 He quitted England in December 1872, and 
 re-entered the War Office in April 1875, his leave 
 having been periodically extended. His return was 
 not due to the lack of due recognition, for in the 
 course of his first year in India he was offered the 
 immediate reversion of the Accountancy- General 
 
 1 Sufficient to entitle him to a pension.
 
 28 LOED HALIBUBTON [1872- 
 
 with a salary of 3,OOOZ. a year. 1 But he decided 
 on purely private grounds that his work at home 
 was more congenial. London had attractions 
 which neither Simla nor Calcutta could present ; 
 and when, in May 1874, it was necessary for him 
 to make his final choice between India and the 
 War Office, he elected for the latter. At the urgent 
 entreaty, however, of Lord Northbrook, the Secre- 
 tary of State for War 2 granted a special extension 
 of leave till the following April, in order that some- 
 one might be trained up under Haliburton to take 
 the place which it had been hoped he himself would 
 fill. 
 
 ' You may rely upon having him back again, 
 wrote the Viceroy, ' upon which I congratulate 
 you, for he is quite one of the best men of business 
 I ever came across, and for the sake of this Govern- 
 ment I am very sorry for his determination. . . . 
 I don't think you will lose in the end by the ex- 
 perience he will have gained in Indian work.' 
 
 Lord Northbrook' s regret found official ex- 
 pression in a formal vote of thanks on the part of 
 the Government of India. Haliburton's labours 
 had been extensive and peculiar. In conveying 
 the original offer Lord Northbrook had informed 
 
 1 2,500 rupees per mensem. 
 
 2 The late Lord Cranbrooke, then Mr. Gathorne Hardy. 
 Cardwell had resigned when the letter reached him. ' If I had 
 remained, I should have complied. Will you lay this before my 
 successor ? ' was his endorsement on the envelope.
 
 1877] INDIAN PAY EEGULATIONS 29 
 
 him that his duties would be somewhat the same 
 as those of the Accountant- General at the War 
 Office, c with rather more latitude as regards 
 dealing with general military questions.' The 
 continued ill-health of his superior, Mr. Kellner, 
 threw from the beginning the main burden of 
 the office upon Haliburton's shoulders, and the 
 numerous reports and memoranda for which he is 
 responsible are signed by him as ' officiating 
 Accountant-General.' They are concerned, for the 
 most part, with purely departmental matters, but 
 one of them had the result of completely and 
 permanently recasting the pay of the British 
 garrison, into which by force of time and circum- 
 stances a number of indefensible anomalies had 
 crept, generally to the detriment of the European 
 soldiers serving in India. 
 
 'One great advantage,' he wrote, * of the adoption 
 of the plan recommended will be, that for the future 
 the issue of the soldier's pay will be governed by 
 the same regulation throughout the whole British 
 Empire, India being at present the solitary excep- 
 tion to a uniform system. That regulation is, 
 that, wherever the soldier serves, his pay shall be 
 the exact equivalent of the sum in British currency 
 for which he enlisted ; and that when he is stationed 
 in countries where from dearness of living, or from 
 other causes, as in India, Ceylon, and China, his 
 emoluments require to be increased, that increase 
 shall be given in the shape of local allowances in
 
 30 LOED HALIBUETON [1872- 
 
 money or in kind, but that under no circum- 
 stances shall the pay of the soldier be increased or 
 diminished above or below the rates which are 
 laid down in the Royal Warrants which govern its 
 issue. This regulation was intended to be and 
 should be of universal application, and it only 
 needs this change in India to make it so.' 
 
 f And outside the special work of his own depart- 
 ment Haliburton was appointed, in conjunction 
 with the Inspector- Generals of Ordnance for the 
 three Presidencies, and other distinguished officers, 
 on a special Commission to make a comprehensive 
 inquiry into the work devolving on each of the 
 manufacturing establishments, arsenals, magazines 
 and ordnance deputs in the three Presidencies, with 
 the object of a complete revision of the Indian 
 Ordnance Departments. For the ability and care 
 bestowed upon this most important and compli- 
 cated subject he received for the second time 
 the thanks of the Governor- General in Council, 
 though the resolution did not reach him until 
 some months after his return to England. When, 
 after his final retirement from the Civil Service, 
 the Treasury were trying to deduct his years in 
 India from the time he was allowed to count 
 for pension, he remarked playfully, in a letter 
 to an old friend, ' That was about the best work 
 I have ever done, and it would be odd if it had 
 to go unpensioned.'
 
 1877] LORD CEOMER'S APPRECIATION 31 
 
 As Lord Northbrook had predicted, Haliburton's 
 Indian experience was to be of great advantage 
 to him in the important branches of military 
 administration for which he was destined. He had 
 seen the working of the Indian Army, native and 
 European, from within, a circumstance which gave 
 especial weight to his verdict on a departmental 
 Committee formed shortly after his return against 
 the unlimited extension of the private soldier's 
 service in India. 1 He had gained an insight into 
 matters of finance and policy which was unattain- 
 able at the War Office by anyone of his rank. 
 He had acquired additional experience in the 
 art of managing men, and he had associated on 
 terms of friendship and equality with some of the 
 ablest servants of the Crown, civil and military. 
 Among these especial mention should be made of 
 Major Evelyn Baring, the present Lord Cromer, 
 who had been Lord CardwelPs military secretary, 
 and now occupied a corresponding post under his 
 relative, Lord Northbrook. In a recent letter to 
 Lady Haliburton, the maker of Modern Egypt bears 
 testimony to her husband's 4 great intelligence and 
 force of character and to the admirable manner in 
 
 1 ' If statistics have ever proved anything,' wrote Lord Wolseley, 
 ' they have proved that the British private soldier after eight years' 
 service La India runs downhill very rapidly as regards health and 
 strength.'
 
 32 LORD HALIBURTON [1872- 
 
 which he carried through whatever work came to 
 his hand.' 
 
 Haliburton found his old colleagues at the War 
 Office delighted to welcome him both privately 
 and officially. An opportune resignation was 
 in prospect, but before he received promotion to 
 the office of Director of Supplies and Transports 
 his services were employed on a very delicate and 
 responsible piece of reorganisation. The new Con- 
 servative Government detested Cardwell and all his 
 works, 1 and there were many of its supporters and 
 some even of its members who would gladly? 
 if they dared, have drawn a sponge over the 
 whole record of his achievements at the War 
 Office. ' Purchase ' was gone beyond recall ; ' short 
 service ' was only in the experimental stage ; 
 but in attacking the Control department the 
 reactionary school had the full force of military 
 opinion at its back. 
 
 The Control department had been constituted 
 by Mr. Cardwell in 1870 in consultation with Sir 
 Henry Storks, Sir Edward Lugard and Sir William 
 Power. The Secretary for War, after investigating 
 the subject with his accustomed thoroughness, 
 and guided by the evidence taken before Lord 
 Strathnairn's Committee, had become convinced 
 that for the management of such vast and vital 
 
 1 See Army Administration, p. 36.
 
 1877] THE CONTKOL DEPAETMENT 33 
 
 responsibilities as were involved in warlike opera- 
 tions every General Commanding must have on 
 his staff a highly trained business expert, capable, 
 under his authority and orders, of successfully 
 controlling the business transactions of his com- 
 mand, and trained for that purpose in garrison 
 and camp during peace. Accordingly, Cardwell 
 provided out of the personnel of the existing 
 Supply and Finance Department four independent 
 groups to be known as the Supply, the Transport, 
 the Store, and the Pay sub -departments. Over 
 each of these groups was to be placed a body of 
 selected staff officers with the title of Controllers, 
 trained and organised on a purely military basis. 
 
 At this point, unfortunately, Cardwell' s evil 
 genius intervened. 
 
 *A clever but crotchety member of the War 
 Office suggested that it would be very cumbersome 
 and unnecessary to create five [sic] departments 
 with five different titles, and that it would be much 
 simpler to create only one department with sub- 
 divisions and to call the whole the Control Depart- 
 ment.' ] 
 
 The suggestion was adopted, with consequences 
 which might have been but were not foreseen. 
 Mere Controllers would have excited no suspicions, 
 
 1 Lord Hali burton iu the Times of August 30, 1906 : I li.ivo 
 no suspicion who the clever but crotchety individual could have 
 boon.
 
 34 LOED HALIBUETON [1872- 
 
 aroused no unfriendly feelings ; but the term 
 Control Department was seized upon by its enemies, 
 and they were many, 1 to discredit it. ' What is 
 the department to control ? ' was asked at once ; 
 and the not unnatural inference was drawn that 
 it was intended to check and control the Generals 
 Commanding, and not, as was the actual case, 
 merely to aid and strengthen them in the perform- 
 ance of the responsible business duties for which 
 they had neither training nor experience. The 
 department never recovered from the weight of its 
 bad name, though the prejudice was abating when 
 it was abolished in 1875. The Conservative 
 Government first decapitated it by abolishing the 
 Controllers, and then dissolved it into its original 
 elements, recreating the old Commissariat, Military 
 Store, and Pay Departments, each independent of 
 the others and all unrepresented on the staff of 
 Generals Commanding. 
 
 Writing to the ' Times ' less than a year before 
 his death, Haliburton declared that the Control 
 Department set up by Cardwell was the only real 
 sound business organisation which the British 
 Army had enjoyed during the whole course of his 
 long service. Drawing his moral from the Report 
 
 1 ' Especially,' wrote Haliburton in after years, ' the General 
 Staff, which now lost its power over services with which for genera- 
 tions it had meddled and muddled.'
 
 1877] THE CONTKOL DEPAETMENT 35 
 
 of the War Stores Commission, he pointed out 
 that, to secure thoroughly efficient control of the 
 supply and transport services, Generals on detached 
 command should in every case have a trained 
 expert on their staff to supervise, under their orders, 
 every branch of the business services. The want 
 of such an expert could not be supplied by any 
 mere ' financial adviser,' however skilled in the 
 higher walks of army book-keeping. 1 He could 
 only be produced by years of training in each 
 business branch, in the War Office, and finally 
 on the General's staff. This was the class of man 
 which the Control Department was created to train 
 and encourage, and, had its existence been spared, 
 Haliburton was absolutely convinced that the 
 administrative failures in South Africa and the 
 serious losses reported by the Royal Commission 
 would never have occurred. ' I ventured to pro- 
 test, as strongly as my subordinate position would 
 permit, when the Control Department was de- 
 stroyed. I would now urge as strongly as I can 
 its re-creation.' : 
 
 1 ' In the field,' he wrote, ' the financial branch is the least 
 important. Mistakes in finance may lead to the loss of money ; 
 but mistakes in supply or transport may paralyse the Army and 
 give rise to disasters. Financial losses do not arise from mere 
 errors of accounting. They arise from failure in the successful 
 conduct of the supply services. Secure sound administration for 
 these services and there will be no financial disasters.' 
 
 * Times, August 30, 1906. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 LORD HALIBURTON [1872- 
 
 And while his protests in this behalf were 
 unavailing, Haliburton was impressed by a deep- 
 seated blemish in connexion with the administra- 
 tive services which had been left practically un- 
 touched during the short existence of the Control 
 Department. The combatant officers were under 
 the firm belief that the civilians attached to the 
 Army had no feeling in common with them. . They 
 were convinced that these latter existed more for 
 the purpose of checking and thwarting the Army 
 than of aiding its operations in the field or pro- 
 moting its comfort and well-being in garrison; 
 that they were constituted to spy out the nakedness 
 of the land, and to reduce the emoluments and 
 restrict the privileges of the soldier in every 
 direction. This was no modern prejudice : the 
 misunderstanding had raged ever since commis- 
 saries had been attached to the British Army. 
 On active service the officers of the Commissariat 
 were seldom in the confidence of the Generals 
 Commanding, and frequently they were not even 
 consulted as to their ability to carry out the 
 movements in contemplation. Hence arose many 
 of the so-called Commissariat failures recorded in 
 our wars, and the recriminations between the 
 Army and its Supply Department to which these 
 failures gave rise. Nor had any appreciable im- 
 provement been caused by the fact that in recent
 
 1877] THE COMMISSARIES 37 
 
 years a certain number of the commissaries had 
 been drawn from the commissioned ranks of the 
 Army. 
 
 The latest reorganisation of the Control Depart- 
 ment, now bifurcated once more into separate 
 branches of supply and ordnance, left this mischief 
 untouched, and though the objectionable name of 
 ' Controller ' was gone, there was no reason to hope 
 that ' Supply ' would be more popular with the 
 Army, or more successful in its operations, than it 
 had been in the past. Shortly after his return 
 from India, Haliburton had a conversation with the 
 Secretary of State for War, Mr. Gathorne Hardy, 
 in which he placed before him the view on this 
 subject acquired from a long apprenticeship in 
 the Commissariat and strengthened by a recent 
 experience of the workings of the Army Depart- 
 ments in India. At Mr. Hardy's request these 
 views were subsequently committed to writing in 
 the form of a memorandum. 
 
 Haliburton put his finger at once on the sore 
 place. So long as the Commissariat officers were 
 civilians pure and simple, or military men deprived 
 of their military rank and titles, good feeling and 
 mutual understanding between the Army and the 
 Army Departments was impossible. 
 
 * We thrust into the midst of the Army an 
 important section differently constituted and
 
 38 LOED HALIBUETON [1872- 
 
 differently organised from its main body. We give 
 it or at any rate it has acquired an inferior 
 Army status. We impose upon it the delicate 
 and obnoxious duty of checking extravagant 
 tendencies, of acting as a Remembrancer l of 
 regulations, as it were, to the Army, and we expect 
 cordial co-operation between the two.' 
 
 The only remedy, he contended, was gradually 
 to eliminate, with due respect to living interests, 
 the existing civil element and to make all future 
 appointments to the commissioned ranks of the 
 Supply and Transport Department entirely from 
 the Army, the officers so appointed retaining 
 their military rank, and being still for all purposes 
 of personal discipline under the rule of the Adju- 
 tant-General. Officers not below the rank of 
 captain, taken from the Army with a thorough 
 and mature knowledge of its feelings, habits and 
 requirements, would not only be an excellent 
 foundation on which to build up the extra know- 
 ledge for departmental duties, but they would 
 establish that community of interest, that sym- 
 pathy and fellow-feeling, between the Army and 
 the Departments created for its supply and main- 
 tenance, which were then, and had always been, 
 conspicuously lacking. 
 
 It was patent, indeed, unless civilian officers 
 and subordinates were to be sacrificed wholesale, 
 
 1 A favourite metaphor of Haliburton's, vide infra, p. 115.
 
 1877] THE SUPPLY DEPAETMENT 39 
 
 that it would take years before the reform was 
 completely carried out. To Haliburton's mind 
 this gradual process was a strong recommendation. 
 
 * Sudden and violent reforms,' he wrote, 
 * amounting almost to revolutions in the Army, are 
 always to be deprecated. They introduce new and 
 unaccustomed elements, destroy the feeling of 
 security in appointments which employes should 
 possess, and create uncertainty, alarm, and friction. 
 The more gradual a reform, the more likely it is 
 to be successful, and it is above all things desirable 
 that reforms should begin in the lower grades, 
 working upwards and gradually and imperceptibly 
 leavening the whole department.' 
 
 And here the need for change was most im- 
 perative in the lower grades, comprising, as they 
 did, a chaotic mass of non-commissioned officers 
 and men belonging to the Army Service Corps, 
 of soldiers temporarily attached from regiments, 
 of pensioners and of civilians. 
 
 * However able the upper grades of officers may 
 be, their success must be hampered, if not entirely 
 prevented, by the fact that they have under them 
 no sufficient stock of reliable juniors and sub- 
 ordinates to carry out their orders or to whom 
 they can confidently entrust the execution of the 
 minor but important details of their duty. . . . 
 From these two elements uninstructed and im- 
 mature officers, ignorant of the army and the 
 conduct of business generally, and a disjointed 
 subordinate department without uniform organisa-
 
 40 LORD HALIBURTON [1872- 
 
 tion we expect successful departmental adminis- 
 tration.' 
 
 If the subordinate department was to be made 
 efficient, the men employed in it must be drawn 
 from a different stratum. 
 
 1 For work of this character we do not want 
 boys fresh from school and ignorant of the service. 
 We want men of the Quartermaster class, con- 
 versant with the regulations of the service, and 
 " up to " the thousand-and-one little methods to 
 which those with whom they have to deal resort 
 in order to scamp the service to the uttermost. 
 We require, in fact, hard-headed, rough-and-ready 
 men of average intelligence, who have by long 
 habit acquired an intimate knowledge of the 
 Army, of Army contractors, of the Regulations of 
 the Service, and of the quality of supplies, and 
 who have been accustomed to control large bodies 
 of men. This is the stuff we want, and the Army 
 contains a rich mine which we have almost entirely 
 neglected.' 
 
 Haliburton enjoyed the great advantage of 
 writing on a subject with which he was personally 
 conversant. For years before his entry into the 
 War Office he had experienced the trials and 
 vexations of a civilian commissary officer, in war 
 time and peace time, on foreign stations and at 
 home. 
 
 * There are,' he wrote, ' and always will be, cases 
 where the individual officers, possessed of excep-
 
 1877] THE SUPPLY DEPAETMENT 41 
 
 tional personal influences and advantages, over- 
 come these difficulties, but such exceptions are so 
 exceedingly rare that they serve to prove the rule.' 
 
 He was himself one of these exceptions. 
 
 As might well be supposed, his suggestions 
 met with a sympathetic reception in military 
 circles. The Duke of Cambridge declared that 
 they were founded on a simple, rational and 
 judicious principle, and deserved the fullest sup- 
 port. His Royal Highness added that, if the 
 scheme were once fairly established it would 
 
 ' put an end to those distressing and continual 
 frictions and vexations which absorb so large a 
 portion of our time to dispose of and to deal with, 
 and which, even when settled as best they can be 
 by the authorities, leave a sting and a raw which 
 can never entirely be got rid of.' 
 
 But in the War Office, and to the mind of 
 the Secretary of State, Haliburton's memorandum 
 failed to carry conviction. The Supply and 
 Transport Department continued to be recruited 
 by the appointment of ' such officers, non-com- 
 missioned officers, and civilians ' as might be 
 recommended by the Secretary of State ; but in 
 practice civilians were for some time to come 
 appointed almost exclusively. Gradually the 
 military element was strengthened in point of 
 numbers, but the department failed to gain a
 
 42 LOED HALIBUKTON [1872- 
 
 military character, and it was not until 1887, 
 under the regime of Mr. Stanhope, that the reforms 
 advocated by Haliburton in 1875 were carried into 
 effect, and the Commissariat staff finally merged 
 in the department of the Quartermaster-General. 
 To other changes which accompanied this merger 
 and which swept away civil control over Army 
 expenditure, Haliburton, as we shall see, offered a 
 strong though unavailing resistance. 
 
 The interest of the controversy lies in the 
 past rather than in the present, though some 
 passages from Haliburton's memorandum throw 
 light on recent experiences in South Africa ; and 
 the following letter from Sir William Power, 
 pronounced by Haliburton to have been by far the 
 ablest administrator produced by the wars of the 
 early Victorian period, is valuable as a historical 
 document : 
 
 Wimbledon, Aug. 6, 1875. 
 
 ' My dear Haliburton, I have read your paper 
 with much interest ; it appears to me to be un- 
 answerable, and will, I trust, be adopted in its 
 main features. 
 
 * It is the complement of the Control scheme, 
 such as it would have become in the natural 
 course had the original plan or principle been 
 adhered to. By this time the greater part of the 
 Control officers would have come from the Line, 
 and of the subordinate department from the 
 ranks, and the development you advocate would
 
 1877] SIB WILLIAM POWEE 43 
 
 have been obvious and easy. But the discourage- 
 ment to the admission of Line officers, the muddling 
 up of Supply and Control and Ordnance, and the 
 various considerations of prejudice and personal 
 interest which were allowed to weigh, never gave 
 the Control scheme a fair chance. 
 
 ' First, as regards the name " Control " ; it was 
 adopted partly to avoid the appearance of favour- 
 ing the Commissariat at the expense of the other 
 departments, and partly because the higher branch 
 was intended to exercise a controlling power over the 
 sub-department. But when, contrary to the inten- 
 tion of Lord Strathnairn's Committee, the Con- 
 trollers and Commissaries were made into one 
 department, the name lost all meaning unless 
 the invidious one attached to it. 
 
 ' It was not contemplated by the Control scheme 
 that the department should be recruited from 
 civil sources. The candidates come in too young ; 
 their pretensions after competitive examinations 
 are too high. And from their false position they 
 do not acquire the practical knowledge of the 
 trades and tradesmen they should superintend 
 of the habits and needs of the soldiers they have 
 to supply. Nor do they readily acquire the 
 military experience and habit of command indis- 
 pensable for the management and discipline of 
 the large numbers of soldiers forming the Supply 
 and Transport Corps. This incompetency is ob- 
 vious in peace, it becomes infinitely more so when 
 immediate and vast expansion is required, often 
 of very heterogeneous and unbroken material, 
 requiring the combination of more than ordinary 
 military and administrative ability. Unfor- 
 tunately there is simultaneously required a large
 
 44 LORD HALIBUBTON [1872- 
 
 expansion of the superior department, for which 
 equally new and untrained material only is avail- 
 able, affording a temptation and excuse for the 
 introduction of military officers into the Supply 
 and Transport Corps, quite independently of the 
 department, thus giving rise to friction, conten- 
 tion and antagonism where all should work as 
 one machine under the departmental chief and 
 his officers. 
 
 'The organisation of the subordinate depart- 
 ment as you propose is quite in harmony with the 
 original Control scheme. It would give a body of 
 tried soldiers and practical men from the Supply and 
 Transport Corps, and from the Army generally, to 
 whom the pay and advancement of the sub- 
 department would be a great prize, who would not 
 be above their work, and who would be quite 
 amenable to the control of the officers of the super- 
 intending department. 
 
 6 Such an organisation would have great and 
 natural power of expansion ; for the peace Cadres 
 of both the superior and the subordinate depart- 
 ment could, on the outbreak of war, be rapidly 
 supplemented from the numerous retired and half- 
 pay officers and N.C.O.s applying for service, all 
 of whom would have had military training, many 
 of them staff and administrative experience, and 
 almost any of whom would be better than the 
 volunteers from the public offices and the raw 
 recruits swept up from the streets which were 
 our only resource in the Crimean War. 
 
 ' I entirely agree with you as regards the pre- 
 judice (not altogether unfounded) which the Army 
 entertains against the department, and the jealousy 
 with which (for obvious reasons) the Army is
 
 1877] SIE WILLIAM POWEE 45 
 
 regarded by the department. These difficulties 
 undoubtedly exist and must be met and overcome 
 for the credit of the country. 
 
 * It is no use maintaining a department for the 
 sake of abusing it. The late Government got into 
 an entirely wrong groove when they departed 
 from the principle of Lord Strathnairn's Committee, 
 and they could not be got out of it. I should not 
 have retired from the service had I seen any pro- 
 spect of their doing so, and there seemed then no 
 hope of the change which has occurred to afford 
 the Conservative party an opportunity of proving 
 their claim to the administrative superiority they 
 are credited with. 
 
 * Your paper shows not only in what direction 
 the change should be made, but also shows with 
 what little cost and friction it may be made. I feel 
 great interest in your plan, and, for the first time 
 since the original Control principles were departed 
 from, I entertain hopes of seeing the department 
 on a proper footing. To me your statements are so 
 clear and convincing, and they hit so exactly the 
 blots in the present system, and show a course so 
 plain, simple and easy of setting it right, that I 
 cannot believe they will fail they cannot be 
 contradicted. 
 
 * Excuse the length of this hasty scrawl, which 
 would grow beyond all bounds if I were to enter 
 into a tithe of the arguments and evidence which 
 accumulate upon me as I write. Wishing you 
 every success and the service the advantage of the 
 plan you so ably advocate, 
 
 ' Believe me, 
 
 * Very faithfully yours, 
 
 * W. TYRONE POWER.'
 
 46 LORD HALIBURTON [1877- 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 1877-1887 
 
 Director of Supplies and Transports Marriage Feeding the 
 Army during the Nile Campaign Praise from Lord Wolseley 
 The Suakin-Berber Railway Parliamentary Tributes Is 
 Made a K.C.B. Some Personal Traits His Relations towards 
 his Subordinates. 
 
 IN 1878 Haliburton succeeded Sir William Drake 
 as Director of Supplies and Transports, and shortly 
 before that date a new chapter in his career had 
 been opened. On November 3, 1877, he was 
 married to Mariana Emily, daughter of the late 
 Leo Schuster, and widow of Sir William Dickason 
 Clay, Bart. Hitherto he had lived the life of a 
 bachelor of somewhat retiring disposition, wrapped 
 up in his work, and little affected by the attractions 
 and distractions of fashionable London. His wife 
 was a lady of ample private means, witty and 
 agreeable, fond of society, and moving in a circle 
 which embraced men and women of varied interests 
 and accomplishments, and where brains and good 
 breeding were indispensable passports. Her house
 
 1887] MAERIAGE 47 
 
 in Lowndes Square was a centre of quiet hospi- 
 tality, attractive alike to the citizen of the world 
 and to those who held aloof from the common 
 round of pleasure and amusement. Throughout 
 their married life Lady Haliburton had one single 
 aim: the comfort, the happiness, the success of 
 her husband. With a woman's shrewdness she 
 realised that, if his remarkable qualities were to 
 find proper scope, he must shake off the habit of 
 self-effacement which absorption in official routine 
 is apt to engender, and reveal his individuality 
 to a wider company than that with which he was 
 brought into immediate and daily contact. To 
 a man of Haliburton's fearless and independent 
 character the change in his worldly fortunes made 
 not an iota of difference, but it would have been 
 contrary to human nature, and to all experience, 
 if the step which rendered him indifferent to the 
 vicissitudes of the public service had not given 
 him a new position in the eyes of his colleagues 
 and superiors. 
 
 The period during which Haliburton ' directed ' 
 the Supply and Transport services comprised eight 
 wars or ' sorts of war.' The twenty years that 
 followed the Indian Mutiny had been an epoch of 
 almost unbroken peace, so far as the British Em- 
 pire was concerned, but the time had come when 
 the gates of the Temple of Janus were once more
 
 48 LORD HALIBURTON [1877- 
 
 to be unlocked. 1 In 1877 the services of British 
 Regulars were required on the frontiers of Cape 
 Colony. In 1878 the Russo-Turkish imbroglio 
 which involved the calling out of the Reserves, 
 and the subsequent occupation of Cyprus, put the 
 abilities of the new Director to the test. In 1879 
 came the Zulu War : this was followed in rapid 
 succession by the first Transvaal War, by the 
 Tel-el-Kebir campaign, by General Graham's oper- 
 ations in the Soudan in 1884, by the Bechuana- 
 land Expedition, and by the operations up the 
 Nile and round Suakin, undertaken in the vain 
 hope of relieving General Gordon and ' smashing 
 the Mahdi at Khartoum.' 
 
 With the exception of the Egyptian War of 
 1882, at which date he was incapacitated for duty 
 by the effects of a bad fall, the arrangements for the 
 supply and transport in every one of these ex- 
 peditions devolved upon Haliburton. In time of 
 war and under the ever-varying conditions of 
 active service it is impossible to insure with abso- 
 lute certainty against waste and loss and accident, 
 or against the shortcomings of subordinates. But 
 as regards the despatch of stores and transport 
 equipment from home, no British armies in the field 
 
 1 ' Turn regina deum caelo delapsa morantes 
 Impulit ipsa manu portas, et cardine verso 
 Belli ferrates rumpit Saturnia postes.' 
 
 Aeneid, vii. 620.
 
 1887] THE ZULU WAE 49 
 
 had ever been so well found and catered for as 
 during those years. The nature of his task may 
 be gathered in some degree by a letter received 
 from a staff officer l in May 1879, on the eve of 
 Lord Wolseley's departure for South Africa. 
 
 * With reference to our conversation of yester- 
 day, Sir Garnet desires me to say to you that, know- 
 ing nothing at present of the condition of the stores 
 at the seat of war, and having been, up to this 
 moment, employed on work which required all his 
 attention, so that he has had very little means of 
 judging of the details of what has been going on at 
 the Cape, it is quite impossible for him to give 
 any opinion whatever as to the amount of stores 
 that ought to be sent out. It must be entirely on 
 your own responsibility that you either do or do 
 not comply with any requisitions that have at 
 present been made to you. Sir Garnet looks to 
 you to keep up the supplies at the seat of war to 
 an adequate standard.' 
 
 That Haliburton not only succeeded in satis- 
 fying Lord Wolseley's expectations, but had been 
 enabled to send off at a fortnight's notice large 
 supplies for the forces hurried off to Natal after 
 Isandhlana, 2 is to be attributed to the events of the 
 previous year. Before the days of telegraphs and 
 steam the supplies for our armies in the field were 
 procured almost entirely on the spot or from the 
 
 1 The present Major-General Sir J. F. Maurice, K.C.B.. 
 3 January 22, 1879. 
 

 
 50 LOED HALIBUETON [1877- 
 
 nearest adjoining territory, and the items that 
 were drawn from the United Kingdom were in- 
 significant in quantity. Gradually, as communica- 
 tions became perfected, a change set in, and the 
 main base for the troops on active service was 
 transferred to Pall Mall. But no adequate system 
 or establishment for carrying out these duties had 
 been created, when the sudden occupation of 
 Cyprus threw a heavy strain upon the Supply and 
 Transport. The first troops who landed found 
 themselves on very short commons, and some of 
 Haliburton's scanty band of subordinates seem 
 temporarily to have lost their heads. 1 The Director, 
 as head of the department, was prompt in ex- 
 plaining to his Parliamentary chief, the Surveyor- 
 General,' 2 the source of the mischief, and he insisted 
 that without an establishment for reserve supplies 
 at home it was impossible to grapple with such 
 emergencies. Fortunately the Secretary for War, 
 Colonel Stanley, 3 had taken the unusual step of 
 proceeding himself to Cyprus and investigating 
 the various complaints mainly arising out of an 
 outbreak of fever, with which the Supply depart- 
 ment had nothing to do 4 that were being venti- 
 lated in the press. What he saw and learnt on the 
 
 1 Vide infra, p. 66. 
 
 2 For the office of Surveyor-General, vide infra. 
 
 3 The late (fifteenth) Earl of Derby. 
 
 4 Military Life of the Duke of Cambridge, ii. 114.
 
 1887] THE NILE EXPEDITION 51 
 
 spot convinced him of the justice of Haliburton's 
 representations, and funds were provided out of 
 the vote of credit l for the immediate creation of 
 an establishment for reserve supplies at Woolwich. 
 Without this the task of equipping the Natal 
 expedition could not have been accomplished 
 within anything approaching the required period. 
 For his services in connection with the Zulu 
 War Haliburton was made a C.B. in 1880, 2 but 
 the most marked success of his career as Director 
 was achieved in the Nile campaign of 1884-1885, 
 which presented unparalleled difficulties both in 
 relation to supply and transport. The latter, 
 as all must remember, was conducted by special 
 ' whaleboats ' suited to Nile navigation and to 
 portage. They were designed, built and equipped 
 to the direct order of Lord Wolseley, 3 inspired by 
 his recollections of the Red River campaign of 
 1870. Eight hundred of them were sent out, each 
 
 1 The supplementary estimate for naval and military supplies 
 voted in the previous February. 
 
 2 Lord Beaconsfield's letter is dated January 28, and it was 
 accompanied by a graceful note from Colonel Stanley : ' I am glad 
 it should have been bestowed while you and I were colleagues.' 
 
 3 See The Campaign of the Cataracts, by Major-General (then 
 Colonel) Sir William Butler, and The Official History of the Soudan 
 Campaign, Part I. 61 seq. The officers originally entrusted with 
 the building of the boats were Sir William Butler, Sir Redvers 
 Buller, and General (then Colonel) Alleyne ; on Sir William 
 Butler's departure for Egypt, after some four hundred of them 
 were ready for delivery, his place was taken by Major-General 
 (then Major) Sir Coleridge Grove.
 
 52 LOED HALIBUKTON [1877- 
 
 capable of carrying twelve soldiers and a hundred 
 days' supplies, while voyageurs and Kroomen were 
 brought from Canada and the West Coast of 
 Africa to pilot the boats through the broken waters 
 of the Cataracts. In view of the anticipated strain 
 on the troops, moral and physical, and in spite 
 of some ridicule, it was determined that the 
 provisions should differ both in variety and in 
 quality from any that had hitherto been issued 
 on service. They had to be packed in specially 
 designed cases, suitable alike to the light Nile 
 boats and to the rough camel transport of the 
 desert, while the unknown effect of the climate 
 on the packages and contents had to be guarded 
 against by conjecture and analogy. 1 
 
 1 The ordinary daily field ration was : 1 Ib. fresh or 1 Ib. pre- 
 served meat ; 1 J Ib. bread, or 1 Ib. biscuit or flour ; J oz. tea ; 
 J oz. coffee ; 2J oz. sugar ; oz. salt ; % oz. pepper ; 1 Ib. fresh 
 vegetables, or 1 oz. compressed vegetables, or 1 tin erbswurst ; 
 3?Tr g a l- lime-juice, with J oz. sugar. The boat ration was : 
 Preserved corned meat, 1 Ib. on four days out of six ; preserved 
 fresh meat, 1 Ib. on one day out of six ; ham or bacon, 1 Ib. on one 
 day out of six ; fresh meat, 1 Ib. in substitution for 1 Ib. of any of 
 the foregoing, whenever it can be procured ; cheese, J oz. daily ; 
 biscuit, navy or cabin, 1 Ib. five days out of six ; bread, 1J Ib. in 
 substitution for 1 Ib. of biscuits, whenever procurable ; flour, IJlb. 
 one day out of six ; baking powder, oz. to 12 Ib. of flour. In 
 addition to which the men on the boats received daily : 1 oz. tea, 
 3 oz. sugar, J oz. salt, ^ oz. pepper, J oz. rice, 1 oz. preserved 
 vegetables or 12 oz. fresh vegetables, T5 'g^ gallon vinegar, 
 aiw &! lime-juice, \ oz. oatmeal ; pickles, \ oz. four days out 
 of six ; jam or marmalade, \\ oz. two days out of six ; erbswurst, 
 1 tin every three days ; tobacco, Ib. every fifteen days ; soap,
 
 1887] PEAISE FEOM LOED WOLSELEY 53 
 
 Lord Wolseley has the reputation of being a 
 somewhat exacting taskmaster, and when he 
 bestows praise the recipient need have no hesita- 
 tion as to whether it has been fairly earned. The 
 following letter, then, requires no comment : 
 
 Camp, Korti, 8/3/85. 
 
 MY DEAR HALIBURTON, As I may call it, 
 our first campaign is now over, and this little army 
 is going into summer quarters on the open reach 
 of water extending from Hanneck cataract to 
 Merawi. It is therefore a good time for me to 
 write and tell you how I think you and Lawson 1 
 have fed us. As you know, I have been with many 
 armies in the field, but I have never been with 
 any, or heard of any, that was as well fed as that 
 I now command here. Of course we have had 
 accidents, but, all round, the rations have been 
 delicious and plentiful. We owe you and Lawson 
 a deep debt of gratitude, and I am only too anxious 
 to recognise it. Any system that could supply us 
 with such good food 1400 miles inland here, as 
 we have had, must be a good one, no matter what 
 Mr. Morris 2 may say to the contrary. The men 
 
 $ lb. every fifteen days. Official History of the Soudan Campaign, 
 Part I. 208. 
 
 1 Mr. (afterwards Sir George) Lawson was Assistant-Director 
 of Supplies and Transport, and Haliburton's right-hand man till 
 the abolition of the department in 1888. He was made a Deputy 
 Accountant-General in 1888, received a K.C.B. in June 1897, and 
 died on March 9, 1898. An excellent and careful administrator 
 and first-rate in all matters of detail, he formed an ideal official 
 combination with his more brilliant chief. 
 
 2 Commissary-General (afterwards Sir Edward) Morris, who 
 took a rather jaundiced view of Haliburton's victualling arrange- 
 ments.
 
 54 LOED HALIBUETON [1877- 
 
 have been very healthy, and I attribute that fact 
 very much to the excellent food you have supplied 
 them with. Please remember me very kindly to 
 Lawson, and believe me to be, 
 
 * Sincerely yours, 
 
 * WOLSELEY.' 
 
 On the strength of this testimonial, Haliburton 
 might almost dispute with Sir Edward Ward the 
 fame of being the best commissariat officer since 
 Moses. 
 
 In acknowledging the letter and expressing 
 his extreme gratification at finding that the efforts 
 of his department were giving satisfaction, Hali- 
 burton added : 
 
 * We are subject here to constant questions and 
 fault-finding in the H. of Commons, but with 
 your favourable opinion I think we can stand up 
 against the combination which dictates the adverse 
 criticism here. It is no easy matter to ship thou- 
 sands of tons of perishable supplies, and send 
 them up hundreds of miles of country where they 
 must be subject to rough handling and vicissitudes 
 innumerable, without some losses. Fortunately, 
 if we lose some supplies we gain much experience, 
 and I trust our losses in future will be less and 
 less, though they can never be altogether avoided.' 
 
 The total loss from all causes, theft, heat, 
 evaporation, defective packing, rough usage, etc., 
 worked out at 4.69 per cent., a mere fraction, as
 
 1887] THE NILE EXPEDITION 55 
 
 Haliburton confessed, of what he anticipated 
 when the expedition was being fitted out, though 
 as a matter of fact the transfers, portages, and 
 other risks to which the supplies were subjected 
 much exceeded what was in anyone's mind at 
 that time. To show that no great exposure to 
 wet was expected, the Mobilisation Committee 
 ordered all the sugar for boat service to be packed 
 in bags. All the cases had to be loaded, at one 
 time or another, on camels, and subjected to some 
 forty transhipments and handlings after reaching 
 Egypt, and those of them which were destined 
 for the whaleboats had been made of special 
 light pattern. For months the packages were 
 exposed all day to the sun in the driest climate 
 in the world, being at the same time subject to 
 damp from the Nile, and to immersion in water 
 when the boats were passing the cataracts. 
 
 With regard to the grumbling which found 
 vent in the press and in Parliament, Haliburton 
 remarked in the course of a memorandum to the 
 Surveyor-General : 
 
 * There are people who apparently think that 
 an army operating, four thousand miles from its 
 base, with intervening seas, rivers, and deserts, 
 can be supplied with the same facility as a picnic 
 party on the Thames. War is essentially wasteful 
 and destructive. Its supplies are subject to con- 
 ditions unknown in ordinary life, and to expect
 
 56 LOED HALIBUETON [1877- 
 
 that they can experience those conditions without 
 great losses is to expect the impossible.' 1 
 
 From his above-quoted letter to Lord Wolseley 
 I venture to give this further extract, which is 
 valuable as throwing light upon another sphere of 
 Haliburton's duties as Director of Transport, and 
 as affording an admirable example of the easy 
 grasp of detail that lay outside the routine of his 
 official experience. 
 
 'My object in troubling you with a long letter 
 is to give you an account of the proceedings here 
 in connection with the Suakin-Berber Railway. 
 
 'S L ' idea was that he should build an 
 
 eighteen-inch gauge line and his ideas fluctuated 
 between that and a metre gauge. At first we were 
 led to believe that the plant was all available here 
 and in India. This turned out not to be the fact 
 the whole would have to be made. He also proposed 
 to get together a scratch pack of personnel from 
 India and England. This turned out to be im- 
 practicable as far as India was concerned. Looking 
 
 1 Haliburton's closing words are characteristic of the loyalty 
 to all those around him which was no small cause of the unstinted 
 devotion with which he was regarded in whatever office he held. 
 ' May I be permitted to say that I never could have conducted 
 the service to this satisfactory issue without the cordial and liberal 
 support which you have invariably extended to me and without 
 the invaluable assistance of Mr. Lawson and the other gentlemen 
 associated with me in the task ? ' 
 
 2 The reference is to a distinguished officer of the Royal 
 Engineers now deceased. In reading the letter one is irresistibly 
 reminded of Rudyard Kipling's poem 
 
 ' Only a colonel from Chatham can manage the railways of State.'
 
 1887] THE SUAKIN-BERBEK RAILWAY 57 
 
 at the state of affairs there, the Government of 
 India said we could not rely upon the Public 
 Works Department giving us any large amount of 
 organised skilled labour nor could it spare 
 
 trained R.E. officers. , with his marvellous 
 
 capacity for promising results in the future- 
 still wished to have the work, and still prophesied 
 grand and immediate results, but he could really 
 give no reliable data to prove that his promises 
 and hopes were well founded. 
 
 *I had always urged that if the work was to 
 be done with any hope of success we should select 
 the largest contractors of good repute in England, 
 and employ them as agents, not as contractors. 
 It was impossible to hope for a contract, as the 
 line had never been surveyed, and there existed 
 no data on which a contract could be based. A 
 number of people offered amongst others Lucas 
 and Aird, who had just finished the Hull and 
 Barnsley line, who had a staff accustomed to 
 work together, a point on which all authorities 
 placed the greatest importance, who had 
 plant and material for one hundred miles of line 
 ready to ship, and who had constructed works in 
 India. 
 
 ' Then came the question of gauge. All, save 
 , agreed that, save in one point, the 4.8i ft. 
 offered enormous advantages over the 18 in. or 
 the metre. The 4.8| could be laid as what is 
 known as a contractors' line, i.e. a temporary 
 line which contractors lay preparatory to making 
 the permanent line. The advantage is that cuttings 
 are almost entirely unnecessary. The line can 
 work on gradients even as high as 1 in 10 1 in 20 
 and 25 being quite common. For any exceptional
 
 58 LOED HALIBUETON [1877- 
 
 gradients stationary engines with winding gear 
 are provided, and these, though they reduce the 
 speed over the line as a whole, enable it to be laid 
 and worked with great rapidity. The Hull and 
 Barnsley line with very high gradients worked 
 up to thirty-five miles an hour up hill and down 
 dale without cuttings and with temporary bridges, 
 carrying all the heavy girders and stone for per- 
 manent work. The other great advantage is that, 
 the base of the line being broad, the rails do not 
 need ballasting to nearly the same extent. The 
 narrow or metre would require to be very solidly 
 laid in order to run trains with safety and 
 ballasting means time and carriage of material. 
 It also appeared that though the narrow lines 
 required less work of levelling for sleepers, they 
 practically required the same width for working, 
 as the carriages overhang the rails much more 
 than in the 4.8J. The one advantage of the 
 narrower gauge consisted in its being able to work 
 sharper curves, provided the line was laid with 
 great solidity. But with a surface line, it is not 
 anticipated that any curves outside the power of 
 the 4.8^ will arise, and that, should they do 
 so, the necessary blastings of cuttings to obviate 
 them would not take so much time to make as 
 would be consumed in the greater labour required 
 on the whole length of the narrow line in order to 
 make it solid. The carrying power of the two 
 could not bear comparison. 
 
 ' Looking to the fact that the one system could 
 be shipped immediately and laid more rapidly, 
 Lord H. 1 decided in favour of Lucas and Aird 
 and their system as against and his. The 
 
 1 The Marquess of Hartington, then Secretary of State for War.
 
 1887] THE SUAKIN-BEEBEE RAILWAY 59 
 
 result was that on the order to proceed, given on 
 February 15, shipments commenced within a 
 week, and in less than a month the line was com- 
 menced, and fifty miles were at Suakin with 
 engines and all plant and stock for working com- 
 plete. I feel certain if you had been here you 
 would have adopted the course that the Secretary of 
 
 State approved. I was very much afraid that 
 
 would carry his views with his boundless confi- 
 dence and promises, and with his apparent 
 knowledge and experience but when the matter 
 was discussed in the presence of practical men 
 before Lord H. it became apparent that there was 
 real experience and knowledge on one side and 
 mere theory on the other ; and so it came to pass 
 that Lucas and Aird were appointed as con- 
 structors. 
 
 * After this we still had endless difficulties. , 
 when he found he could not prevail, gave in, but 
 he then wished to place Lucas and Aird under 
 himself and his officers for all details of construc- 
 tion. This, they said, they would agree to, but 
 then they could not be responsible for rapidity 
 of work. Their system of work was not understood 
 
 by and not believed in, and it was hopeless 
 
 to expect that it could be worked to advantage 
 under such conditions. It was arranged that the 
 R.E. should survey the line give the contractors 
 the general direction from point to point, and that 
 the actual work of laying the line should be en- 
 tirely in the hands of the contractors free from 
 interference except so far as military exigencies 
 required ; that they were to be permitted to make 
 such deviations, within the points indicated, as 
 exigencies of surface construction required in
 
 60 LOKD HALIBUETON [1877- 
 
 fact that they were to lay the line over a hill, 
 round a hill, or down a hill as they thought best, 
 and not be made to effect cuttings, tunnellings, 
 or such like, not essential to a surface line. 
 
 * Whether has ever yet cordially accepted 
 
 this division of work is not very clear, but Graham l 
 has been informed of it, and I hope will see that 
 the R.E. do not meddle and muddle. Much will 
 depend on the survey effected : if we get into a 
 wrong direction we may have to overcome diffi- 
 culties which might be avoided on another line of 
 direction, but if Osman is pushed aside sufficiently 
 to enable survey parties to work, no doubt this 
 will be carefully provided against. If a standing 
 camp is established in the hills, the contractors 
 think it would be well to lay the line, so far, double, 
 in order that one line should be used for supplies, 
 and one for construction. When ready to move 
 on, the double line could be taken up and used 
 beyond Ariab. You will no doubt settle all this 
 on your arrival. I heard that the junior partner 
 of Lucas and Aird, Mr. Ellis, was in Cairo, en route 
 home, having started the works, and I suggested 
 to the firm that he should wait there to see you. 
 
 'If I may venture to give an opinion on a 
 strategical question, it seems to me that your 
 views as to the Nile route are unanswerable. It 
 would never have done to advance from Suakin 
 to Berber, leaving the Nile valley thence to Haifa 
 or Assouan entirely unoccupied ; but if you hold 
 that and advance, then picking up the fresh line 
 at Berber, the position is perfect, and the Mahdi's 
 goose will be in a fair way for cooking. This 
 
 1 The late Major-General Sir Gerald Graham, V.C.
 
 1887] LOED WOLSELEY'S DESPATCH 61 
 
 country, with its usual lack of backbone, is now 
 getting into a cold fit, and there will be strong 
 pressure on the Government, and a strong dis- 
 position in the Government itself, to find a way 
 out of the Soudan, especially if Afghan affairs 
 grow more serious.' 
 
 Afghan affairs did rapidly grow more serious, 
 while the cold fit was becoming more pronounced. 
 Haliburton's letter was written on April 3, and 
 before the end of the month the decision of the 
 Government to evacuate the Soudan had been 
 announced. Until a recent date a considerable 
 amount of the material for the construction of the 
 Suakin- Berber railway was lying in Plumstead 
 Marshes. 
 
 Lord Wolseley did not confine his appreciation 
 of Haliburton's exertions to the channels of private 
 correspondence. In a despatch to the Secretary 
 of State after the termination of the campaign, 1 
 he repeated totidem verbis the language of his 
 letter of March 8. 2 The general good health of the 
 men, he repeated, and their robust and vigorous 
 appearance were directly attributable to the excel- 
 lent quality and liberal allowance of their food, 
 which played no small part also in fostering 
 
 ' the soldier-like spirit and the cheerful good 
 humour with which they bore the many dis- 
 
 1 See Parliamentary Papers of 1885 (C 4329), p. 58. 
 
 2 Supra, p. 53.
 
 62 LORD HALIBUETON [1877- 
 
 comforts and the great fatigues inseparable from 
 such a campaign. I feel convinced,' he went on 
 to say, ' that it would be to the future advantage 
 of the State, and of great benefit to the Army, if 
 the field rations were fixed in general accordance 
 with the scale laid down for this army. . . . The 
 present system under which food supplies are 
 furnished by the Director of Supplies and Trans- 
 ports to an army in the field seems to me to work 
 extremely well, and to be a great improvement on 
 the old plan.' 
 
 It was scarcely less gratifying to the Director 
 that, in the heat of the Khartoum censure debate, 
 Mr. Gladstone with his back against the wall 
 should have found time to pay him a solid compli- 
 ment: 
 
 * There has been added to that valour on the 
 part of the soldiers the laudable characteristic of 
 consummate skill on the part of the commanders, 
 and with regard to the Department of Supply a 
 state of organisation very different from that 
 which has characterised some of our wars.' l 
 
 A few months later, when the Marquess of 
 Hartington, now no longer Secretary of State for 
 War* was seconding a vote of thanks to the par- 
 ticipants in the Soudanese campaign, he claimed 
 
 ' that it was admitted on all hands that the com- 
 missariat, the transport and the medical arrange- 
 ments were made with a completeness and a 
 
 1 Hansard, ccxciv. 1092.
 
 1887] EECOGNITION OF HIS SEEVICES 63 
 
 perfection which have certainly never been sur- 
 passed, and which, I believe, have never on any 
 previous occasion been equalled.' 
 
 In substantial recognition of his services Hali- 
 burton was made a K.C.B. in September 1885. 
 It had been no light or easy task to bring the 
 department up to the high state of efficiency 
 recorded by Lord Hartington and Lord Wolseley. 
 When he assumed the Directorship the very gradual 
 increase of the military, at the expense of the civil, 
 element in its ranks had effected little in the way 
 of reducing the friction between the Army and 
 the department. The latter had been deprived 
 of all direct action and power, and been left at 
 the same time saddled with a responsibility which 
 was freely assigned to it on any breakdown or 
 failure. Many of the officers whom Haliburton 
 found in important posts were inexperienced or 
 rusty, and some of the seniors were inclined to 
 chafe under his authority. ' It was very unpleasant 
 for me,' said the Commissary- General in his 
 evidence before the Committee appointed to inquire 
 into the working of the transport and commis- 
 sariat during the Egyptian campaign of 1882, 
 ' that Mr. Haliburton, who had been my junior 
 in the Commissariat, should be my superior at the 
 War Office, though he had the tact never to make 
 one feel it.'
 
 64 LORD HALIBUETON [1877- 
 
 Haliburton's tact was combined with an 
 inborn gift for enforcing obedience without 
 parade of authority the iron hand beneath the 
 velvet glove. He extracted every ounce of 
 work from those under him, and if men were not 
 up to their duties their services were quietly 
 dispensed with. If a rebuke had to be administered 
 to a subordinate, it was inflicted in a quiet, un- 
 ruffled manner, which produced the maximum of 
 effect with the minimum of humiliation. Indeed, 
 it was a saying in the War Office that sometimes 
 a man would leave Haliburton's room uncertain 
 whether he had been dismissed or not. He was 
 one of those who, by a happy dispensation of 
 Providence, simply cannot lose their temper, and 
 his mental organisation was impervious to the 
 little worries which make the daily round of 
 domestic and official life a succession of trials to 
 so many. 1 In the Lowndes Square establishment 
 
 1 As a sample of the suave manner in which Hali burton 
 encountered life's minor miseries, I venture to give the following 
 anecdote. He had bought from a furniture dealer of high repute 
 an expensive sideboard, which was vouched as a genuine antique. 
 Before the bill had been paid, a discharged workman informed 
 him that the article had been, in vulgar parlance, ' faked.' Hali- 
 burton's letter of remonstrance followed Gladstonian precedent 
 by propounding three courses for meeting the difficulty. Firstly, 
 he might decline to pay the bill, leaving the dealer to sue him and 
 be cross-examined in open court ; secondly, he might pay the bill 
 as it stood, and then sue the dealer for fraud ; thirdly, the dealer 
 might make a substantial reduction in his charges. Needless to 
 say, the third course was adopted.
 
 1887] THE VELVET GLOVE 65 
 
 the mistress always delegated to her husband the 
 task from which the bravest male generally shrinks 
 the correction and objurgation of the servants. 
 
 But if he was inclined to the maxim of ' no 
 duffers in the ship,' he accorded a complete con- 
 fidence to those in whom he detected zeal and 
 ability. He was liberal in encouragement, most 
 generous in his acknowledgments for good work 
 done, and he showed a never-failing loyalty to 
 those beneath him. There are many in the 
 Civil Service to-day who largely owe their career 
 to Haliburton's recognition and recommendation. 
 
 ' I hope you will accept in the spirit in which it 
 is offered,' wrote one of these, 'the expression of 
 my genuine gratitude. The excessively kind 
 thing you did in my behalf to-day deeply touched 
 me, and will probably indirectly be of great as- 
 sistance to me. . . . Having neither a Peer for 
 a father, nor an uncle who can control the repre- 
 sentation of a county, I am likely to remain what 
 I am. This makes me all the more sensitive to the 
 spontaneous, nattering, and truly kind word you 
 put in for me this morning, and I should like you 
 to realise that your kindness has touched me, and 
 that it will never be forgotten by yours truly .' 
 
 The following letter shows another aspect of 
 the manner in which he was regarded by the 
 younger men : 
 
 ' It has been a great privilege and pleasure to 
 be your Secretary. I have often felt that I was
 
 66 LORD HALIBUETON [1877- 
 
 not able to assist you as I should have liked to 
 have done, but in a sense, if I may say so, you 
 could not help having a fairly efficient Secretary, 
 for it would be impossible for anyone to work with 
 you without "putting his back into it," and catching 
 some of your enthusiasm for good work. I have 
 to thank you for the first " chance " I got in the 
 office, and, I feel sure, if I have any success here- 
 after, it will be largely due to my association with 
 you. 5 
 
 Down to the end of his life Haliburton possessed 
 a strong attraction for the young, and was never 
 happier than when in their company. The hos- 
 pitable instinct, in which Lady Haliburton so fully 
 shared, made the clerks in the War Office constant 
 guests at his table, or visitors to his country house 
 in the holidays. And on festive occasions, such as 
 a Christmas dinner, it would have been difficult for 
 a stranger to guess the every-day relations between 
 host and guests. 
 
 Finally, a sample may be given, under Hali- 
 burton's own seal, of that combination of firmness 
 and kindness which characterised him when com- 
 pelled to deal faithfully with a subordinate : 
 
 War Office, August 17, 1878. 
 
 ' My dear , I am very sorry there has 
 
 been a mistake made about the ship's rations for 
 the return Indian voyage, 1 and I have delayed 
 
 1 The allusion is to native troops summoned to Malta by Lord 
 Beaconsfield, in April, 1878, and sent back after the rising of the 
 Berlin Congress.
 
 1887] A LETTER OF REPROOF 67 
 
 writing to you from day to day in hopes that some 
 satisfactory explanation would come from Cyprus. 
 Colonel Stanley was very much put out about it, 
 and more than surprised at the delay which occurred 
 in sending a reply to the telegram which was sent 
 to you by his orders on the 3rd, and by the un- 
 satisfactory nature of the reply when it came. 
 It practically evaded the question which was 
 why were the ship rations, ordered to be got ready 
 on the 4th of June, not forthcoming ? The papers 
 were full of the breakdown of the Department, and 
 when we seek for an explanation we get a reply 
 conveying no information whatever. I write now 
 to tell you that the G.O.C. Malta has been called 
 upon to state what steps he ordered to be taken to 
 carry out the orders of the 4th of June, the receipt 
 of which you acknowledged on the 10th. The 
 original orders, I think you took to Cyprus from 
 Malta, and the G.O.C. Cyprus has been directed to 
 call on you for any explanation you may have to 
 give. 
 
 ' I know you are apt to think that interference 
 from Head Quarters is very uncalled for, and that 
 you would always be better if left alone to do 
 your work. In this case you were. You simply 
 got through G. 0. C. orders to have the rations, 
 and now you must explain why you had them 
 not. As an old friend I advise you to look at 
 the question very seriously, because it is a grave 
 one, and the consequences may be grave to whoever 
 has been in fault. 
 
 ' I confess I was never more surprised than when 
 I saw the telegram in the " Daily News " saying that 
 there were no ship's rations. I told Colonel Stanley I 
 thought there must be a mistake, and that we should 
 
 F 2
 
 68 LOED HALIBUETON [1877- 
 
 hear that the rations were at Malta. Our orders 
 were clear, and in a note to Lawson, of 13th June, 
 you say " I have arranged with the Admiralty 
 Superintendent here to ship all the supplies neces- 
 sary for the return voyage, and I am now getting 
 a scale of rations fixed for the voyage." It never 
 struck me as possible that on the 3rd of August these 
 supplies should not be forthcoming. I give you 
 these details so that you may know what aspect 
 the case bears here, and direct your explanation to 
 the important points, or point rather, for there is 
 only one why was the order received at Malta on 
 9th or 10th of June not carried out immediately ? 
 
 ' There was one other point in connexion with 
 the move to Cyprus that gave rise to the con- 
 demnation of the Department. It was stated that 
 masses of stores and provisions were huddled into 
 the ship, and that great confusion resulted on 
 disembarkation. This, it was foreseen here, would 
 be the case if everything went at OLce, and the 
 order to hold one month's supplies ready to embark 
 was advisedly given. I had arranged with the 
 Admiralty that Malta should be the base of supply, 
 and that the transports idle at Cyprus would keep 
 up a stream of supplies from Malta until the 
 troops were settled and storehouses provided. 
 It appears that the whole reserve of three months 
 was taken at once, thus unnecessarily confusing 
 both the embarkation and disembarkation, without 
 any reason as far as we knew. The order was 
 distinct, and should not have been disobeyed with- 
 out cause ; and the departure from orders should 
 have been reported. I have not raised this question, 
 however, as, in the pressure of the more important 
 one of the absence of rations, it lost some of its
 
 1887] A LETTEE OF KEPBOOF 69 
 
 apparent importance. Privately, I shall be glad 
 to hear why you adopted a course inconsistent 
 with orders, and apparently unnecessary and 
 embarrassing. 
 
 ' This is not a cheerful letter to write, my dear 
 
 , but I want you fully to understand that the 
 
 occasion is one of importance to you, and I hope 
 in your explanation you will recognise this, and 
 banish anything like temper from your official 
 statement. Above all be quite clear, and meet 
 the facts fully, giving dates; and do not, as in 
 your telegram, impose upon us the necessity of 
 asking further and more formal explanations. 
 
 ' Very truly yours, 
 
 * A. HALIBURTON.'
 
 70 LORD HALIBURTON [1887- 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 1887-1891 
 
 Abolition of Haliburton's Office Mr. Stanhope's Appreciation 
 Placed on the Retired List the Singapore Military Contri- 
 bution Made Assistant Under Secretary of State for War. 
 
 THE year 1887, the Jubilee, both of Queen Victoria's 
 accession and of the Duke of Cambridge's first 
 commission as a soldier, was marked by important 
 changes in the organisation of the Army. Under 
 Lord Cardwell the War Office had been grouped 
 into three departments, those of the Commander-in- 
 Chief, 1 the Surveyor- General of the Ordnance, and 
 the Financial Secretary. But now, while the 
 financial branch retained its old position, a re- 
 adjustment of duties concentrated the sole military 
 responsibility to the Secretary of State in the 
 hands of the Commander-in-Chief, upon whose 
 shoulders there thus devolved the ' obtaining, 
 holding, and issuing ' all kinds of supplies and 
 necessities of war. 
 
 One of the offices swept away was that of the 
 
 1 Strictly speaking, this title was not conferred upon the Duke 
 of Cambridge until this very year of Jubilee. Since his first appoint- 
 ment in 1856 he had been ' the Officer Commanding-in-Chief.' The 
 last Commander had been the Duke of Wellington.
 
 1891] ABOLITION OF HIS OFFICE 71 
 
 Surveyor-General, 1 and with him disappeared the 
 civilian Director of Supplies and Transports. 
 It was a revolution which put Haliburton on the 
 shelf, certainly for the moment, and possibly for 
 good and all ; yet it was owing in no small degree 
 to his own representations. 2 During ten years his 
 department had done its work successfully, and, 
 as happens so often, it was never more efficient 
 or in better trim than at the moment of its ex- 
 tinction. But he had always felt that he had been 
 charged with executive duties which did not 
 properly belong to his office under the Surveyor- 
 General. As far back as 1883 a Committee had 
 been appointed at the instigation of Dr. Cameron, 
 one of the Liberal Members for Glasgow, before 
 which a strong point was made ' by some/ as 
 Haliburton drily observes, ' who were interested in 
 making it,' that it was anomalous and improper that, 
 while all local supplies to the Army were obtained 
 through the instrumentality of Commissariat 
 officers, supplies procured in London, for an army 
 in the field, were obtained by a civilian who was pre- 
 sumed to have no special knowledge of the subject. 
 
 ' Theoretically,' said Haliburton, 3 ' the objec- 
 tion was sound ; and, undoubtedly, it would seem 
 to be better that the department or staff charged 
 
 1 Hansard, cccxx. 1715. 2 Vide infra, 275. 
 
 8 Memoranda on the Administration of the Supply and Trans, 
 port Service at the War Office (1895).
 
 72 LOED HALIBUETON [1887- 
 
 with the executive duty of supplying the Army 
 should be charged with that duty whether it is 
 performed in the field or in London. The con- 
 stitution of this office does not require that the 
 actual provision of supplies demanded for the field 
 should be effected by the Director of Supplies in 
 person. The practice arose, I think, from the 
 accident that when supplies were urgently de- 
 manded there was no other available machinery 
 at Headquarters for providing them. Now a 
 system has been established, reserve stores have 
 been created at Woolwich, 1 where the details of 
 supply transactions centre, and with the aid of that 
 establishment there is no reason whatever why the 
 Quarter-Master General's staff should not take 
 over the provision of all such supplies, and carry 
 out the service under the financial control of the 
 Survey or- General just as General Officers Com- 
 manding perform similar services in their commands 
 under financial control. 
 
 ' I do not anticipate,' he added, f that the work 
 will be better done than it has been done, but it 
 will, in future, be on a more intelligible and de- 
 fensible footing, and the change now proposed is 
 one I have, on that ground, long advocated. 
 
 It seems clear that Haliburton, while desiring 
 the transfer to the Quartermaster- General of the 
 executive duties and responsibilities of the Director 
 of Supplies and Transports, did not contemplate for 
 a moment the abolition of the office of Surveyor- 
 General. Still less did he advocate the abolition 
 
 1 Vide supra, p. 60.
 
 1891] ABOLITION OF HIS OFFICE 73 
 
 of civil control over expenditure. His recommen- 
 dation was to the effect that, for the future, the 
 Military Department should make it their business 
 to foresee the requirements of the troops both in 
 peace and war, should be in communication with 
 the Admiralty and with Generals Commanding, and 
 should have plans prepared for victualling the great 
 fortresses in the event of war. The duty of the 
 Civil Department would consist in seeing that the 
 necessary funds were provided, advantageously 
 expended, and properly accounted for. 
 
 The actual changes, however, inaugurated by 
 Mr. Stanhope went far beyond Haliburton's re- 
 commendations. With the abolition of the office 
 of Survey or- General administrative control passed 
 from the civilian to the soldier in the War Office 
 itself, as it had done a few years previously in 
 garrison and in the field. The attenuated civil 
 control, now exercised through the Financial 
 Secretary, was limited, in practice, to the exami- 
 nation of completed expenditure, thus ' merely 
 securing the integrity of charges without affording 
 any effective control over their necessity or their 
 extent. 1 It was another and a conspicuous step 
 along the path which Haliburton, as an old ' Consti- 
 tutionalist,' regarded with disfavour and suspicion. 
 
 In announcing to Parliament his scheme of 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 38.
 
 74 LORD HALIBURTON [1887- 
 
 reconstruction, Mr. Stanhope was careful to explain 
 that the abolition of the office of Director of Supplies 
 and Transports was not proposed because of any 
 complaint as to its working at the present moment. 
 * I can only express my own opinion,' he said, 1 
 4 which, I believe, will be supported by my pre- 
 decessors in office, as to the admirable way in which 
 these duties have been discharged in recent years 
 by Sir Arthur Haliburton.' 
 
 Scarcely less acceptable were the hearty words 
 used by Mr. Woodal, 2 Member for Hanley, and 
 Surveyor-General of the Ordnance during the late 
 Liberal administration. 
 
 'Sir Arthur Haliburton is not only a man of 
 the greatest ability and courtesy, but he may 
 challenge the severest criticism of the Supply and 
 Transport, and be able to come out of the ordeal 
 with flying colours. ... It is only just to say so 
 much for a very able and devoted public servant, 
 especially after what has been commonly supposed 
 to have been the disclosures of the Committee which 
 sat upstairs in connexion with supplies.' 
 
 His place abolished and his occupation gone, 
 Haliburton was now entitled to retire on a sub- 
 stantial pension ; but the Government pressed him 
 to remain a year longer in the Service, and to give 
 the War Office the benefit of his experience and 
 judgment in getting the new scheme into working 
 
 1 Hansard, cccxx. 1713. 2 Ibid. 1730.
 
 1891] ME. STANHOPE'S TKIBUTE 75 
 
 order. The details of what was nothing less than 
 the complete transfer of the Commissariat and 
 Transport from the civil to the military side were 
 exceedingly complicated, and it was not until March, 
 1889, that he was able to report the line clear. 
 
 For the purpose of carrying out his task he had 
 been granted the acting rank of Assistant Under- 
 secretary of State. This appointment excited the 
 ire of Lord Randolph Churchill, on whom the 
 War Office, and everything connected with it, 
 acted like a red rag displayed to a bull ; and his 
 Lordship took upon himself to declare in the House 
 of Commons that the Assistant Under- Secretary 
 for War had no duty to perform except to look 
 after the messengers at the War Office. This 
 onslaught gave Mr. Stanhope another occasion for 
 a generous recognition of Haliburton's services. 
 It is the fate of the Civil Servants of the Crown to 
 bear the brunt of factious and ill-informed criticism, 
 and when ministers who have held high offices 
 join in the hue and cry the lot of the gentlemen in 
 Downing Street and Whitehall is a hard one; 
 nor are their Parliamentary chiefs always ready to 
 assume responsibility. But Mr. Stanhope, whom 
 Haliburton always considered one of the ablest, 
 if not the very ablest, War Minister with whom 
 he was brought in contact, was the last man to 
 allow an exceptionally gifted subordinate to be
 
 76 LOED HALIBUBTON [1887- 
 
 flouted without raising a voice in his defence. 
 He retorted that there was not a single person, in 
 any way acquainted with the War Office, who 
 would not acknowledge the conspicuous services 
 of Sir Arthur Haliburton. 1 
 
 In March, 1889, he went, technically, upon the 
 retired list, but he was not allowed to remain idle. 
 The Empire is fortunate in possessing a reserve of 
 experienced ex- officials who are never happier than 
 when' entrusted with some tough piece of work 
 which gives opportunity for showing that it is 
 not through fault or choice of their own that 
 they are enjoying inactivity. The persistent pres- 
 sure of some distinguished soldiers in the War 
 Office, and of their allies out of doors, had aroused 
 the Conservative Government to the necessity 
 of fortifying certain Colonial stations whose de- 
 fenceless condition had long been a weak joint in 
 the Imperial harness. A series of questions arose 
 as to the contributions which the Colonies might 
 fairly be called upon to make towards the expendi- 
 ture thus involved and the cost of the increased 
 garrisons. Strong differences of opinion were found 
 to exist, not only between the Colonies themselves 
 and the Home Government, but between the 
 Colonial Office, the Treasury, and the War Office. 
 A Committee was accordingly appointed of repre- 
 
 1 Hansard, cccxxiii. 617.
 
 1891] THE COLONIAL STATIONS COMMITTEE 77 
 
 sentatives from these Departments, and Haliburton 
 was invited to preside over it. 
 
 The work was one of much complexity and 
 delicacy, and the various reports for the case 
 of six colonies had to be adjudicated upon were 
 not arrived at without considerable divergence of 
 opinion. They involved a complete investigation 
 into the financial condition of the Colonies and into 
 the negotiations which had attended their acqui- 
 sition of a separate status. In most cases their 
 origin was obscured by the mists of time, and such 
 records as existed lay buried in dust-laden pigeon- 
 holes at home or abroad ; but in the Straits Settle- 
 ments, where the outcry against the eventual 
 decision of the Committee was the loudest, there 
 was no necessity for antiquarian research. Singa- 
 pore was a mere infant among the Britains beyond 
 the Seas ; and its existence as an independent 
 Colony was preceded by long negotiations, acces- 
 sible to the public in the Parliamentary papers. 1 
 
 Prior to 1866 the Straits Settlements formed a 
 dependency of India, and shared its financial 
 burdens, though, as far back as 1858, they had 
 addressed a Memorial to Parliament praying that 
 they might be constituted a separate Colony under 
 the direct rule of the Imperial Government. The 
 
 1 See No. 269 of 1862, and papers of 1866 ' in continuation of 
 1862.'
 
 78 LOED HALIBUETON [1887- 
 
 delay was due to the suspicions of the Treasury 
 authorities at home that the principal motive for 
 the change lay in the hope that the defence charges 
 which, under Indian rule, amounted to about 
 two-thirds of the revenue, would henceforward be 
 defrayed out of the Imperial Exchequer. 
 
 Those were the spacious days, when the Colonies 
 were still regarded, more or less, as millstones, 
 and the guiding principle of English statesmen 
 of both parties was the avoidance of expense. 
 When Sir Hercules Robinson l was sent out to 
 Singapore, in October 1863, to report upon the 
 desirability of the transfer, he was instructed that 
 the primary object of his inquiry was ' to ascertain 
 whether the Settlements would be in a condition 
 to defray their own expenses without any charge 
 upon Imperial Revenues.' He was informed, 
 moreover, that ' in no circumstance would Her 
 Majesty's Government be prepared to sanction 
 any Imperial expenditure towards either the civil 
 or military charges of the Settlements.' And when, 
 three years later, the transfer was actually effected, 
 it was made an essential condition that the Colonial 
 revenues should meet their entire expenditure, 
 military as well as civil. 
 
 During the twenty-one years that immediately 
 followed the transfer this arrangement had gradually 
 
 1 Afterwards Lord Rosmead.
 
 1891] THE COLONIAL STATIONS COMMITTEE 79 
 
 sunk into abeyance, indeed, it had apparently 
 been forgotten. And when Haliburton's Committee 
 came to make their investigations it was discovered 
 that the expenses of its military defence, which 
 amounted in 1887 to 30,000., were annually de- 
 frayed out of Imperial Revenue. 
 
 The improved defences which were required 
 for Singapore necessitated an increase to its 
 garrison, and the extra cost for garrison and works 
 for the five years, 1889-93, was estimated at 
 136,OOOZ. per annum. The Home Government, 
 however, following the recommendation of the 
 Committee, felt that, as it had allowed the Colonial 
 payments for many years to fall below the proper 
 amount, it might disorganise the finances of the 
 Colony if so large an increase in its contribution 
 was suddenly demanded. While, therefore, re- 
 asserting the principle agreed to on the transfer 
 that the Colony should bear the full cost of its own 
 civil and military establishment it reduced the 
 annual demand for the next five years to the round 
 sum of 100,000/. 
 
 This arrangement, ' equitable and just,' as 
 Lord Knutsford l declared it to be, was received 
 with an outburst of indignation in the Straits 
 Settlements. The Legislative Council complained 
 that they had never been consulted. And the 
 
 1 Then Secretary of State for the Colonies.
 
 80 LORD HALIBUETON [1887- 
 
 Governor, Sir Cecil dementi Smith, in the despatch 
 which announced that the money had been voted 
 for the current year, explained that this result had 
 only been brought about by himself and the 
 other official members voting against their con- 
 victions ; and he added that it had placed the 
 executive on very strained relations with the legis- 
 lative authority. Individual members of Council 
 wrote home in protest ; public meetings were 
 held at Singapore ; the commercial community 
 in the Colony, and the Straits Settlement Associa- 
 tion in London, appealed with great vehemence 
 to the Colonial Office. 1 
 
 Although three Departments of State were 
 involved in the controversy, it was the War Office 
 which was more immediately interested in en- 
 forcing the increased contribution, and it was from 
 the War Office representative that the Colonial 
 Secretary drew his ammunition. In a succinct 
 and admirably drawn Minute, 2 Haliburton con- 
 tended that the Home Government had dealt with 
 a very complicated case in a fair and reasonable 
 spirit, and that the remonstrants from the Colony 
 
 1 See Parliamentary Papers, 1890-91, C. 6290, 443. 
 
 2 Signed, pro forma, by Sir Ralph Thompson, then Permanent 
 Under-Secretary for War. In the recently published Life of the 
 Duke of Newcastle Thompson is mentioned as the one fortunate 
 acquisition which the War Office owed to his ill-starred Secretary- 
 ship. Sir Ralph was Permanent Under-Secretary from 1878 to 1895. 
 He died December 1, 1902.
 
 1891] THE COLONIAL STATIONS COMMITTEE 81 
 
 had failed to produce any arguments which could 
 justify a permanent departure from the under- 
 standing on which the transfer of the Settlements 
 to Imperial control had been accomplished. 
 
 Thus fortified, Lord Knutsford informed the 
 Colony and its representatives that the revised 
 military contributions must stand, and that the 
 money must be found ; nor would he hold out any 
 hope of a reversal of his decision. The Colony, 
 however, was not to be silenced so easily, and 
 five years of strenuous agitation, of reiterated 
 protests, and of resignations by members of Council 
 softened, eventually, the heart of Downing Street. 
 Whatever the original equities of the dispute may 
 have been and by the strict letter of the law 
 Haliburton's contentions are unanswerable the 
 fall in the Exchange value of silver had placed 
 a burden on the Exchequer of the Settlement which 
 had never been in contemplation when the hard and 
 fast rules of 1889 were adopted. One of the last 
 official acts of Lord Rosebery's Government was the 
 consent by Lord Ripon to the adoption of a sliding 
 scale, under which the military contribution became 
 a fixed percentage of the revenue of the Colony. 1 
 
 So closed a controversy which had imposed 
 upon Sir Arthur Haliburton the ungrateful role, so 
 familiar to those in the higher ranks of the Civil 
 
 1 Parliamentary Papers, 1895, C. 7784. 
 
 Q
 
 82 LOED HALIBUETON [1887- 
 
 Service, of running counter to popular sentiment, 
 and of submitting to the cold, dry light of analysis 
 the claims of a body of men firmly convinced that 
 they have a legitimate grievance. 1 It rested with 
 him to stand forward as the representative and 
 champion of that long-suffering person, the taxpayer 
 of the United Kingdom, who, in the last resort, foots 
 the bill for those who think Imperially. Throughout 
 these battles for Hong-kong, Ceylon, and Mauritius 
 all showed fight the brunt of attack and defence 
 fell upon Haliburton. His temporary immunity 
 from routine duty had given him leisure for the 
 investigation of the difficult questions involved, 
 both historical and financial, which had been denied 
 to his colleagues from the Treasury and the Colonial 
 Office. And his tenacity of purpose and skill in 
 cross-examination made him at an early stage the 
 dominating figure on the Committee. 
 
 In January 1890 he was offered a Commissioner- 
 ship of Customs by the Right Hon. W. H. Smith, 
 the First Lord of the Treasury : it was refused, to 
 
 1 His attitude is well represented in the concluding paragraph 
 of another Minute arising out of the labours of the same Committee. 
 ' As a general rule the War Office is glad to receive such military 
 contributions as the Colonial Office thinks the Colonies can afford 
 to give, but in this instance (Ceylon), in view of the complications 
 surrounding the subject, it seems wise to limit the demand to such 
 an amount as can be clearly justified ; more especially as that 
 course will aid us in re-establishing the question of future contribu- 
 tions on a more secure and certain basis.'
 
 1891] METROPOLITAN POLICE COMMITTEE 83 
 
 the no small disappointment of the latter; but 
 Haliburton had small inclination for a post which 
 would have placed him beneath one colleague, 
 at least, who was his junior in official standing. 
 
 Later on, in the same year, he served, in 
 company with Sir Francis Mowatt, and others, on 
 a Committee appointed to consider the scale of 
 pensions, terms of superannuation, and the general 
 grievances of the Metropolitan Police. 1 The com- 
 plainants entirely failed to convince him that they 
 had a case ; his Memorandum was pronounced to 
 be 4 most convincing on its merits,' but he was 
 reminded, by a very experienced authority, that 
 * nowadays a mere business question like this does 
 not get settled on the merits the politicians take 
 it in hand.' There are many London constituencies 
 in which the police vote is of considerable im- 
 portance. 
 
 In May, 1891, he became Assistant Under- 
 secretary for War in succession to Colonel Deedes. 
 
 ' I have not yet written to you,' ran the letter 
 from Mr. Stanhope, 'respecting the Under-Secre- 
 taryship of State, because I was strongly of opinion 
 that, before arriving at any final decision, I should 
 like to see Sir Ralph. 2 I saw him to-day, and am 
 
 1 These culminated on July 7, some weeks after Haliburton's 
 Committee had reported, in a partial strike of the Constabulary, 
 which at one time threatened to assume dangerous proportions. 
 
 2 The late Sir Ralph Thompson. 
 
 6 2
 
 84 LORD HALIBUETON [1887-1891 
 
 glad to find that he entirely agrees with me as to 
 this appointment. 
 
 ' I think it would be very much to the advantage 
 of the public service, if I could persuade you to 
 allow me to nominate you to it. I am aware that 
 your own personal feeling is somewhat in favour of 
 rest after long service ; but it would be a very great 
 misfortune if your experience and capacity were 
 lost to the public service when such an opportunity 
 occurs of retaining them. 
 
 ' To me, personally, it would be a great pleasure 
 if we could work together for the rest of my time 
 here, while it is also certain that Sir Ralph and 
 yourself can, working together, run the office 
 more efficiently than is possible under any other 
 combination. I hope, therefore, that you will agree 
 to my proposition.' 
 
 This recall to active service was in itself no 
 small compliment to a man who had drifted out 
 of the running for preferment, and whose powers 
 were unsuspected outside a comparatively small 
 group of ministers, such as Mr. Stanhope and Mr. 
 Smith, and soldiers, such as Lord Wolseley, who 
 had been brought into close personal relations 
 with him. I have been told that when his name 
 was submitted to the Prime Minister the latter 
 was sublimely unconscious of his claims and 
 qualifications. But ready recollection of the per- 
 manent servants of the Crown, even within the 
 sacred portals of the Foreign Office, was never a 
 foible of the late Marquess of Salisbury. 1 
 
 1 Vide infra, 231.
 
 85 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 1891-1892 
 
 The Wantage Committee Haliburton's Position on it His 
 Dissentient Report Army Members and Short Service the 
 Effect of Haliburton's Action Lord Wolseley's Comment. 
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, in one of his irre- 
 sponsible moods, had asserted, as we have seen, that 
 the Assistant Under- Secretary for War had nothing 
 to do except look after the messengers at the 
 War Office. It is a ludicrous misstatement ; but, 
 to a certain extent, that functionary is a servant of 
 all work, the man who can best be spared to repre- 
 sent the department on committees and inquiries. 
 And it was not long before Haliburton was re- 
 quisitioned in this direction. 
 
 During the years immediately preceding 1891 
 a serious falling off in the number of recruits 
 attracted to the Army had produced one of our 
 periodical crises, and great difficulties had been 
 encountered in making up the annual drafts for 
 India and other foreign stations. The causes, as 
 will appear, were exceptional ; their effect had
 
 86 LOED HALIBUETON [1891- 
 
 been foreseen, and it ought to have been provided 
 against. But a chorus of complaint arose, alike 
 from the commanders of depleted battalions, and 
 from that school, still, numerous, which was unre- 
 conciled to the reforms of Lord Cardwell. There 
 were 178 ' service members ' in Parliament, and 
 they were fully capable of making their voices 
 heard. 
 
 On April 28, Mr. Stanhope constituted a Com- 
 mittee to ' consider the general question of the best 
 means of providing the drafts necessary for the 
 due maintenance of the Army abroad, and, inci- 
 dentally, any points which might tend to remove 
 the difficulties experienced in obtaining recruits 
 of proper age and physique.' l More detailed 
 instructions ordered the Committee to report 
 upon : 
 
 (a) The existing inducements to enter the army ; 
 
 (b) The length and conditions of service with 
 the colours and in the Keserve ; 
 
 (c) The advantages accruing to the private 
 soldier on discharge, with special reference to 
 deferred pay. 
 
 The main object of the inquiry was to ascertain : 
 
 ' In what manner and to what extent these con- 
 ditions failed to meet the requirements for drafts 
 
 1 Letter of the Right Hon. Edward Stanhope to Lord Wantage, 
 Parliamentary Papers, 1892, C. 6582.
 
 1892] THE WANTAGE COMMITTEE 87 
 
 for India and the Colonies, and whether any 
 alterations are required (within the limits of the 
 existing establishment), due regard being had to 
 the maintenance of an adequate reserve.' 
 
 The Committee was also asked to consider 
 what means, if any, could be devised for promoting 
 the employment of reserve and discharged men 
 in civil life, so as to increase the popularity of 
 enlistment. Whether Mr. Stanhope foresaw the 
 gravity of the issues which would be raised before 
 the Committee, or how far it would travel from the 
 question of ' drafts,' may reasonably be doubted. 
 
 At the head of the Committee was placed Lord 
 Wantage, who, as Lieutenant Lindsay, had won 
 the Victoria Cross at the Alma, who had played a 
 conspicuous part in the Volunteer movement, and 
 who had served as Financial Secretary in the War 
 Office during Lord Beaconfield's last administra- 
 tion. The other members consisted of the present 
 Lord Selborne, then Viscount Wolmer, M.P., General 
 (then Lieutenant- General) Sir Edward Bulwer, 
 G.C.B., 1 Sir T. Crawford, M.D., the late Lieutenant- 
 General W. H. A. Feilding, 2 the late General 
 (then Lieutenant- General) Sir J. J. H. Gordon, 
 K.C.B., 3 the late Colonel A. C. Nightingale, the 
 
 1 Former Inspector of Recruiting. 
 a Then Inspector of Recruiting. 
 
 3 Of the Indian Army, who had served tnrough the Mutiny, and 
 who died November 2, as these pages were going through the press.
 
 88 LOED HALIBUETON [1891- 
 
 late Major-General (then Colonel) Salis-Schwabe, 
 the late Colonel A. J. Shuttleworth, R.A., the late 
 Major J. Stacpole of the Army Service Corps, and 
 Sir Arthur Haliburton, K.C.B. 1 
 
 The latter has been described as holding what 
 is termed in the law a watching brief on behalf 
 of the War Office. It was hardly to be expected 
 that the department of the State responsible for the 
 efficiency and the existence of the British Army 
 should be unrepresented on such an inquiry; 
 but the word brief is quite inapplicable in his case. 
 It so happened that the subject of recruiting, and 
 of the ' terms of service ' generally, had never been 
 brought before Haliburton's attention, and he 
 probably had a more absolutely open mind with 
 regard to them than any of the other ten members 
 of the Committee. His general experience and his 
 peculiar faculty of judgment were his'sole creden- 
 tials ; he had no preconceived ideals, and from 
 first to last his attitude was that of the juryman 
 sworn to ' hearken to the evidence. 5 In the 
 storm that, at a later period, was raised against 
 him, it was constantly asserted that he was placed 
 on the Wantage Committee with instructions ' to 
 wreck the ship ' ' a calumny' to use his own 
 words, which he very strongly resented, and which 
 
 1 Captain Percy Lake (now Major-General Lake, C.B.) acted as 
 Secretary.
 
 1892] THE WANTAGE COMMITTEE 89 
 
 was repudiated in clear and emphatic language by 
 Mr. Stanhope. 1 
 
 No less unwarranted was the attempt to dis- 
 credit him on the ground that he shared with others 
 the responsibility for the adoption of the existing 
 organisation. As we know, Haliburton did not 
 join the War Office until after Cardwell's short 
 service system had been adopted. And, in the 
 interval between 1870 and 1891, his duties had 
 been confined to branches of Army Administration 
 into which the questions before the Wantage 
 Committee either did not enter at all, or, if they 
 did, only cursorily and incidentally. What Sir 
 Arthur got to know about long and short service 
 was derived from the mouths of the witnesses and 
 from the line of inquiry into the administration 
 of the British Army which the course of the pro- 
 ceeding suggested. 
 
 The Committee sat on thirty- one days between 
 May 6 and December 10, 1891, and called seventy- 
 two witnesses. These included the Duke of Con- 
 naught, the Duke of Cambridge, Viscount Wolse- 
 ley, Sir Evelyn Wood, Sir Redvers Buller, the 
 Accountant- General (Sir Ralph Knox), the Lieu- 
 tenant- Governor of Chelsea Hospital, the Principal 
 Medical Officer of the Army, the Director of 
 Clothing, Members of the Charity Organisation 
 
 1 Vide infra, 103.
 
 90 LOED HALIBUETON (.1891- 
 
 Society, officers commanding, and regimental 
 officers of all ranks and branches of the service, 
 together with colour-sergeants and private soldiers. 
 The Blue Book containing the Minutes of Evi- 
 dence, in 492 double-columned pages/ is a store- 
 house of curious and interesting information, 
 of very unequal value, it must be confessed, con- 
 cerning the inner life of the Army and the working 
 of the system introduced by Lord Cardwell. The 
 best of the witnesses allowed themselves to be 
 carried away in the heat of discussion, and the 
 evidence of so strong an advocate of short service 
 as Lord Wolseley contained that famous descrip- 
 tion of our home battalions as ' squeezed lemons,' 
 which was so often to be quoted against him. It 
 used to be said of Beavan's Reports that there 
 was no conceivable proposition of equity for 
 which support could not be found in their pages, 
 and a similar observation, mutatis mutandis, might 
 be made with regard to the evidence taken before 
 Lord Wantage's Committee. 
 
 An examination of the Blue Book in which 
 that evidence is contained serves to emphasise the 
 fact that Haliburton was present as a genuine 
 learner. He is evidently, in the phrase of Rosa 
 
 1 1892, C. 6582 I. Only the evidence which had been sub- 
 mitted to cross-examination was published ; this decision ruled 
 out a written statement by Lord Roberts, who was then in India.
 
 1892J THE WANTAGE COMMITTEE 91 
 
 Dartle, ' asking for information ' ; and the ques- 
 tions put by him, though not excessive in number, 
 cover a wide range of subjects. 1 They ranged over 
 length of service, linked battalions, deferred pay, 
 employment after leaving the service, length of 
 time required for mobilisation, the annual training 
 of the reserve, ' special enlistments,' the qualifica- 
 tions of recruiting officers, sentry-go in London, 
 and the sale of old uniforms. 
 
 Haliburton's legal training, his pertinacity, 
 and his perfect command of temper, rendered him 
 an ideal examiner of witnesses ; his powers of 
 memory enabled him to detect the smallest con- 
 tradictions or discrepancies, and his grip was like 
 that of a terrier. The occasional sparring over inci- 
 dental matters between him and Lord Wolseley 2 
 must have been as entertaining to watch as it 
 is instructive to read. Moderation in statement 
 is not an art to the practice of which Lord 
 Wolseley has ever devoted any great attention ; 
 but his skill in verbal fence, as Haliburton strove, 
 time after time, to pin him down, is worthy of a 
 great strategist ; it affords a perfect example of 
 
 1 Without professing to be completely exhaustive, the following 
 catalogue gives the pages on which his interlocutions will be found : 
 16, 110-12, 161, 167-8, 215, 230-1, 247-8, 281, 293, 297, 300, 305, 
 316-16, 320, 343, 453, 483, 487, 489-90. 
 
 2 E.g. pp. 167-8, 281-2.
 
 92 LOED HALIBUETON [1891- 
 
 the retention of the offensive while conducting a 
 retreat. 
 
 When the Keport was presented to Parliament* 
 at the beginning of March 1892, a most remarkable 
 division of opinion was revealed. It was signed 
 by all eleven members of the Committee, but 
 asterisks were appended to the names of Generals 
 Bulwer and Feilding, Colonel Salis-Schwabe, 
 Major Stacpole, and Sir Arthur Haliburton, signi- 
 fying that they dissented from certain recom- 
 mendations. The dissents of the first four were 
 briefly set out in three printed pages, while the 
 ' remarks ' of Sir Arthur occupied 109 para- 
 graphs, and extended to twenty-nine pages, as 
 against the twenty-eight pages of the Report 
 itself. 
 
 From a not unnatural anxiety that the Report 
 should be out in time for the debates on the 
 military estimates, the final sittings of the Com- 
 mittee had been very hurried, and Haliburton's 
 dissentient remarks had not been drawn up, still 
 less submitted to the other members when they 
 agreed upon their recommendations. The Report 
 bears date January 27 ; Haliburton's dissent was 
 signed February 20. l This was unfortunate in many 
 
 1 The delay was caused by the necessity of making out, on 
 Haliburton's initiative, the cost of certain of the recommendations 
 of the Committee.
 
 1892] EEPOET OP THE WANTAGE COMMITTEE 93 
 
 ways, and Colonel Salis-Schwabe wrote to Hali- 
 burton immediately on the receipt of the latter 
 document, which he then saw for the first time, 
 that but for the pressure at the end, he thought 
 Generals Bulwer and Feilding, as well as himself, 
 would probably have acquiesced in his conclusions. 
 In the circumstances, it perhaps would have been 
 better if Haliburton had abstained from signing 
 the Report at all ; a minority Report to which 
 he might or might not have obtained adhesions- 
 would have cleared the issues, and have made 
 his position more intelligible to the public. 
 
 The recommendations of the Committee are 
 exceedingly difficult to summarise. They travel 
 over a wide field : they deal with the whole re- 
 cruiting question, with the drafts, with the feasi- 
 bility of an increase in the number of battalions, 
 with the length of service in the infantry, cavalry, 
 and artillery, with deferred pay and pensions, 
 with the daily pay and position of the soldier 
 generally, with the training of the Reserve, and 
 with the civil employment of discharged soldiers 
 and reservists. In many respects they are wise 
 and sensible, showing an intimate acquaintance 
 with the grievances and the needs of Thomas 
 Atkins, and a good number of them have been 
 carried out : for example, the extra pay, the 
 abolition of the vexatious ' stoppages ' for sea
 
 94 LOED HALIBUETON [1891- 
 
 kit, and for clothing in India, and an alteration 
 in the recruiting posters, framed to bring more 
 clearly before the mind of the recruit the terms 
 of his engagement. 
 
 With some of the recommendations Haliburton 
 was thoroughly in accord, as he was with 
 those paragraphs of the Report which gave a 
 decisive verdict in favour of short service, of a 
 thorough application of the Territorial system, 
 and of the maintenance *of the close connection 
 between the Army in India and the Army at home. 
 But in his judgment the crucial point of the Report 
 the suggested change in the terms of service with 
 the colours and in the reserve, with a view to 
 strengthening the home battalions was totally 
 destructive of the admirable principles enunciated 
 in its earlier paragraphs. 
 
 The Committee had advised that the periods 
 of service should be modified and made more 
 elastic : 
 
 (a) By allowing men to extend their colour 
 service from year to year, or for any number of 
 years up to twelve in all. 
 
 (6) By allowing men of good character who 
 had left the colours, not less than six and not more 
 than twelve months previously, to return from the 
 Reserve to complete twelve years' colour service
 
 1892] DISSENT FKOM WANTAGE COMMITTEE 95 
 
 without refunding any money or gratuity received 
 on transfer to the Reserve. 1 
 
 (c) By allowing, if the exigencies of the service 
 should permit, trained soldiers, who wished to do 
 so, to pass freely to the Reserve before the end 
 of their period of engagement with the colours. 
 
 Sir Arthur Haliburton was firmly convinced 
 that these changes in the terms of enlistment 
 were calculated, through their effect on the short 
 service system, to reduce our fighting reserve by 
 many thousands of men, and at the same time, 
 largely to augment the non-effective charges of 
 the Army ; and against them accordingly he put 
 forward his whole strength. 
 
 It was not without considerable diffidence that 
 he made up his mind to record his dissent. His 
 colleagues on the Committee comprised soldiers 
 of rank and experience, who had the good of 
 the Army and of the nation at heart no less than 
 himself, and who for the most part had spent 
 their lives in the Service. The Chairman, moreover, 
 had been for three years at the War Office, and, 
 as a young member of the House of Commons, 
 had, as far back as the 'seventies, taken part in the 
 debates on the inauguration of the Cardwellian 
 reforms. 2 On the other hand, this branch of 
 
 1 Known popularly as Deferred Pay, vide infra, 205. 
 8 Life of Lord Wantage, 208.
 
 96 LOED HALIBUETON [1891- 
 
 Army administration was, as we have said, entirely 
 new and unfamiliar to Sir Arthur Haliburton. 
 
 * Until I went on the Committee,' he wrote to 
 General Maurice, after the publication of the 
 Report, ' I knew nothing of the subject ; my ex- 
 perience had been entirely in the direction of 
 supply and transport. At the Committee I learnt 
 very little. Most of the evidence was mere desultory 
 conversation, not directed to specific points un- 
 scientific and vague. The result was that I was 
 obliged to examine the facts of the case for myself. 
 These drove me to the conclusion you find in my 
 report. It would be indeed strange if, in a subject 
 so full of pitfalls, I had fallen into none of them ; 
 and I shall be more than grateful for a friendly 
 hand to pull me out again.' 
 
 In tabling the grounds of his dissent, Hali- 
 burton was confronted with a double obligation. 
 It was impossible merely to indicate the recom- 
 mendations which he was unable to accept. He 
 detected omissions which had to be supplied in 
 order to make clear the extent of the difficulties 
 experienced in the provision of drafts for India 
 and the Colonies, and the limits of the remedies 
 required to overcome them. If the recent failure 
 had been due to a permanent inability to raise 
 the requisite number of recruits, he was ready to 
 admit that it might become necessary to stimu- 
 late recruiting by raising the emoluments of the 
 soldiers. But he was prepared to show that the
 
 1892] DISSENT FEOM WANTAGE COMMITTEE 97 
 
 causes of the existing breakdown, and of the 
 draft difficulty during the last two years, were 
 to be sought and found elsewhere. 
 
 'In 1886-87 the supply of recruits exceeded 
 the demand, and in 1888 certain stimulants to 
 recruiting were withdrawn, the numbers falling in 
 that year to 25,153, from 39,409 in 1886, and 
 31,225 in 1887 ; and it is only in 1891 that the 
 numbers have recovered to 36,003. 1 As it was 
 known in 1888 that, owing to increases in the 
 Army, and to other exceptional circumstances 
 which occurred in 1883-86, an unusually large num- 
 ber of men would go to the Reserve from certain 
 regiments, in the period 1890-93, and that un- 
 usually large drafts would consequently be re- 
 quired for those corps in that period, it was un- 
 fortunate that any measure calculated, even tem- 
 porarily, to reduce the supply of recruits should 
 have been adopted. In view of the impending 
 exceptional demand for drafts, steps should rather 
 have been taken, either to mitigate the demand 
 or to stimulate recruiting, and the establishment 
 of the battalions concerned should have been 
 temporarily increased above their ordinary strength 
 so that, when the demand for exceptional drafts 
 arose, it could have been promptly and satis- 
 factorily met. 
 
 * A recruit does not become qualified for a 
 " draft " for some considerable time (in the case of 
 India, for, on an average, one and a half years) ; 
 and, to meet the abnormal demands for Indian 
 drafts in 1890-91, it was essential that prepara- 
 
 1 Printed 86,003 in the Parliamentary Papers. 
 
 H
 
 98 LOED HALIBUKTON [1891- 
 
 tions for them should commence in 1888-89. 
 When a merchant has liabilities maturing at a 
 given date he takes care to have funds ready to 
 redeem them, and there seems to be no reason 
 why similar foresight should not be observed in 
 meeting the requirements of the Army. 
 
 ' The question referred to the Committee, viz., 
 what are the causes of the recent failure fully to 
 supply drafts, and what the remedies, though one 
 of great importance, is in reality a very simple 
 one, and a close comparison of the Short Service 
 system, as originally designed, and the Short 
 Service system, as at present administered, at once 
 discloses the measures necessary to remedy the 
 difficulty that has arisen.' 1 
 
 The task of explaining the real meaning and 
 operation of short service was now undertaken by 
 Haliburton for the first time. He was addressing 
 himself primarily to the Secretary of State for 
 War, and, through him, to the Cabinet ; and the 
 presentation of his case was of a technical rather 
 than of a popular character. A very few years 
 were to elapse before he found himself going over 
 the same ground, and repeating the same argu- 
 ments, in the full publicity afforded by the columns 
 of The Times. It will be more convenient, and 
 will save much tedious repetition, if I reserve his 
 defence of short service to the Chapters in which 
 Haliburton's controversy with Mr. Arnold Forster 
 
 1 Parliamentary Papers, 1892, C. 6582, p. 33.
 
 1892] DISSENT FEOM WANTAGE COMMITTEE 99 
 
 is set out in detail. 1 But the danger which he had 
 to meet was far more real and pressing in the 
 earlier emergency. And during the whole course 
 of his career, official and non-official, Haliburton 
 never deserved better of his country than by the 
 firm stand which he made, alone and unsupported, 
 on the Wantage Committee. 
 
 The difficulty about the drafts, which had 
 brought the Committee into existence, he showed 
 to be purely one of administration, due to the 
 departure from Cardwell's main principle of an 
 exact balance between the battalions at home 
 and the battalions abroad. It was not caused by 
 any general want of recruits, or by insufficient 
 inducements to men to enter the service ; for, as 
 a matter of fact, more men had been enlisted in 
 the past year than would have been necessary 
 had the Cardwellian system never been tampered 
 with. A slight increase in the number of battalions, 
 certain alterations in the ' reliefs,' and the 
 placing of all battalions abroad on the same 
 establishment, would provide ample remedy for 
 the evils which had arisen from the excess of 
 battalions abroad. 
 
 To meet the temporary and exceptional causes 
 which had aggravated the destruction of the 
 Cardwell balance, Haliburton made certain prac- 
 
 1 Vide Chapters vii.-ix. 
 
 H 2
 
 100 LOED HALIBUETON [1891- 
 
 tical recommendations. He advised that, when 
 the Reserves were called out they should be 
 regarded as supernumerary to the ordinary peace 
 establishments, and that recruiting should proceed 
 as if no such addition had been made. In the 
 event of any dislocation of the recruiting machinery, 
 through a sudden increase in the numbers of the 
 Army or otherwise, he urged that due preparation 
 should be made three years before the expiration 
 of the colour service of the men so recruited, to 
 c dissipate ' the strain that must be experienced 
 if all the men had to be replaced in a single year. 
 This could be effected by inducing some men to 
 prolong their service for a year or two, and others 
 to pass to the Reserve prematurely. 
 
 Here, said Haliburton, as far as the recent 
 failure to supply drafts was concerned, he might 
 terminate his report. But the Committee had 
 made many and important recommendations 
 some of which, viewed in relation to the drafts 
 difficulty, seemed to him unnecessary and in- 
 effective, while others, if adopted, would, in his 
 opinion, be distinctly injurious to the Army. To 
 these he felt bound to reply in detail. 
 
 These recommendations fell into two classes: 
 increases to the pay and allowances of the soldier, 
 and modifications in the terms and conditions 
 of service. They were based on the hypothesis
 
 .892] DISSENT FEOM WANTAGE COMMITTEE 101 
 
 that infantry battalions at home had become in- 
 efficient alike for ordinary peace duties and for 
 active service, and that their condition was due 
 to two main causes: the extreme youth of the 
 recruit, and the excessive drafts which home 
 battalions supply to their sister battalions abroad. 
 To all these conclusions he demurred, for reasons 
 which will be assigned in a later Chapter. 1 To 
 accept them would be to strike a fatal blow at the 
 grand object of Short Service the Reserve, and 
 their whole tendency was to bring the Army back 
 to conditions analogous to those of the pre- 
 Cardwellian era. They would lead, so he cal- 
 culated, to a greatly increased establishment, 2 
 and to an increased yearly expenditure of from 
 two to three millions, 3 while slightly decreasing 
 the fighting strength. 
 
 From this brief sketch it will be seen how 
 fundamentally Sir Arthur Haliburton differed from 
 his colleagues or at least from the majority 
 of them and how glaring was the antagonism 
 between the Report and the dissenting Observa- 
 
 1 Vide pp. 152 et seq. 
 
 ' Establishment ' is the technical term for the total number 
 of men voted by Parliament, and is to be carefully distinguished 
 from ' strength.' 
 
 8 In a Parliamentary return, issued in the following April, the 
 total cost to the United Kingdom and India, of carrying out the 
 recommendations of the Committee, including the non-effective 
 charges, was estimated at 3,000,000?. per annum.
 
 102 LOED HALIBUETON [1891- 
 
 tions. The whole inquiry, indeed, seems to have 
 ranged beyond the intention and expectations 
 of Mr. Stanhope, and it may well be ques- 
 tioned whether he would not have acted wisely 
 in requesting the Committee to reassemble 
 and endeavour to see by a comparison of 
 views whether the members could not arrive 
 at something nearer a common understanding. 
 The consequences of the unfortunate form in 
 which the Report was issued were aggravated by 
 the unavoidable delay in printing the bulky 
 volume which contained the Minutes of Evidence. 
 This did not appear until many weeks after the 
 Report. Long before that date public and ' Ser- 
 vice ' opinion had ranged itself on the side of the 
 majority, and was proclaiming Sir Arthur Halibur- 
 ton to be the incarnation of red-tape and officialism. 
 Within a few days of the presentation of the 
 Report the Army men in the House of Commons 
 were pressing for an opportunity of discussing it, 
 and their speeches showed clearly the anticipations 
 which had been aroused by the appointment of 
 the Committee. In the debate on the Army Esti- 
 mates, on March 7, 1892, 1 General Goldsworthy 
 declared that, in his opinion, it did not matter 
 a jot whether you had long service or short service. 
 Sir Henry Fletcher said boldly : ' The short ser- 
 
 1 Hansard, 4th Series, ii. 220 et seq.
 
 1892] THE EEPOET IN THE COMMONS 103 
 
 vice system is a system which I, as a soldier, 
 cannot, and will not, support.' And General Sir 
 Charles Fraser asserted, even more emphatically, 
 that short service had utterly broken down. In 
 his reply, Mr. Stanhope deprecated any general 
 discussion of the recommendations of the Com- 
 mittee until the evidence had been presented to 
 Parliament, and he seized the opportunity of 
 warmly defending himself against the charge 
 of having chosen Sir Arthur Haliburton as an 
 obstructionist and a marplot: 
 
 ' He was nominated by me on the Committee,' 
 said the Secretary of State for War, * as a man of 
 great experience, and thoroughly able to advise 
 us on these questions. But it so happened that 
 he had never given any special attention to re- 
 cruiting, and he joined the Committee as a 
 thoroughly impartial man who had an opinion 
 to form on the subject ; when it came before the 
 Committee he dealt with it according to the 
 evidence and according to the facts given in 
 previous Reports. Certainly he did not deal with 
 them in accordance with any preconceived notion, 
 or according to any wish expressed on my part. 
 If I had expressed any wish concerning the matter, 
 it might have been that he should not criticise 
 my conduct ; but he has taken what I believe to 
 be the perfectly legitimate course of doing so.' 
 
 The evidence at last made its appearance, 
 after a good deal of prodding ; but from various
 
 104 LOED HALIBUBTON [1891- 
 
 causes, including the illness of Mr. Stanhope, the 
 full dress debate on the Wantage Committee 
 was postponed till June 10. The shadows of 
 the coming General Election, at which the 
 defeat of the Government was almost a fore- 
 gone conclusion, were lengthening, 1 and the 
 discussion was mainly confined to the recom- 
 mendations bearing on the pay and general con- 
 dition of the private soldier. 2 Sir Walter Barttelot 
 reiterated his conviction that the War Office was 
 largely concerned in the production of Haliburton's 
 counter-report, and a general tone of dissatisfaction 
 and disappointment pervaded the speeches of the 
 Service Members. No resolution was moved, and 
 the subject smouldered out ; but henceforward 
 Haliburton was the target upon which the as- 
 sailants of the War Office concentrated their fire. 
 
 The Committee had shot its bolt ; many of its 
 recommendations, including some of which Hali- 
 burton disapproved, as well as others which he 
 cordially endorsed, were carried, sooner or later, 
 into effect, and though it is difficult to ascertain 
 whether they have popularised the Army or stimu- 
 lated recruiting under normal conditions, they have, 
 at any rate, done much towards improving the lot 
 of the private soldier. But on the question of the 
 
 1 Parliament was dissolved on June 28. 
 
 2 See Hansard, v. 700 et seq.
 
 1892] EFFECTS OF THE DISSENT 105 
 
 extension of the term of service with the colours 
 the Government was adamant ; and it may fairly 
 be claimed for Haliburton that this was his doing, 
 and his alone. There was a strong party in the 
 Cabinet, in Parliament, and in the country, openly 
 in favour of reverting to long service. A still 
 larger section was vaguely opposed to short 
 service a system the principles of which they 
 had never grasped, and which they judged solely 
 by the attenuated battalions at home. Such of the 
 latter class as took the pains to study Haliburton's 
 clear and logical argument were, for the first 
 time, enlightened, and as the discussion proceeded, 
 in Parliament and in the Press, his views steadily 
 gained ground. Had Haliburton refrained from 
 publishing his reasoned dissent from the recom- 
 mendations of the Committee, or had it been less 
 cogent, or less strongly worded, it is more than 
 probable that public opinion would have insisted 
 on, at any rate, a trial being given to the proposed 
 extension of service with the colours ; and a 
 mortal wound would have been dealt to that 
 Reserve, which was the sheet-anchor of Card well's 
 system, and which, in the hour of need, responded 
 so nobly to his calculations and predictions. 
 
 For such an achievement on the part of a 
 single man, hitherto unknown outside a small 
 official circle, it is difficult to find a parallel. It
 
 106 LOED HALIBUETON [1891- 
 
 stamped him, at once, as a public servant of the 
 first rank, and it gave him a recognised position 
 with successive Secretaries of State, and with the 
 heads of the military departments, which is seldom 
 granted to permanent officials, however capable 
 or distinguished. 
 
 And from the quarters where encouragement 
 was most welcome he received an ample meed of 
 praise. ' No doubt you will be criticised,' wrote 
 General Sir John Adye, after expressing his strong 
 dissent from the main recommendations of the 
 Committee; 'but I have studied the subject for 
 years, and heartily congratulate you on the ability 
 and courage with which you have treated it.' 
 Lord Cromer, then Sir Evelyn Baring, who, as a 
 captain in the Artillery, and Military Secretary to 
 Lord Cardwell, had been one of the triumvirate 
 responsible for working out the details of short 
 service, wrote him a long letter from Cairo : 
 
 ' 1 see that the views of the Committee would 
 change the short service system, which, I think, 
 would be a great mistake ; and I agree with you 
 fully about the " nursery " argument : only there 
 ought to be, as Cardwell originally wished, some 
 means by which we can always have a small force 
 of, say, 10,000 men, ready for our numerous small 
 wars. I remember, at the time, seeing the dis- 
 advantages of the double battalion system the 
 number of battalions happened to be just about
 
 1892] LOED WOLSELEY ON THE DISSENT 107 
 
 equal ; but it was clear that a very little disturbance 
 would put this arrangement out of gear. . . . The 
 Government will make a great mistake if they 
 carry out any reorganisation of which Wolseley 
 does not approve ; the impression left on my 
 mind, in 1872, was that he was nearly the only one 
 who grasped the whole question, and, without 
 doubt, now he knows much more about it than 
 he did then. As to Army expenditure, I wish 
 Wolseley and some strong-headed civilian could 
 be turned loose. But the whole question requires 
 attacking in detail, and not after the Randolph 
 Churchill method. 1 It appears to me that the 
 Commission [sic] was much too military. All the 
 Army reforms have been done by civilians, aided 
 by the advice of the best soldiers, who are in a 
 minority. For the matter of that, no department 
 is ever reformed from within.' 
 
 And the following letter from Lord Wolseley, 
 brilliant and trenchant, like everything he writes, 
 may be regarded as the most conclusive justifica- 
 tion of Haliburton's action: 
 
 ' Dublin, February 2, 1892. 
 
 ' Your paper is most interesting : I shall read 
 it over again to-morrow. It cannot be repeated 
 too often or be too strenuously dinned into the 
 heads of outsiders that it is not Mr. Cardwell's 
 
 1 In allusion, it may be presumed, partly to Lord Randolph's 
 resignation on December 23, 1886, of which the final cause was 
 Mr. W. H. Smith's refusal to accept his proposed reduction of the 
 Army estimates, and partly to the line taken by him in the Hart- 
 ington Commission, see Life of Lord Randolph Churchitt, ii. 321.
 
 108 LOHD HALIBUETON [1891- 
 
 system that has broken down, but that all our 
 present difficulties and misfortunes have arisen, 
 and are at present directly attributable, to the fact 
 that his system has been glaringly and most 
 unwisely departed from. His system was based 
 upon a balance between the number of units kept 
 at home and those kept abroad in his time it 
 was seventy- one battalions of Infantry at home 
 and seventy abroad. Now we have sixty-five at 
 home and seventy-six abroad. Since his time we 
 have increased the permanent strength of our 
 English Army in India by 10,000 men, including 
 three additional battalions ; we keep about 3,000 
 men three battalions, etc., etc. in Egypt, and 
 we have most wisely increased the strength of our 
 distant garrisons, including Malta, to which we 
 should not be able to send reinforcements at the 
 outbreak of hostilities with France. The addition 
 of three battalions to the force maintained in 
 India I always thought myself a very doubt- 
 ful necessity ; but to make it without adding 
 six battalions to our total Army Establish- 
 ment I always thought was folly aye, simple 
 madness . . . 
 
 'Our present Army system was always un- 
 popular with the older generation of soldiers. 
 Indeed, few even took the trouble to study it. 
 It was quite enough for them that it was a system 
 propounded by a Liberal lawyer ! in Mr. Glad- 
 stone's administration. Heaven and earth were 
 set in motion to condemn it, and much was done, 
 and is still being done, to throw grit into the 
 machinery, and to make it appear as a system 
 which strikes at esprit de corps, and all that is 
 healthiest and best in our Army. I don't want to
 
 1892] LOED WOLSELEY ON THE DISSENT 109 
 
 enter into this question, beyond saying that it 
 would be difficult to start and propagate a more 
 glaring untruth. . . . 
 
 ' Now for the points in your paper of more 
 general application. We want our Army for War. 1 
 For the duties it has to perform during peace it 
 is, as at present constituted, fully capable. I 
 grant you it does not gladden the heart of the old- 
 fashioned Inspecting- General. It is composed of 
 growing lads who, when twenty-two years of 
 age, will be superior, man for man, to the soldiers 
 of any army. The stuff and the untruth that are 
 brought forward by those who don't like the work 
 which our present system entails is simply sick- 
 ening to men who know the truth, who know 
 that they had little to do in the old chaos army, 
 and have a considerable amount to do under our 
 short service system. 
 
 'I joined at Chatham, in 1852, and it was full 
 of recruits all waiting for conveyance to India. 
 As regards age, they were nearly all boys, and not 
 nearly such nice looking, or such good boys as 
 those we get now. I was nearly nineteen myself, 
 and thought myself a man ; but I remember that 
 I regarded the recruits around me as boys, that 
 is, as much younger than I was. We never did 
 enlist men in this century. We used to enlist men 
 long ago. Cromwell's army was entirely composed 
 of men, and even in Charles II. 's reign we had 
 
 1 Lord Wolseley has made the very remarkable statement 
 that, when he was applied to by Mr. Stanhope, in June 1888, ' the 
 military authorities were without any definite instructions from 
 her Majesty's Government as to the duties, responsibilities, and 
 requirements which our Army was expected to fill.' Report of the 
 Royal Commission on the War in South Africa (1903, C. 1789), p. 211.
 
 110 LOED HALIBUBTON [1891- 
 
 men as soldiers. But then we competed for men 
 with men's wages in a very restricted labour 
 market. If we don't take recruits at their present 
 age we shall not obtain the numbers we require, 
 even though we give the extra sixpence all round, 
 which I would like to see given. Therefore, we 
 may dismiss this age question, in which we are not 
 one whit worse than ever we have been in this 
 century. Of course the Americans, in their war, 
 obtained over a million of men to be soldiers, by 
 giving them man's wages. You have, I think, 
 forgotten this fact in your paper. . . . 
 
 'I think the recommendation affecting the 
 principle of short service made by the Committee 
 most unwise. If you keep a man for twelve years 
 in the Army, you are bound in fairness and in 
 honour to allow him to serve on to pension ; the 
 extension of colour service proposed is the height 
 of folly, and all the baits to men to extend their 
 period of colour service will land us in an enormous 
 pension list, and a very serious reduction of our 
 Army Reserve. . . . 
 
 * The principle upon which our machine is 
 constructed is thoroughly sound, but the machine, 
 as made, is only capable of a certain amount of 
 work. Try and make it do more than it was calcu- 
 lated to do and you overstrain it, and it will 
 break down. This is what we have done during 
 the last nine or ten years, and consequently our 
 army is at sixes and sevens. Remember this, and 
 all that has occurred is as simple as that 2 x 4 = 8. 
 Our present difficulties were foreseen and pointed 
 out by me many times. They are easily rectified 
 by adhering to the principles of Mr. Cardwell's 
 reforms.
 
 1892] LOED WOLSELEY ON THE DISSENT 111 
 
 'I shall only add that I would implore Mr. 
 Stanhope on no account to adopt any of the 
 Committee's proposals that are in any way calcu- 
 lated to injure the Reserve. It is the one stand- 
 point the one gloriously bright thing in our 
 military history. As for those recommendations 
 that would make us keep on our men until they 
 had put in twelve years' colour service, to adopt 
 them would be madness : it would re-establish 
 the ten years' system under a worse form than 
 ever, for it would lead to more soldiers' wives, 
 more married quarters in barracks, and to a far 
 larger pension list than ever. Our aim should be 
 to discourage men to stay a day longer than 
 seven years with the colours, and to let a con- 
 siderable proportion of those who wished it, leave 
 at the expiration of five years' service. This 
 would popularise the Army in the recruiting 
 market, and would be merciful to the men con- 
 cerned. 
 
 * You say your voice will have no weight in this 
 question. You are wrong, as far as men are con- 
 cerned who know the history of our Army ad- 
 ministration. They know that all the useful 
 reforms which have been effected in the Army in 
 recent times, even in the drill and training of 
 our men, have been forced upon them from 
 without. 
 
 * May I add one word of advice ? When you ask 
 a soldier for his opinion, and he gives it you for 
 what it is worth, don't imagine he is your enemy, 
 or an unfaithful colleague, because you don't agree 
 with what you consider his extravagant proposals. 
 He asks for all he considers necessary. Ask him 
 for what he would, under existing circumstances,
 
 112 LOED HALIBUETON [1891- 
 
 public and political, recommend you to do, and 
 he will at once reduce those proposals, and point 
 out expedients that will be economical, and 
 enable you at least to tide over this difficulty, 
 if not permanently to correct it to the fullest 
 extent. 
 
 ' As you know, I have urged the increase of the 
 soldiers' pay by sixpence a day. I believe it would 
 be, from an Army and National point of view, a 
 very wise measure for many reasons, that I shall 
 not here enter upon. But I know that we cannot 
 expect it from any Government situated as the 
 existing Government is at present. Besides, I 
 am " credibly informed " that we are on the verge 
 of a considerable fall in wages all along the line. 
 If this be so, there is a very good and plausible 
 reason why all questions of extra pay can be post- 
 poned for the present. 
 
 * The country is kept in ignorance of the facts 
 regarding our Army by the short-sightedness of 
 commanding officers, and their captains and 
 subalterns, who do not like commanding battalions, 
 always meant to be depots, nor the work which 
 such command entails upon them. One battalion 
 in Ireland sent out 500 men in drafts in the space 
 of ten months. Is it to be wondered at that 
 its commanding officer and all his officers, should 
 growl when they knew that their growls would be 
 chorused by all the old gentlemen who do not 
 know or understand the objects of our or of any 
 other nation's military system ? 
 
 * Thank you very much for sending me your 
 " Dissent " from the Committee's proposals. It 
 has been most interesting reading to me. The 
 man who wants to go back to long service is a
 
 1892] LOED WOLSELEY ON THE DISSENT 113 
 
 fellow who believes in making water run up hill, 
 and who thinks that by putting his own pet watch 
 back he can delay the sun's rising. There is 
 nothing secret in this letter, so you can show it 
 to anyone who cares to read through its long and 
 dreary pages.'
 
 114 LOED HALIBUETON [1895- 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 1895-1897 
 
 Appointed Permanent Under-Secretary the Duties of the Office 
 Haliburton's Peculiar Qualifications Sir Henry Campbell- 
 Bannerman Minute on Short Service Reorganisation of the 
 War Office on Retirement of the Duke of Cambridge Is Made 
 a G.C.B. the Close of Haliburton's Official Career. 
 
 EARLY in 1895 Sir Ralph Thompson resigned the 
 office of Permanent Under-Secretary of State for 
 War, and Haliburton was appointed to succeed 
 him. Every step up the ladder, on the highest 
 rung of which he now stood, had been well and 
 strenuously earned. He had owed nothing to 
 family connexion or private interest. The friends 
 who had urged his claims were, without exception, 
 men who had been attracted by his strength of 
 character, his rapid grasp of complicated issues 
 and his broad-minded handling of whatever 
 business was set before him. It is a very notice- 
 able circumstance, impressed upon me by the 
 perusual of Haliburton's correspondence, that the 
 bigger, intellectually, were the men with whom he 
 was brought into contact, the more cognisant do
 
 1897] PERMANENT UNDERSECRETARY 115 
 
 they appear of that impalpable quality which dis- 
 tinguished the man of affairs from the meritorious 
 official. 
 
 Haliburton has himself described, in an interest- 
 ing passage, the nature of the post which he was 
 now called upon to fill. 1 
 
 * In addition to being the civil expert adviser of 
 the Secretary of State, the Permanent Under- 
 secretary superintended the working of the 
 administrative machine to secure that it ran 
 smoothly. He was responsible for the discipline 
 and control of the large body of subordinates 
 employed in the administration ; that every com- 
 munication received in the War Office was sent to 
 the branch . or branches that should deal with it ; 
 that it went to the Secretary of State before 
 action taken, if it was a question which he should 
 decide ; and that, when it did go to the Secretary 
 of State, it was supported by a reference to 
 all information on the subject which the office 
 records contained. It was also his duty to see 
 that no action was taken affecting the civil rights 
 of the people without the Secretary of State's 
 knowledge and approval ; that, when the interests 
 of other departments of State, of India, or of 
 the Colonies were affected, they were consulted, 
 and their views obtained before the Secretary of 
 State committed himself to a decision. He was 
 responsible for the conduct of the Parliamentary 
 and legal business of the office ; in short, he was 
 the Secretary of State's " Remembrancer," respon- 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 61. 
 
 I 2
 
 116 LOED HALIBUETON [1896- 
 
 sible that all proper procedure was observed in 
 arriving at decisions, but with no personal respon- 
 sibility for the decisions arrived at by the military 
 and civil heads of departments, except when he 
 himself acted in the name and on behalf of the 
 Secretary of State. The successful performance 
 of these duties necessitated large experience and 
 knowledge, a constitutional desire to appear as 
 little as possible above the surface, and yet to guide 
 the office business into its regulated channels, and 
 to oil the machinery of administration by a 
 judicious exercise of tact, temper, and firmness.' 
 
 ' Tact, temper, and firmness ' are seldom found 
 so closely united as in the case of Arthur Haliburton. 
 The serene and kindly wisdom, mitis sapientia 
 Lceli, which made it a liberal education to serve 
 under him, was combined with an imperturbable 
 coolness in difficulties. He was one of those to 
 whom, in the crises and perplexities of private life, 
 men turn instinctively with the certainty of meet- 
 ing sound counsel as well as the gentlest sympathy 
 and support. And in the office his extreme lucidity 
 and power of logical condensed statement gave 
 him a remarkable, but well deserved, influence over 
 the Secretary of State for the time being. 
 
 The two ' Chiefs ' to whom successively he became 
 ' Remembrancer,' were Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- 
 man and Lord Lansdowne. The strange vicissi- 
 tudes of ' C.-B.'s ' career, from his acceptance of 
 the leadership of a disorganised and mutinous
 
 1897] SIE HENEY CAMPBELL-BANNEEMAN 117 
 
 party down to his death in the plenitude of power, 
 have obscured his great merits as a departmental 
 administrator. Lord Lansdowne's brilliant success 
 as Foreign Secretary, and as leader of the Unionist 
 party in the House of Lords, has thrown into the 
 shade the years he spent at the War Office before 
 the early disasters of the Boer War had exposed 
 him to obloquy, the injustice of which is at last 
 being recognised. 
 
 To both of these men, dissimilar in almost 
 every respect, Haliburton was persona gratissima. 
 With Sir Henry, perhaps, he was more thoroughly 
 in accord, for though a strong Conservative in 
 general politics, experience had taught him that 
 the Conservatives of that date were by no means 
 purged of their old distrust of Card well and his 
 system. There was something, moreover, especially 
 congenial to the son of Sam Slick in the pawky 
 humour of the genial, kindly Scot, who was so 
 strangely misunderstood and underrated south 
 of the Tweed. It has been charged against Sir 
 Henry Campbell-Bannerman that in the War 
 Office he acted on the simple principle of letting 
 the permanent officials have their own way. To 
 anyone who knew the quiet, stubborn nature of 
 the late Prime Minister, the suggestion carries its 
 own refutation ; but he was quick at summing up 
 his subordinates, and both in Sir Ralph Thompson
 
 118 LORD HALIBUBTON [1895- 
 
 and Sir Arthur Haliburton he had under him men 
 of very exceptional calibre. 1 
 
 The fact that Haliburton generally carried his 
 point, and that the principles laid down by him 
 were seldom found to differ from those which 
 ultimately were translated into action, could 
 scarcely fail to produce a sense of soreness in other 
 ' strong ' men in the War Office, who possessed 
 neither Haliburton's suavity of manner nor his 
 gift for stating a case. Nevertheless the Per- 
 manent Under- Secretary succeeded in maintaining, 
 save in one single instance, the most excellent 
 relations with his colleagues on the military as 
 well as on the civil side of the War Office. Un- 
 happily that gallant soldier and most admirable 
 administrator who then filled the post of Adjutant- 
 General was a man who could not brook opposition, 
 
 1 Now that Sir Henry and Lady Campbell -Bannerman, as well 
 as Haliburton himself, have passed away, there is a melancholy 
 echo about the postscript to a letter on Christmas Eve 1894. ' Let 
 me offer to you and Lady Haliburton the best wishes of the season 
 from my wife and myself. I imagine that what people really mean 
 by good wishes is an iron digestion and a convenient balance at 
 the bank both difficult to maintain.' Sir Henry's letters abound 
 in racy comment on men and matters, but they are not all for the 
 general eye ; one sentence I venture to quote, both for its universal 
 applicability and on account of the guidance which it has conveyed 
 to the present writer. ' These trumpery questions of Guards and 
 
 Camerons and 's appointment are really not worth putting 
 
 in any book ; and what rubbish the book will be if they are thought 
 fit for a place ! Besides, both on personal questions and such 
 things as troops in Egypt, there will be an end of frank confidential 
 communications, if every careless note is to be published.'
 
 1897] SIE KEDVEES BULLEE 119 
 
 and Sir Redvers Buller forms the solitary instance 
 in which Haliburton's tact and powers of concilia- 
 tion proved unavailing. 1 
 
 There is a common impression that it has been 
 the traditional aim and the pride of the civilian 
 element in the War Office, and especially of the 
 Permanent Under-Secretary in the days when that 
 official was a civilian, to act as a constant check 
 upon the military, and that want of harmony 
 between the two branches has been the chief 
 source of our disasters and breakdowns. The 
 distinguished officers who came across Haliburton 
 in Pall Mall tell a very different story. Amongst 
 those with whom it has been my privilege to 
 converse there has been a general agreement that 
 his comprehensive knowledge of Army adminis- 
 tration was equalled by his clear understanding of 
 the conditions which made for efficiency. As was 
 said by one who knew him well, no stronger or 
 more indefatigable advocate of the true interests 
 of the Army ever existed. Against remedies 
 more dangerous than the disease, and against the 
 fallacies which found perpetual vent in Parlia- 
 ment and in the Press, he waged untiring war. 
 
 1 ' I have a regard for Buller, in spite of our difference,' he 
 wrote to a friend in the dark days after Colenso. ' He has many 
 good points, though in a rough exterior and an explosive interior.' 
 ' What a pity,' he adds on another occasion, ' such an able man 
 should have so little judgment where he himself is concerned ! '
 
 120 LORD HALIBUETON [1896- 
 
 To reasonable reform and to well-considered 
 requirements he was always most ready to lend 
 an attentive ear. And when the changes intro- 
 duced into the organisation of the Army were such 
 as his judgment could not approve, his fidelity 
 to " the salt " made him devote his best abilities to 
 carrying them out and to ensuring that they were 
 given a fair trial. 1 
 
 Stress has already been laid on Haliburton's 
 essentially judicial mind, on his independence, and 
 on his absolute fearlessness before authority. A 
 no less valuable gift was that of putting his thoughts 
 and his knowledge into language which carried 
 conviction alike to the careless and the prejudiced. 
 To a newly appointed Secretary of State whose 
 acquaintance with the innumerable ramifications 
 of Army administration was necessarily limited, 
 his knack of producing at a moment's notice an 
 admirably expressed and carefully reasoned minute 
 on the burning questions of the hour was a perfect 
 godsend. When the Conservatives came back in 
 1895, the question of Short versus Long Service 
 was by no means a chose jugee, and Haliburton 
 was called upon suddenly one morning for a * dagger 
 
 1 ' Personally,' he wrote to Lord Wolseley in October 1895, 
 ' I prefer the existing system, with possibly more direct responsi- 
 bility on the heads of the great departments. This, however, is 
 only my personal preference ; as you know I have only to carry out 
 loyally any system which the Secretary of State approves.'
 
 1897] A DAGGEE BEIEF 121 
 
 brief,' 1 by the aid of which his harassed chief 
 might render that topic clear, in the course of the 
 afternoon, to a body of Ministers who knew little 
 of the inner history of the British Army, and were 
 not likely to take any trouble to inform themselves. 
 The story lingers still in the War Office how 
 Haliburton and a devoted secretary locked them- 
 selves in, eschewing luncheon and the other joys 
 of the day's routine, and how by four o'clock the 
 following resume was ready for the instruction of 
 the Cabinet : 
 
 ' The existing short-service system was forced 
 upon the country by the complete breakdown of 
 the long-service system. 
 
 * In 1866-67 a Eoyal Commission on Recruit- 
 ing, presided over by Lord Dalhousie, 2 referring 
 to the condition of the Army before and after 
 the Crimean War, stated : 
 
 ' " We have been content to exist from hand 
 to mouth, with no forecast of the future. No 
 preparations for a state of war were thought of. 
 . . . Men were enrolled and sent half trained 
 into the field. . . . Recent events, however, have 
 taught us that we must not rely in the future on 
 
 1 Certain members of the Bar, who rose eventually to the 
 highest place in their profession, had an incurable, and not altgether 
 unreasonable, objection to reading the mass of verbiage which often 
 does duty for a brief. For them it was customary to issue a specially 
 revised document in which the vital passages were marked with a 
 dagger (f) in red ink. 
 
 2 Better known as Lord Panmure, the successor of the Duke of 
 Newcastle at the War Office during the Crimean War.
 
 122 LOKD HALIBUETON [1895- 
 
 having time for preparation. Wars will be sudden 
 in their commencement and short in their dura- 
 tion, and woe to the country which is unprepared 
 to defend itself against any contingency that may 
 
 arise." 
 
 ' Again, speaking of the strength of the Army, 
 the Commissioners reported : 
 
 * " Its present strength is barely sufficient for 
 a period of peace, and the question is how we 
 can most readily and speedily increase it, through 
 the means of a Reserve force of men who have 
 already received their training in its ranks, but 
 may have fallen back . . . into civil life. . . . 
 We have already stated the fact that the ' Army 
 of Reserve Force,' constituted in 1859, 1 has been 
 a complete failure, and the measures which we 
 have proposed to induce more men to re-engage 
 in the Regular Army will no doubt still further 
 check its increase. Under these circumstances 
 we are not prepared to propose any plan as one 
 that may be relied on to secure a large army of 
 
 reserve." 
 
 * General Peel, on introducing the Army Esti- 
 mates in 1867, referred to the recommendations of 
 the Royal Commission as follows : 
 
 * The necessity for a Commission arose from 
 the great difficulty which was experienced in 
 procuring recruits for the Army, and, in point 
 of fact, the question then was, and now is, whether 
 the British Army should be allowed to collapse, 
 
 1 22 & 23 Viet. 42, providing for the enlistment of a force not 
 exceeding 20,000 men as a Reserve for the United Kingdom. It 
 was to consist of persons who had previously served in her Majesty's 
 or the East India Company's forces, and who might volunteer for 
 such further service pensioners, in fact.
 
 1897J SHOKT-SEKVICE MINUTE 123 
 
 whether it should be reduced to the strength of 
 your recruiting powers, or whether your recruiting 
 powers should be raised to that point which should 
 meet the wants of the Service ? " 
 
 ' The Secretary of State for War, in his in- 
 structions to the Military Committee on Army 
 Reorganisation of 1880, thus described the con- 
 dition of the Army during the Crimean War : 
 
 * " During the Crimean War, as is well known, 
 regiments were first denuded of their best men 
 in order to fill up battalions which had proceeded 
 on service, and then were themselves in turn sent 
 to serve in the field, having lost their best men 
 and with their ranks newly filled up. This was 
 felt to be a grave evil, and the intention of the 
 Reserve scheme was evidently that expansion in 
 time of war should be effected, not by drawing 
 men from other battalions, but by bringing them 
 from the Reserves." 
 
 * The measures adopted by the Government 
 on the report of the Commission of 1866-67 
 failed to improve the condition of the Army. 
 In 1870-73 the whole question was reconsidered, 
 and the reports of the Localisation Committee 
 resulted in the final adoption of the short-service 
 system. 
 
 * For many years before 1870, under the long- 
 service system, the Army was from 10,000 to 
 12,000 men below its establishment. Under the 
 short-service system, it is now kept up to its full 
 establishment. 
 
 * During the last ten years of the long-service 
 system, 1861-70, the average number of recruits 
 raised, even under the demoralising system of 
 bounties, only reached 15,084, while during the
 
 124 LOED HALIBUETON [1895- 
 
 past ten years, without bounties, the average 
 has been 33,273. 
 
 * It was shown by the Royal Commission of 
 1866 that, out of 5,622 men composing the drafts 
 of all arms sent to India in the two years, 1864-65, 
 under the long-service system, 2,093 were under 
 twenty years of age, and 2,038 were under one 
 year's service. Under the present system, out of 
 9,770 men composing the Indian drafts in 1895-96, 
 none were under twenty nor under one year's 
 service. 
 
 ' In this respect, under the system of the home 
 battalion feeding its sister battalion abroad, an 
 enormous advance has been made upon the older 
 organisation under which battalions abroad were 
 supplied direct from their depots at home 
 with ill-trained, immature soldiers. Those depots 
 frequently failed to supply the requisite drafts. 
 The Royal Commission of 1866 mentions the case 
 of one regiment which was sending home from 
 India 300 men for discharge, and which had only 
 about fifty men at the depot to replace them. 
 
 * In the evidence before Lord Wantage's Com- 
 mittee it was universally admitted that the Army 
 abroad is better now than it has ever been 
 before. 
 
 * The Royal Commission of 1866-67 stated : 
 
 ' " As a Peace Establishment, and having in 
 view nothing more than the proper provision of 
 that military protection which we are bound to 
 afford to our Indian territories, and our extended 
 Colonial possessions, the Army is at present 
 barely sufficient for these purposes. . . . Perhaps, 
 on a sudden call, we might assemble in the United 
 Kingdom some 40,000 or at most 50,000 effective
 
 1897] SHORT-SERVICE MINUTE 125 
 
 men of all arms of our Regular Forces. What is 
 this when we look at the extent of coast to be 
 defended, or to the numbers which might be 
 thrown on our shores in the course of twenty- 
 four hours ! " 
 
 ' Under the short-service system the force with 
 the Colours at home (exclusive of Auxiliary Forces) 
 amounts to 105,770, and with the First Class Army 
 Reserve this force could on a week's notice be 
 augmented to 183,637 of all arms. 
 
 * This Reserve of 80,000 highly-trained soldiers 
 in the prime of life is maintained ready for im- 
 mediate recall to the Colours when required, at a 
 cost of only three-quarters of a million. A similar 
 force of long-service soldiers would cost over four 
 millions, in addition to the pension charges to 
 which they would give rise. 
 
 * The short -service system has enabled the 
 Government not only to keep the Army up to 
 its strength, but to create, at the same time, 
 that Reserve of fighting men " trained in its ranks" 
 which the Royal Commission of 1866 failed to 
 obtain, and which is now a vital element in the 
 organisation of every army in Europe. 
 
 * Looking to these facts, it may safely be stated 
 that the short-service system has succeeded in 
 remedying the evils which existed under the 
 system it replaced. 
 
 * Any return to the long- service system is im- 
 practicable. It would be as impossible now as 
 it was formerly to obtain recruits willing to serve 
 for prolonged periods. But, even if it were prac- 
 ticable, in order to obtain the number of men fit 
 for active service required for the War Establish- 
 ment (1,067) of an Infantry battalion, in the absence
 
 126 LORD HAL1BURTON [1895- 
 
 of a trained Reserve, a peace establishment of more 
 than 1,200 non-commissioned officers and men 
 would be necessary. 
 
 ' The result would be an increase of between 
 two and three millions to Army expenditure, 
 together with a loss of fighting force of about 
 30,000 Infantrv alone. 
 
 ' / 
 
 * It has been calculated on the best data avail- 
 able that the normal charge for pensions for an 
 Army of the present strength would, on the long- 
 service system, add a million to the British charge 
 for pensions, and a proportionate increase for Indian 
 charges. 
 
 ' Without the Reserve, which the short-service 
 system gives us, we could neither complete two 
 Army Corps for service abroad, nor place three 
 Army Corps in the field for home defence, as we 
 can now do.' 
 
 Haliburton had not been many months in 
 office when the upheaval took place at the War 
 Office which had long been inevitable, but which 
 a train of circumstances had postponed and 
 delayed. 
 
 As far back as June 1888, within a few weeks of 
 the issuing by Mr. Stanhope of the Order in Council 
 referred to on a previous page, 1 the whole question 
 of the distribution of duties at the War Office was 
 reopened before a Royal Commission under the 
 
 1 Supra, p. 73, and vide Military Life of the Duke of Cambridge, 
 ii. 354 ; Three Centuries of Army Administration, p. 40.
 
 1897] THE HAETINGTON COMMITTEE 127 
 
 late Duke of Devonshire, then Marquess of Hart- 
 ington, as chairman. The other members were 
 the Eight Hon. W. H. Smith, Lord Kandolph 
 Churchill, the Right Hon. Henry Campbell- Banner- 
 man, Sir Richard Temple, Admiral Richards, 
 Mr. Ismay (of the White Star Line), and General 
 Brackenbury. The terms of reference were : 
 
 ' To inquire into the civil and professional 
 administration of the Naval and Military Depart- 
 ments and the relation of those departments to 
 each other and to the Treasury ; and to report 
 what changes in their existing system would tend 
 to the efficiency and economy of the public 
 service.' 
 
 The first report, issued in May 1889, dealt 
 chiefly with the relations between the Admiralty 
 and the War Office. The second, issued in May 
 1890, was concerned solely with the internal 
 administration of the War Office. The Commis- 
 sion found : 
 
 1. That there was an excessive centralisation of 
 responsibility in the Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 2. That in the distribution of work among the 
 heads of the great military departments no sufficient 
 provision had been made for the consideration of 
 the plans for the military defence of the Empire 
 as a whole, or for the examination of larger ques- 
 tions of military policy.
 
 128 LOED HALIBUETON [1895- 
 
 3. That the consultative, as distinguished from 
 the executive and administrative element, was 
 not sufficiently represented at the War Office. 1 
 
 The recommendations had included the aboli- 
 tion of the office of Commander-in-Chief on the 
 occurrence of the next vacancy, and the substitu- 
 tion of a Chief of the Staff, but this decision was 
 by no means unanimous, Sir Henry Campbell- 
 Bannerman being among the dissentients. It 
 was most unpopular with the Army at large, which, 
 in Haliburton's words, 2 ' was unwilling to part 
 with that outward and visible sign of its own 
 dignity and power, the Commander-in-Chief, 
 endeared to it by forty years of the genial and 
 sympathetic command of H.R.H. the Duke of 
 Cambridge.' 
 
 The Commissioners acknowledged that, with 
 the Duke at the War Office, it would be inadvis- 
 able to proceed upon the general lines of reorganisa- 
 tion which they indicated in their report. Nor 
 was the moment regarded in any responsible 
 quarter as a propitious one for calling upon his 
 Royal Highness to resign. For the next five 
 years the Army continued to be administered 
 under the Order in Council of 1888, which Lord 
 
 1 See Lord Lansdowne's speech in the House of Lords, August 26, 
 1901, Hansard, xxxvi. 770. 
 
 2 Three Centuries of Army Administration, 41.
 
 1897] THE DUKE OP CAMBEIDGE 129 
 
 Wolseley at a subsequent date pronounced to be 
 perfect, and which Lord Lansdowne, with equal 
 positiveness of language, declared was universally 
 condemned. But by the spring of 1895 the clock 
 had moved onwards, and the Duke of Cambridge, 
 unwilling as he was to admit it, had grown older. 
 A Liberal Ministry was in power, though tottering 
 to its fall, 
 
 * and it was argued by many that, if the recommen- 
 dations of the Hartington Commission were to be 
 disregarded, the Government of the day would, 
 by such an act of omission, commit itself to a tacit 
 approval of the existing constitution and organisa- 
 tion of our Land Forces.' l 
 
 Colonel Verner has published the pathetic 
 letter between the reluctant veteran and his 
 Royal mistress in which Queen Victoria felt 
 compelled to say, ' on the advice of her Ministers,' 
 that, for his own sake, as well as in the public 
 interest, it was inexpedient that he should retain 
 his office beyond the ensuing autumn. This 
 decision was arrived at on May 19, but the secret 
 was kept for a month longer, and the announce- 
 ment by Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, on June 21, 
 of the approaching retirement of the Duke of 
 Cambridge came as a profound surprise to all 
 but a few initiates. 
 
 1 Military Lief of the Duke of Cambridge, ii. 390. 
 
 E
 
 130 LOED HALIBUETON [1895- 
 
 By a special piece of irony the same evening 
 witnessed the defeat of the Liberal Government 
 through what was practically a vote of censure 
 on the Secretary of State for War, and this was 
 promptly followed by the resignation of the 
 Ministry. The night was, indeed, one of surprises . 
 the majority of seven in favour of Mr. Brodrick's 
 amendment l was due to the slackness of the 
 Ministerial Whips on the one hand and the activity 
 of the Service members on the other, but a main 
 factor in the result was the ineffective reply of the 
 Secretary of State for War to the charge of allow- 
 ing the existence of a serious deficiency in the 
 amount of small- arm ammunition. It is not 
 generally known that, owing to the forgetfulness 
 of a subordinate, Sir Henry, as he became in the 
 course of the next few days, was called upon to 
 meet the case of the Opposition without prepara- 
 tion or instruction. 
 
 It is not probable that even if the cordite 
 amendment had been rejected the Government 
 could have kept off the breakers for more than a 
 week or two, but their precipitate retirement from 
 power had one remarkable consequence. Lord 
 Rosebery had decided to recommend Sir Redvers 
 Buller for the post of Commander-in-Chief, about 
 
 1 The total number of votes 132 for, 125 against is significant 
 of the ' snap ' nature of the division.
 
 1897] LORD LANDSDOWNE 131 
 
 to be vacated by the Duke of Cambridge, and 
 Colonel Verner relates that it was almost a matter 
 of minutes whether the appointment could be 
 made before the Liberal Government resigned 
 the seals of office. 1 The accession of Lord Salis- 
 bury saved Lord Wolseley the mortification of 
 seeing his junior and his protege exalted over his 
 head, and it brought Haliburton once more into 
 close association with one for whose genius he had 
 the warmest admiration, and with whom he 
 remained till the hour of his death on terms of 
 intimate friendship. At the same time the know- 
 ledge of the high estimation in which his own 
 abilities were regarded in high places did not make 
 Sir Redvers an easier colleague for the Permanent 
 Under-Secretary. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne succeeded Sir Henry Campbell- 
 Bannerman, and no time was lost in showing that 
 he intended to carry out the changes in the War 
 Office which had already been decided upon by 
 his predecessor. In one most important particular 
 both the outgoing and the incoming Cabinets 
 were resolved to disregard the recommendations 
 of the Hartington Commission ; the office of 
 
 1 Military Life of the Duke of Cambridge, ii. 399. I have always 
 understood that it was this apprehension which caused Lord Salis- 
 bury, contrary to the ordinary usage, to send a messenger to Sir 
 Henry Campbell-Bannerman's private residence with a peremptory 
 request for the surrender of his seal. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 LOED HALIBUETON [1895- 
 
 Commander-in-Chief was retained, and the Chief 
 of the Staff was dropped. But, in communicating 
 to Lord Wolseley the honour that was to be con- 
 ferred upon him, Lord Lansdowne was careful to 
 explain c that changes in the position of the Officer 
 Commanding-in- Chief were inevitable, and that 
 her Majesty's Government reserved to itself an 
 absolutely free hand in regard to these.' 
 
 The upshot of these reforms can be given very 
 briefly in Haliburton's own words : * 
 
 * It was agreed that the great branches of ad- 
 ministration should be under high officials, directly 
 responsible to the Secretary of State for the details 
 of their duties. They were to have direct access, 
 and be responsible for giving advice, to the Secretary 
 of State on all matters within their jurisdiction, 
 and while they could not shelter themselves behind 
 the Commander-in-Chief for not giving advice 
 with which he did not agree, they were bound to 
 refer all questions for his opinion before finally 
 submitting them to the Secretary of State. If 
 they could not reconcile, or subordinate, their 
 opinions, a very rare condition with soldiers, the 
 matter was referred to the Secretary of State, who, 
 after hearing the views of all concerned, was the 
 supreme and final authority.' 
 
 This system, under which for the five years of 
 his appointment he executed the office of Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, was profoundly distasteful to 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 41.
 
 1897] CHANGES AT THE WAE OFFICE 133 
 
 Lord Wolseley, who complained on a celebrated 
 occasion in the House of Lords l that under the 
 existing regime the Adjutant- General and Quarter- 
 Master General were 
 
 ' no longer the Staff Officers of the Commander-in- 
 Chief at Headquarters. They are accountable to 
 the Secretary of State and not to the Commander- 
 in-Chief for the discharge of their duties. They are 
 the Staff Officers of the civilian Secretary of State. 
 . . . Until 1895 the Commander-in- Chief was 
 responsible to the Secretary of State that the Army 
 was thoroughly well trained for war. There is now 
 no one soldier to whom the country can look as 
 directly and professionally responsible for the 
 military efficiency of the Army it pays for.' 
 
 The view that the Orders in Council of the 
 autumn of 1895 increased the power of the Secretary 
 of State at the expense of that of the Commander- 
 in-Chief was not shared by Haliburton, who went 
 so far as to style it a delusion : 2 
 
 * The 1895 system in no way affected the position 
 or the power of the Secretary of State. . . . The 
 Secretary of State was supreme, as he always 
 must be under a constitutional Government ; 
 under him were high officials, responsible for 
 sections of the work of the office in all its details, 
 while over them was the Commander-in-Chief, 
 as general military manager and adviser, respon- 
 
 1 Hansard, xc. 327. 
 
 * Army Administration, p. 63.
 
 134 LOED HALIBUKTON [1895- 
 
 sible for exercising general supervision over the 
 military departments, for seeing that nothing 
 was done which he disapproved of, without the 
 Secretary of State's sanction, and responsible that 
 the military staff worked together for the good of 
 the Service.' l 
 
 And to show that this ' general supervision ' 
 was no mere faqon de parler, he quoted the rules 
 of procedure under the Orders in Council which 
 direct that 
 
 * all important questions will be referred to the 
 Commander-in-Chief before submission to the 
 Secretary of State. Questions which do not re- 
 quire the Secretary of State's decision, but which 
 affect more than one of the military departments, 
 will be referred to the Commander-in-Chief for 
 decision.' 
 
 The root-and-branch revolutions of the last 
 five years have rendered the question one of 
 scarcely more than academic interest. But as it 
 was under these rules and orders that the two 
 final and most responsible years of Haliburton's 
 official life were spent, I have thought it better 
 to reproduce in his own words his description of 
 the system which he was called upon to administer. 
 He entertained strong objections to many of the 
 changes introduced into the administration of the 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 42.
 
 1897] INDEPENDENCE AND KESPONSIBILITY 135 
 
 Army both by Mr. Stanhope and by Lord 
 Lansdowne. But his objections were based on 
 constitutional grounds, on their effect in prac- 
 tically destroying civil control over Army expendi- 
 ture. Between the systems of 1888 and 1895 he 
 pronounced that there was a distinction without 
 a difference ; so far as there was any difference, it 
 was in favour of the latter. 1 
 
 Nevertheless the final adoption of the recom- 
 mendations of the Hartington Commission in the 
 autumn of 1895 entailed a general reorganisation 
 of the War Office, a readjustment of departments 
 and of duties in which the interests and the claims 
 of over 1,100 employees of every degree and station 
 were found to be in frequent conflict. It was 
 a work of great difficulty and complexity, but no 
 man was better qualified to cope with it than 
 Haliburton. In a few months everything had 
 settled down and was moving in well-oiled grooves. 
 
 The period between March 1895 and Sep- 
 tember 1897 was the crown of his active career. 
 For the first time he enjoyed a full measure of 
 independence and responsibility. His long training, 
 his wide experience, his profound knowledge of 
 mankind, partly instinctive, partly acquired, had 
 at last their proper scope. He was now one of 
 that little hierarchy of the permanent heads of 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 45.
 
 136 LOED HALIBUKTON [1895- 
 
 departments on whom the whole fabric of adminis- 
 tration rests, and few have emerged from the 
 ordeal with a higher record. But the delicate 
 and confidential nature of so much of his work, 
 as well as the obligations and traditions of the 
 service, forbid any chronicle of these arduous 
 years. 
 
 To lift the veil from his sanctum in Pall Mall 
 would be a breach of official decorum that no one 
 would have resented more strongly than the subject 
 of this memoir. 
 
 4 Important " things," i.e. War Office news, used 
 to get out now and then, 5 he wrote in September 
 1899, * and always will, but these little personal 
 records are a lower " rung," and quite new. Who 
 is the culprit ? Is he on a three-legged stool, or 
 is he in a comfortable armchair ? ' 
 
 It is the burden of the Civil Servant that he 
 must do good by stealth and must leave unclaimed 
 the fruits of his labours. There are compensations, 
 and, as a fellow- worker wrote to Haliburton, 
 
 ' one is not called on to do any dirty or doubtful 
 business, or to do what in private employment 
 might press on one. If anybody starts hard 
 practice either on the public or on an individual 
 it is his own foolishness.' 
 
 The making of bricks without straw is the 
 task of all who, from time to time, are responsible
 
 1897] A TEOUBLED PEEIOD 137 
 
 for the administration and governance of the British 
 Army. ' Drafts, drafts, drafts,' was the perpetual 
 burden of the song that sounded in Haliburton's 
 ears. When he retired in 1897, Short Service 
 was again trembling in the balance. And a 
 fresh source of embarrassment was due to the 
 unrest occasioned in South Africa by the Jameson 
 Raid and its immediate sequdce. There was one 
 party in the Cabinet which called for the applica- 
 tion of the mailed fist, another which vetoed the 
 reinforcement of the British garrison on the 
 ground of expense, and a third which was un- 
 willing to take any decided step for fear of 
 exasperating the Boers and hurrying on a cata- 
 strophe. 
 
 *I can't understand the ways of politicians,' 
 Haliburton wrote from Tunbridge Wells in Novem- 
 ber 1896, ' they are so d d politic ! If it is necessary 
 to reinforce in South Africa on account of the extra- 
 ordinary preparations of the Boers, why can't we 
 say so plainly and openly in the face of the world ? 
 We could say it without offence and without being 
 liable to be accused of aggressive designs. Why 
 should we not say to Oom Paul, " You are arming 
 in a way that can have no purpose other than an 
 attack sooner or later on British possessions. We 
 do not object to your arming, but we will take 
 measures to prevent you using your arms to our 
 detriment. When you disarm, we will modify our 
 precautionary measures." Who can object to this ?
 
 138 LOED HALIBURTON [1896- 
 
 There can be no doubt that this arming gives ground 
 for grave possibilities. " The means to do ill deeds 
 makes ill deeds done," and want of preparation 
 against contingencies tends to precipitate them. 
 If the dangers exist we should meet them in an 
 open and straightforward way, declaring our 
 intentions and our reasons. Giving sham reasons 
 and making no sufficient preparations will only 
 bring about what we wish to avoid. These are 
 the views of Haliburton of Tunbridge Wells, not 
 of his namesake of Pall Mall ! The Pall Mall man 
 is only an official.' 
 
 The life of Haliburton of Pall Mall was brought 
 to a close, under the Civil Service Regulations, on 
 his attaining the age of sixty-five. 
 
 ' It is difficult to realise the expediency of 
 general rules,' wrote General Sir Henry Alderson 
 to Lady Haliburton, ' when their operation involves 
 the loss of an individual administrator whose 
 powers are at their ripest and best. Nothing re- 
 mains but to wish him, after the arduous duties of 
 his long and interesting service, every happiness in 
 his retirement and a hobby with which to season 
 it. For you there will be the compensation that 
 you will be able to see a little more of him than his 
 absorbing work at the War Office has hitherto 
 allowed.' 
 
 But though Haliburton' s mental vigour was at 
 the zenith, it was far otherwise with his bodily 
 health. He had never really recovered from the 
 mischance which had put him hors de combat
 
 1897] EETIEEMENT 139 
 
 during the summer of 1882. 1 As the years rolled 
 by his lameness had increased while his powers 
 of locomotion became more and more limited, 
 and another fall in the spring of 1897 made him 
 permanently dependent upon crutches. To a 
 man of his powerful physique this necessity was 
 a sore burden, and the injured limb was the 
 source of severe and constant pain. The time had 
 come when he was fully entitled to claim his 
 release from toil and responsibility. 
 
 Yet when the parting came it was a painful 
 wrench, though alleviated by the warmth of the 
 farewells and by the appreciation which found 
 expression in the mouths of his fellow-workers 
 from the highest to the lowest. On the 
 Birthday immediately preceding his retirement, 
 Lord Salisbury had communicated to him the 
 Queen's pleasure that he should be admitted to 
 the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, ' in 
 recognition of the distinguished and valuable 
 administrative services which for a great number 
 of years you have rendered to the State.' But 
 almost more gratifying was the chorus of lamenta- 
 tion which went up a few months later from those 
 who had c thought and wrought and toiled ' with 
 him in the War Office. The break-up of old 
 associations was an ordeal made bearable by the 
 
 1 Vide supra, p. 48.
 
 140 LOED HALIBUETON [1896- 
 
 strength of conviction so visible among all sorts 
 and conditions of his subordinates that they were 
 parting from a government that was strong as it 
 was wise. 
 
 * May I, when I go, which cannot be long now, 
 leave the office as much regretted as you are,' 
 wrote Sir Gorge Lawson, with whom he had been 
 so long and so closely associated. *I feel some 
 diffidence in saying how much I have admired you 
 since I have been brought into contact with you,' 
 says his private secretary, * but I only express the 
 general opinion of the office when I regret that you 
 did not become Permanent Under- Secretary five 
 years earlier, or could not remain for five years 
 longer. You have always made my work so 
 pleasant to me that I have never felt it a toil. 
 My only wish has been to have saved you more 
 of the drudgery.' 
 
 And a testimonial came from an unexpected 
 quarter in the shape of a letter on behalf of the 
 Wesleyan Army and Navy Committee, who desired 
 to express their appreciation of the consideration 
 with which Haliburton had always received their 
 representatives. 
 
 What the Secretary of State for War thought 
 of his Remembrancer can only be realised by those 
 who have read the correspondence which passed 
 between them. Haliburton' s force of character 
 and range of information, together with his lawyer- 
 like power of discarding superficialities and only
 
 1897] LETTEES FEOM HIS COLLEAGUES 141 
 
 using what was absolutely necessary for the occa- 
 sion, were qualities which carried special weight 
 with a statesman who looked for breadth of view 
 combined with minute knowledge of detail. The 
 following letter from a colleague 1 whose previous 
 training had included no experience of Government 
 offices or military questions gives us a glimpse 
 of that unaffected courtesy which endeared Hali- 
 burton to the whole of the establishment in Pall 
 Mall :- 
 
 * I thank you very much for your letter of the 
 25th, a though I do not believe the most part of 
 what you say. In my opinion you are wrong in 
 thinking that you ought to go, and much more 
 wrong in going. The office can ill afford the loss, 
 and those who have had the advantage of working 
 with you can afford it still less. And as to what 
 you say about my " kindness and consideration," I 
 really hesitate to set the words down it is im- 
 possible to have carried those good qualities to a 
 higher perfection than you have done in dealing 
 with me. I expect that it is a mark of the better 
 sort that they think that they are gaining benefit 
 from those virtues in others when in reality they 
 are themselves exercising them. But, anyhow, 
 I am very grateful to you, very sorry that you are 
 going, and very anxious to serve you in every way 
 in my power.' 
 
 1 The late Right Hon. J. Powell Williams, M.P., Financial 
 Secretary to the War Office, 1895-1900, vide infra, p. 152. 
 
 2 September 1897.
 
 142 LOED HALIBUETON [1895- 
 
 Nor was it only in the War Office that Hali- 
 burton's retirement was regarded as a heavy loss 
 to the public service. Sir Francis Mowatt, the 
 Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, who had 
 been closely associated with him in public inquiries 
 as well as in those walks of duty where the spending 
 and the controlling departments are supposed to 
 be ever at friction, was most warm in his apprecia- 
 tion of one who never asked for what was not 
 needed and who never receded from a position he 
 had once taken up. ' Tell Lady Haliburton,' 
 he wrote to her husband, ' that she would be a 
 proud woman if she could hear one-half of the 
 regrets that are expressed on all sides at your 
 going.' And in a letter to her ladyship Sir 
 Francis declared that 
 
 * the Secretary of the Treasury would have an easy 
 post if at the head of each of the Departments of 
 State were your husband or some one like him. 
 I shall be very fortunate if the relations between 
 our departments remain on a footing as satis- 
 factory as that of the last three years.' 
 
 Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes may possibly be 
 applied to such eulogy from a representative of 
 the Treasury, but Haliburton's latter days at the 
 War Office were not one of those epochs against 
 which the charge of ' cutting the estimates ' can 
 be brought with any show of justice.
 
 1897] INVITATION TO DINNEE 143 
 
 The staff in Pall Mall were unwilling to part 
 from him without that crowning token of esteem 
 which custom has consecrated among English- 
 men. Accordingly an invitation was issued in the 
 names of Lord Lansdowne and Lord Wolseley, 
 on behalf of the senior members of the civil and 
 military branches of the War Office, to a dinner at 
 which his friends might bid farewell to Sir Arthur 
 Haliburton in solemn form. Unfortunately the 
 effects of his accident precluded the acceptance of 
 a compliment which would have been especially 
 appreciated by one who was ever the most genial 
 of hosts. 1 
 
 * I have always,' he wrote in reply, * taken the 
 deepest interest in the efficiency and welfare of 
 the Army, and my work in Pall Mall has therefore 
 ever been to me a labour of love. It is a great 
 pleasure to me to feel that my labours have met 
 with the sympathy and approval of my colleagues 
 and chiefs, an approval which I think I may 
 opine your kind invitation was intended to 
 express.' 
 
 The selection of so distinguished a soldier as 
 Sir Evelyn Wood to be the medium of the invita- 
 tion was flattering in itself and a sufficient re- 
 futation of the baseless notion that during Hali- 
 
 1 ' I have declined the dinner on account of the T.T.,' he wrote 
 to a young friend. The initials, I imagine, stand for ' Timber 
 Toes.'
 
 144 LOED HALIBUETON [1896-1897 
 
 burton's term of office the civil and military sides 
 of the War Office were prone to pull different 
 ways. 
 
 * I cannot recall,' wrote the Quartermaster- 
 General, * that you have ever written or said a word 
 that has made even a jar in my mind, and all my 
 recollections of our associations in work will be 
 of the most agreeable nature.'
 
 145 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 1897-1898 
 
 The Short-Service Controversy Mr. Arnold-Forster's Letters to 
 the Times Haliburton's Reply. 
 
 DURING the months which preceded, and in those 
 which followed the retirement of Sir Arthur 
 Haliburton from the War Office, the minds of 
 Ministers had been exercised by demands for a 
 substantial addition to the strength of the Army. 
 The united efforts of President Cleveland, President 
 Kruger, and the Kaiser had roused the British 
 public to an unwonted interest in military affairs. 
 Highly- coloured statements as to the national 
 unreadiness and inefficiency had caused wide- 
 spread uneasiness. And early in 1897 the Service 
 members, who had come back in unabated vigour 
 after the General Election of 1895, had presented a 
 strongly worded memorial to the Prime Minister in 
 which the administration of the land forces of the 
 Crown were subjected to unsparing denunciation. 
 
 Meanwhile a vigorous Press campaign was 
 being carried on, and in November a series of 
 
 L
 
 146 LOED HALIBUETON [1897- 
 
 letters appeared in the ' Times ' from the pen of 
 Mr. Arnold-Forster, in whom the chorus of hostile 
 criticism found its most vigorous exponent ; in 
 Haliburton's words, ' his indictment was so long 
 and so elaborate that, like Aaron's rod, it 
 swallowed up the rest.' Mr. Arnold-Forster was 
 as yet untried in office, but he had sat in Parlia- 
 ment for eleven years as an active member 
 of the Unionist party, making himself heard on 
 many topics, but devoting himself specially to all 
 questions connected with the fighting services. 
 As far back as 1881 he had contributed an article 
 to the ' Nineteenth Century,' entitled ' A Civilian's 
 Reply to Sir Garnet Wolseley,' and from that 
 date onward he had been a diligent student 
 of military and naval affairs both at home and 
 abroad. He had been at the manoeuvres of 
 nearly every army in Europe and constantly a^ 
 those of our own troops. He had marched with 
 the infantry and ridden with the cavalry. He 
 had seen the artillery firing and experiments in 
 gunnery of every kind. He claimed personal 
 knowledge of our camps, barracks, and arsenals, 
 and a wide acquaintance with soldiers of every 
 rank and in every branch of the Service. 1 He 
 combined great industry, a vigorous and expressive 
 
 1 The War Office, the Army, and the Empire, by the Right Hon. 
 H. 0. Arnold-Forster, M.P., p. 4.
 
 1898] ME. ARNOLD-FORSTER'S LETTERS 147 
 
 vocabulary, and much skill in marshalling and 
 presenting his facts, with dauntless courage and 
 faith capable of removing mountains. 
 
 The assumption on which his arguments rested 
 was based on an utter breakdown of the organisa- 
 tion of the Army ' in spite of the heroic efforts of 
 the regimental officers.' l This breakdown, he de- 
 clared, was not accidental but inevitable ; it was 
 neither local nor temporary, but the symptom of 
 a deeply rooted disease, and a necessary outcome 
 of the existing system ; it had been foreseen with 
 absolute certainty by everyone who had followed 
 the working of the military machine during the 
 last ten years. Mr. Arnold-Forster undertook 
 
 ' to demonstrate in the clearest possible fashion 
 that the main principles of our present Army 
 organisation are contrary to common sense, are 
 in direct defiance of the teachings of experience, 
 are framed with a total disregard of human nature, 
 and are bound, by their very essence, to fail. 2 
 
 ' The system,' he contended, ' has broken down 
 at every point, the linked battalions do not per- 
 form their mutual office, the depots do not fill up 
 their gaps, the required recruits are not forth- 
 coming, those who are obtained are not of the 
 right stamp or quality. The six years' term has 
 had to be abandoned. The Reserve, to acquire 
 which the whole system was formulated, is of 
 doubtful value, and is decreasing in number. 
 
 1 Times, November 11, 1897. r Ibid. November 20. 
 
 i. 2
 
 148 LOED HALIBUBTON [1897- 
 
 The regimental officers, almost without exception, 
 frankly detest the system. The majority of 
 officers in high commands outside the War Office 
 do not hesitate to condemn it.' 1 
 
 The letters appeared in the ' Times ' of Novem- 
 ber 11, 16, 18, 20, 23, 30, 2 and they received the 
 editorial approbation of what was still the greatest 
 journalistic force in Europe. The leader-writer 
 of the morning on which the last of them appeared 
 was instructed to declare that Mr. Arnold-Forster 
 
 * had painted a striking picture, the broad features 
 of which are vouched for by the admissions of 
 those responsible for the Army, 3 and by the 
 patent evidence of inefficiency upon which they 
 
 1 Times, November 20. 
 
 2 A further letter, by way of rejoinder to Sir Arthur Haliburton, 
 appeared on January 3, 1898. 
 
 8 At the Cutlers' Feast at Sheffield on November 4 Sir -Michael 
 Hicks Beach, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had made a re- 
 markable speech in which he deprecated any increase of the 
 Army Estimates without a thorough overhauling of the War Office, 
 and suggested the existence of unnecessary friction between the 
 civil and the military elements (Annual Register, 1897, p. 211). 
 The insinuation can hardly have been more agreeable to Lord 
 Lansdowne than it was to Haliburton. ' He is a sort of Judas 
 among Cabinet Ministers,' wrote the latter. ' He thinks he can 
 use the purse to better purpose than they can, and therefore he 
 discredits their administration. To have a member of the Cabinet 
 criticising the possible demands of one of his colleagues before they 
 are made, and insinuating that the administration is defective, is 
 a little too much. He qualifies it by confessing his ignorance ; but 
 the proper course for an ignorant Cabinet Minister is silence ! 
 Criticism based on ignorance is well enough for a politician in 
 opposition, but it comes ill from one of the Ministry. The bird is 
 fouling his own nest.'
 
 1898] THE ' TIMES ' 149 
 
 rest their demand for increased efficiency. He 
 has drawn up an indictment too formidable to be 
 ignored by a department about to ask Parliament 
 to spend large sums of money in addition to the 
 enormous existing expenditure. The country will 
 wait with keen curiosity to see what reply the 
 War Office has to make, not to this or that iso- 
 lated appreciation, but to the broad substantial 
 charge that the legions it pretends to furnish do 
 not exist.' 1 
 
 And Mr. Arnold-Forster himself had flung down 
 a similar challenge. 
 
 ' The onus of proof lies upon the War Office and 
 upon the upholders of the present system. It is 
 their duty to justify and excuse themselves, if they 
 can. They come before the country as men who 
 have failed, and they advocate the continuance of 
 a system which, with unlimited money and un- 
 limited goodwill behind it, has absolutely broken 
 down. 2 
 
 Parliament was to reassemble in the course 
 of a few weeks, and in ordinary circumstances 
 Parliament was the place in which the impugned 
 department would make its defence. Bui? the 
 sweeping nature of the attack, the air of con- 
 fident omniscience with which it was delivered, 
 and the prominence allotted to it in the columns 
 of the ' Times,' seemed to call for an immediate 
 answer. To leave Mr. Arnold-Forster's facts and 
 
 1 Times, November 30. a Ibid. November 20.
 
 150 LORD HALIBURTON [1897- 
 
 figures unchallenged would create an impression 
 in the public mind which might irretrievably 
 damage the Secretary of State in his policy and 
 programme for the ensuing session. 1 It was 
 impossible for Lord Lansdowne and scarcely more 
 practicable for any of his subordinates to enter 
 the lists in person. But the case for the prosecu- 
 tion was presented so plausibly and from such 
 apparent familiarity with the whole mechanism 
 of the Army machine that anyone save a trained 
 controversialist, possessing an intimate knowledge 
 of a crabbed and intricate subject, would be more 
 likely to prejudice the defence than assist it. 
 
 In this emergency Sir Arthur Haliburton 
 expressed to Lord Lansdowne his willingness to 
 take up the cudgels on behalf of the system which 
 he had so long helped to administer. During his 
 last months at the War Office his ears had caught 
 the mutterings of a coming storm. The protest 
 of the Military Members and the clamour in the 
 Press had warned him not only of a general dis- 
 satisfaction with the organisation and adminis- 
 tration of the Army, but of a strong desire in 
 
 1 Lord Lansdowne was at this moment engaged in drawing up 
 a scheme for the increase of the Army by ten battalions and fifteen 
 batteries. The memorandum setting out and justifying his demands 
 was presented to the Cabinet on December 15. (Report of the 
 Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, pp. 249 et seq., especi- 
 ally p. 253).
 
 1898] EEPLY TO ME. AENOLD-FOESTEE 151 
 
 influential quarters to revert, in one form or 
 another, to the ideals of a former generation. Nor 
 did he stand alone in his anticipations. ' I have 
 a strong foreboding,' wrote Sir Charles Welby, 
 then private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, and 
 one of Haliburton's most faithful correspondents, 
 ' of a big long-service or, anyhow, " anti-present 
 system " landslide, which we shall have to fight 
 to the death, but which may overwhelm us and 
 lead to resignations, &c.' 
 
 It was no part of Haliburton's object to meet 
 the general assault upon the War Office, its per- 
 sonnel and its methods, which gave spice to the 
 letters of Mr. Arnold-Forster and the rest. Still 
 less did he undertake to prove that the existing 
 military establishment was adequate to the 
 burden imposed upon it by our ever-increasing 
 Imperial responsibilities. His aim was simply 
 to show that the system inaugurated by Lord 
 Cardwell was enormously superior to that which 
 it superseded, that, in his own words, the 
 fruits of the long service army were ' atrophy, 
 sterility, and extravagance ' ; and that it had 
 been replaced by a system ' vigorous, prolific, and 
 economical.' 
 
 His original inclination had been in the direc- 
 tion of an article in the * Nineteenth Century,' and 
 the late Sir James Knowles placed at his disposal
 
 152 LOED HALIBUBTON [1897- 
 
 a liberal allowance of space in the forthcoming 
 January number of that Review. But the letters 
 of Mr. Arnold-Forster were attracting so much 
 attention and causing so much popular ferment 
 that, much to Sir James's chagrin, Haliburton 
 decided to pick up the glove with the least possible 
 delay in the arena where it had been thrown down. 
 Mr. Arnold-Forster' s concluding shot had been fired 
 on November 30, and the ' Times ' for December 3, 
 6, and 9, contained Haliburton' s reply. These 
 letters and the two subsequent ones of January 11 
 and 22, 1898, were republished, with substantial 
 additions, in a pamphlet entitled ' Army Organisa- 
 tion l : a Short Reply to Long Service.' It is this 
 pamphlet which I have followed, though with the 
 ' Times ' letters on the desk before me, in my 
 endeavour to summarise Haliburton' s argument. 
 In a newspaper controversy the importation of a 
 certain amount of personal, and not strictly 
 relevant, matter was unavoidable. In a pamphlet 
 these disfigurements could be shed and the case 
 treated as what it essentially was, a question of 
 arithmetic, * what system of Army organisation 
 will give the nation a maximum of efficient fighting 
 strength at a minimum cost ? ' 
 
 1 The title, curiously enough, was the invention of the late 
 Mr. Powell Williams, M.P., for whom, though he looked upon him 
 as a fish out of water in the War Office, Haliburton had a strong 
 personal regard.
 
 1898] SHOKT VEKSUS LONG SERVICE 153 
 
 Mr. Arnold-Forster had declared 1 ' that the 
 present Army system was invented, and is main- 
 tained, in order to give the country an army. 
 The system, as a matter of fact, has not produced, 
 and cannot produce, an army.' While repudiating, 
 for the most part, any desire to go back to the 
 pre-Cardwellian organisation, the critics had 
 gradually formulated their views in two main 
 proposals the establishment of a long service 
 army for India and the colonies, and the creation 
 of a separate short service army for the United 
 Kingdom, while innumerable passages in their 
 writings proved that their objection was to the 
 whole system. 2 In order to determine whether 
 a complete or partial return from short to long 
 service was practicable or desirable, and to show 
 the effect which such a course would have on our 
 fighting strength, Sir Arthur Haliburton undertook 
 to examine both systems, to review the fruits that 
 each has produced, and to judge them by their 
 fruits. 
 
 'It will simplify this examination,' he wrote, 
 ' and keep the statistics which are essential to it 
 within reasonable limits, if it be mainly confined 
 
 1 Times, November 16. 
 
 9 It is only fair to say that, in his letter to the Times of Novem- 
 ber 30, Mr. Arnold-Forster had expressly rejected the idea of 
 enlisting a separate Indian Army, to the maintenance of which he 
 declared that the political objections were insuperable.
 
 154 LOED HALIBURTON [1897- 
 
 to the Infantry of the Line. That is the largest 
 and most important arm of the service ; it is the 
 one which has formed the subject of most of the 
 criticisms, while the general principles involved are 
 alike applicable to all arms.' 
 
 The first step in the chain was to remove two 
 erroneous impressions which had got firm hold 
 of the public mind, and were at the root of the 
 present agitation. It was generally believed, in 
 the first place, that short service was introduced 
 into the country for the first time by Mr. Cardwell, 
 and, secondly, that, up to 1870, long service had 
 adequately met the requirements of the army. 
 Both these beliefs were unfounded. 
 
 For more than a century and a half, whenever 
 a strain was thrown upon the army, long service 
 failed to meet its requirements, and ' short enlist- 
 ments ' for two, three, or five years, or for the 
 duration of particular campaigns, were resorted 
 to in order to fill the ranks up to fighting strength. 
 This had been the case under Queen Anne and 
 under George II., and in the incessant wars which 
 occupied so large a portion of the reign of his 
 successor. 1 
 
 Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century 
 the normal period of enlistment was for life, which 
 meant for about twenty-four years. In 1806 Mr. 
 
 1 See Fortescue, History of the British Army, ii. 572, and iii. 
 528 (n.).
 
 1898] THE HISTORY OF LONG SERVICE 155 
 
 Windham passed a Short Service Act limiting en- 
 listment in the infantry to seven years, with power 
 of renewal for two similar periods. In 1808 the 
 Government of the Duke of Portland re-authorised 
 life enlistments, and offered large bounties at 
 times as high as 40Z. to all who accepted the 
 longer term. These bounties killed short service 
 for the time being, and, though the short enlist- 
 ment remained open for recruits until 1829, it was 
 discouraged and, in that year, finally prohibited. 
 
 Continued difficulty was experienced in ob- 
 taining recruits. In 1847, in the teeth of ' the 
 service ' ten year enlistments were adopted, with 
 liberty to re-engage and complete twenty-one 
 years ; l and this was the system prevailing when 
 the Crimean War broke out. It failed to make 
 good the wear and tear of that campaign, and an 
 Act was passed in 1855, 2 authorising the enlistment 
 of men for two years, with power to retain them 
 for one year more. In the time of peace that 
 followed the suppression of the Indian Mutiny the 
 difficulties of recruiting became more and more 
 pronounced, and at the same time the armies of 
 
 1 In his evidence before the Wantage Committee (Q. 4445), 
 Lord Wolseley declared that the Duke of Wellington was originally 
 a strong opponent of this measure, until it was shown him that 
 nearly every man who had fought his battles in the Peninsula war 
 enlisted under Windham's Act. 
 
 2 See Panmure Papers, i. 79, 92.
 
 156 LORD HALIBUETON [1897- 
 
 the Continent were revolutionising their organisa- 
 tion. Twice at least during Lord Palmerston's 
 last Premiership we were on the brink of a great 
 war, yet, in 1866, a Royal Commission reported that 
 we had been content to exist from hand to mouth, 
 with no forecast for the future, and that the existing 
 strength of the British Army was barely sufficient 
 for a period of peace. 1 In fact, the British Army 
 was in a state of collapse. The home establish- 
 ment was below strength, and shrinking year by 
 year. The half-hearted and tentative efforts at 
 creating a reserve had resulted in complete failure, 
 and the only available means of expanding the 
 Army in case of war was by rilling the ranks 
 with raw and untrained recruits. 2 
 
 Yet the key to the problem had been pointed 
 
 1 Army Organisation, pp. 9, 10 ; and vide, supra, p. 122. 
 
 2 The late Sir William Russell has placed on record what he 
 saw as our men were streaming back from the unsuccessful assault 
 on the Redan (September 7, 1855). ' One poor young fellow, 
 who was stumping stiffly up with a broken arm and a ball through 
 his shoulder, carried off his firelock with him, but he made a naive 
 confession that he had " never fired it off, for he could not." The 
 piece turned out to be in excellent order. It struck me that such 
 men as these, however brave, were scarcely a match for the well- 
 drilled soldiers of Russia, and yet we were trusting the honour, 
 reputation, and glory of Great Britain to undisciplined lads from 
 the plough or the lanes of our towns and villages. As one example 
 of the sort of recruits we receive, I may mention that there was a 
 considerable number of men in drafts which came out to regiments 
 hi the Fourth Division who had only been enlisted a few days, and 
 who had never fired a rifle in their lives.' The British Expedition 
 to the Crimea, by William Howard Russell, p. 356.
 
 1898] THE BREAKDOWN OF LONG SERVICE 157 
 
 out by more than one warning voice. 1 The 
 Prussian mobilisation of 1866, and the victory of 
 Sadowa, had shown what could be accomplished by 
 soldiers of three years' service recalled suddenly 
 to the ranks. To keep our regular forces on a 
 permanent footing sufficient to repel invasion 
 would impose a burden too heavy to be borne. 
 The only possible way of expanding the Army 
 from a peace to a war footing was that of allowing 
 the soldier, after a short service with the colours, 
 to leave the ranks, subject to the obligation of 
 returning when required. 
 
 The Conservative Government of that day, how- 
 ever, were unequal to rising to such a conception. 
 
 ' Instead of trying to increase the fighting force 
 by the creation of a Reserve trained in the ranks, 
 as all the other great Powers had done, and over- 
 looking the fact that it was the length of the term 
 which defeated all their efforts to fill the ranks, 
 they actually extended the term from ten to twelve 
 years, and offered an additional futile 2d. per diem 
 in the vain hope of enticing them to the colours.' : 
 
 The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 
 July 1870, the debdcle of the Empire, and the heroic 
 
 1 Army Organisation, pp. 6, 9. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 10. The Army Reserve Act of 1867 (30 and 31 Viet, 
 c. 110) provided for the creation of a separate force, not trained 
 with the colours at all. It continued the system of 1859 (supra, 
 p. 122, n.), and was a mere piece of make-believe; the useful 
 but limited Militia Reserve was created by 30 and 31 Viet. c. 111.
 
 158 LOED HALTBUBTON [1897- 
 
 but futile struggles of the Republican levies, came 
 on England like a thunderclap. We indulged in a 
 panic, the lasting memorial of which is ' The Battle 
 of Dorking ' ; and the breakdown of long service 
 was at last recognised it not only was unequal to 
 keep up the peace establishment but must of 
 necessity fail to give the Army a trained Reserve. 
 
 Without this impetus it may be doubted 
 whether Cardwell could have carried with him a 
 nation absolutely devoid of intelligent interest in 
 the working of its military system. In the ex- 
 isting circumstances he found little difficulty in 
 establishing the short service system six years 
 with the colours and six years in the Reserve. 1 
 ' It speedily became apparent that this measure 2 
 solved the recruiting difficulty which had been the 
 despair of Royal Commissions and Governments 
 for many years.' 3 
 
 Between 1861 and 1870 the number of recruits 
 obtained annually under long service had averaged 
 about 15,000, and, during the same period, though 
 the army was reduced by 40,000 men, its strength, 
 in spite of the demoralising system of bounties, 
 
 1 Owing to the exigencies of Indian service the term with the 
 colours was extended, shortly afterwards, to seven years ; and to 
 eight years, if the soldier is abroad on the expiration of his seventh 
 year. 
 
 3 The Army Enlistment Act of 1870. 
 
 * Army Organisation, p. 12.
 
 1898] FEUITS OF THE TWO SYSTEMS 159 
 
 averaged 3,312 below establishment. Extending 
 the period backwards to 1854 the annual average 
 deficiency was 7,488. 
 
 The number of recruits raised annually under 
 short service between 1870 and 1897 had averaged 
 28,900, while between 1889 and 1897 the average 
 had risen to 33,725 ; l and with temporary excep- 
 tions the peace establishments had been main- 
 tained at their full strength. In 1870 we were at 
 our wits' end to maintain an infantry force of 
 108,266, without any Reserve. In 1897 we were 
 maintaining 137,612, and had an infantry reserve 
 of 51,948." 
 
 It was commonly objected against the short 
 service recruits that they were ' mere boys,' and 
 ' children,' ' unfit even for peace service at home,' 
 and that they were enlisted at an age much younger 
 than was ever tolerated under long service. Hali- 
 burton had no difficulty in showing that the same 
 complaints, couched in almost identical terms, had 
 been in vogue ever since the beginning of the 
 century. He quoted Windham's speech on intro- 
 ducing the Recruiting Act of 1806 ; the report of 
 the Royal Commission of 1861 ; the evidence 
 given before the Royal Commission of 1866 by 
 
 1 There is a slight discrepancy between these figures and those 
 given at p. 124 ; but the periods selected are not exactly the same. 
 9 Army Organisation, p. 14.
 
 160 LOED HALIBUETON [1897- 
 
 Lord William Paulet, the then Adjutant- General. 
 And he pointed out that in 1897 there were only 
 138 soldiers per thousand under twenty years of 
 age, as against 190 per thousand in 1871. * 
 
 It was frequently and persistently alleged that 
 the recruits now taken were inferior in quality to 
 those obtained under the old system. In answer 
 to this Haliburton cited the evidence before the 
 Wantage Committee of, amongst others, the Duke 
 of Cambridge, Viscount Wolseley, and Sir Kedvers 
 Buller. 2 While allowing that the average recruits 
 were too young for immediate active service, 
 there was complete agreement that the modern 
 recruits were of the same description we had 
 always had boys, not men, but giving the same 
 promise of physical development as their predeces- 
 sors in the days of long service. 
 
 Nor, indeed, in spite of the popular prejudice 
 to the contrary, was it desirable in the best interests 
 of the Army to obtain older recruits. Even so 
 conservative a soldier as the Duke of Cambridge 
 had told the Wantage Commission that the man 
 who enlists after twenty is not so good in the long 
 run as the boy who joins in his teens. 3 And an 
 authority widely experienced in all matters con- 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 18. 
 
 2 Minutes of Evidence, pp. 60, 72, 276. 
 
 3 Ibid. Q. 2034, p. 73,
 
 1898] THE BOY EECEUIT 161 
 
 nected with recruiting, Deputy-Surgeon General 
 Don, had been most emphatic on this subject : 
 
 'Any gain to be secured in physical develop- 
 ment would be more than counterbalanced by 
 deteriorated moral adaptability. Under twenty 
 both body and mind are flexible, and amenable to 
 the good influences of military drill and discipline. 
 Over-twenty recruits, except for Royal Engineers, 
 are now drawn from the strata of poor workmen, 
 dissipated idlers, and rolling stones.' l 
 
 * The reason,' adds Haliburton, ' why lads, en- 
 listed between the ages of seventeen and eighteen, 
 ultimately became much finer soldiers than those 
 enlisted at or above twenty is obvious. In this 
 country most young men of eighteen and upwards 
 have selected some occupation in life. Those that 
 succeed in their occupation do not enlist ; those 
 who fail, and those described by Surgeon- General 
 Don, fall to the share of the Army. This they do 
 after a struggle with straitened and adverse con- 
 ditions, which impairs their physical and moral 
 worth. On the other hand, young recruits on 
 enlistment are well fed, clothed and housed, their 
 physique is developed by gymnastic training and 
 drill, and their morale is improved by the strict 
 discipline of regimental life. By the time they are 
 twenty they have completed their military in- 
 struction, and have developed into much finer men 
 and better soldiers than they could possibly have 
 been if they had passed their youth in poverty 
 and privation, free from authority and control.' : 
 
 1 Minutes of Evidence, Q. 12,098, p. 409. 
 * Army Organisation, p. 22.
 
 162 LORD HALIBURTON [1897- 
 
 Next he contrasted the state of battalions 
 under the two competing systems in the light 
 of their capacity to expand for war. In 1870 
 there were at home sixty-eight battalions whose 
 authorised regimental establishment, exclusive of 
 officers, amounted to 48,886 ; abroad there were 
 seventy-three battalions, with a corresponding 
 establishment of 59,380 a total Infantry force 
 of 108,266. In 1897 there were at home (ex- 
 clusive of the newly formed 2nd battalion of 
 Cameron Highlanders) sixty-three battalions, with 
 an establishment of 59,872 ; abroad there were 
 seventy-eight battalions, with an establishment 
 of 77,440 a total Infantry force of 137,612. 
 
 Under long service the battalions abroad were 
 on the average about fifty below establishment ; 
 they were now kept up to full establishment. 
 Under long service, as shown by a table which he 
 quoted, 1 the average battalion abroad had in its 
 ranks eighty-two men under twenty, and sixty- 
 three over thirty-five, or 145 at ages when the 
 fighting value of the soldier is the smallest. In 
 December 1897 these battalions contained only 
 fifty-two men of diminished fighting value. Under 
 long service battalions abroad had only 464 men 
 between twenty and thirty, acknowledged to be 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 28.
 
 1898] THE LINKED BATTALIONS 163 
 
 the best fighting age ; now they had 940, and they 
 averaged 234 stronger than in 1870. 
 
 * Under long service battalions abroad could 
 only be expanded to war strength by diluting 
 them with raw recruits from the depots, or by 
 reinforcing them with men taken from other 
 regiments. Under the short service system bat- 
 talions abroad are kept so closely up to war 
 strength that they are at all times fit for ordinary 
 field service without reinforcement.' 1 
 
 After this comparison, Haliburton turned to 
 meet the attack on the * linked battalion,' with 
 which was involved the old question of drafts, 
 and to examine our supposed inability to place 
 in the field forces adequate either for a great or 
 a small war. 
 
 It was against the linked battalion system 
 that the assault had most furiously raged, and 
 the principle of making the Home Army a nursery 
 for the Army abroad was contrasted with the 
 results obtainable from properly constituted depots. 
 On this latter point Sir Arthur was able to quote 
 the unanimous verdict of the Wantage Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 ' The advantages of the system of regimental 
 training for men destined for India over the 
 alternative and far more expensive system of 
 depdts can hardly be over-estimated. . . . The 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 29. 
 
 M2
 
 164 LORD HALIBURTON [1897- 
 
 double battalion system is not only the most 
 economical but also the best machinery that can 
 at present be devised for furnishing the foreign 
 drafts and effecting the reliefs.' x 
 
 It was objected again that, under the linked 
 battalion system, the energies of officers of home 
 battalions were misapplied in doing work which 
 ought to be done and could be done much better 
 at the depot. The officer of the old school, 
 steeped in the old tradition, regarded with not 
 unnatural dissatisfaction the task of training a 
 succession of recruits to be taken from him in 
 drafts as soon as they approached efficiency. 
 
 * No doubt,' replied Haliburton, ' this part 
 of their duty is not pleasant to them. They 
 have to spend much time as military school- 
 masters, just as officers in the German and French 
 Armies are obliged to do. These fully recognise 
 that the strength and efficiency of their armies 
 depend on the proper performance of that duty, 
 and they perform it without complaint, if not 
 altogether with pleasure. It is acknowledged that 
 this system has been largely instrumental in giving 
 
 1 Report of Committee, paragraphs 15, 18 (Army Organisation, 
 p. 73). The weight of the evidence taken before the Committee went 
 to prove (1) that though depots may in a few months turn out 
 trained recruits, they can never turn out trained soldiers this can 
 only be achieved by the battalions themselves ; (2) that in the dull 
 and lifeless routine of depot service, where no real soldiering is 
 possible, military discipline would be difficult to enforce, and habits 
 would be acquired which would be utterly destructive of military 
 efficiency.
 
 1898] THE TEAINING OP EECEUITS 165 
 
 us the best foreign army we have ever possessed. 
 To the civilian mind it seems probable that there 
 would be as much difference between recruits 
 trained at regimental depots, and recruits trained 
 in regiments, as exists between boys educated in 
 public and in village schools. If it is essential to 
 the efficiency of the service that regimental recruits 
 should be trained in the home battalion, before 
 being sent to strengthen the battalion abroad, 
 where they may at any moment have to take the 
 field ; the duty could not be dispensed with, and, 
 apart from the esprit de corps which characterises 
 all regimental officers, and which is not restricted 
 to the mere battalion, they are too intelligent and 
 too patriotic to wish to shirk a disagreeable duty, 
 if it can be shown to them that, from a wider point 
 of view than that of their battalion, it is abso- 
 lutely essential to the efficiency of their army.' ] 
 
 In support of this contention Haliburton 
 quoted the words of two most distinguished and 
 war-tried soldiers. ' Show on parade,' said the Com- 
 mander-in- Chief, ' should not be the first thing ; 
 the object should be to send abroad the number of 
 men required for the foreign battalion, and these 
 men should be trained and efficient soldiers.' 2 
 And in the opinion of Sir Evelyn Wood, the un- 
 popularity of the present system amongst the 
 officers was due to the peculiar standpoint from 
 which it was regarded in England, ' we hate it 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 74. 2 Ibid. p. 75.
 
 166 LORD HALIPUETON [1897- 
 
 when we are at home, but when we are abroad 
 we like it very much.' 
 
 Those who advocated the training of young 
 soldiers at depots, added Haliburton, overlooked 
 the fact that, if the men necessary to provide the 
 foreign drafts were removed from the home bat- 
 talion to the depot, the commanding officers 
 would find their regiments reduced to something 
 like 300 men. 
 
 In respect to the inequality in number of the 
 battalions at home and abroad the critics had 
 touched a blot in the system ; but they had 
 strangely misapprehended its effect upon the Army. 
 
 ' They appear to think that the battalions at 
 home are injuriously affected while the foreign 
 battalions are unaffected by this disproportion. 
 This is the very reverse of the fact. The regiments 
 that really suffer are those that have both bat- 
 talions abroad. They receive drafts consisting of 
 men trained partly at a depot and partly with the 
 battalions abroad, instead of drafts completely 
 trained in battalions at home. Drafts so trained 
 are inferior, and while that inferiority lasts the 
 foreign battalions suffer. In addition to this, the 
 battalion which goes abroad without relieving its 
 linked battalion, and without taking over from it 
 some of its seasoned men, has necessarily a much 
 larger proportion of young soldiers in its ranks 
 than it would otherwise have.' l 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 58.
 
 1898] THE BATTALIONS ABEOAD 167 
 
 This deteriorating influence had not been per- 
 mitted to affect India, where no soldiers under 
 twenty are sent ; but it had given to battalions in 
 the Colonies and the Mediterranean an average 
 of seventy men below that age. This was an 
 unsatisfactory and inconvenient state of affairs, 
 and called urgently for an addition to the number 
 of battalions sufficient to restore the balance 
 between at home and abroad ; but to describe it 
 as a grave national peril was a sheer misuse of 
 language. 
 
 * The total force at the disposal of the country 
 is not reduced by there being an excess of battalions 
 abroad indeed, it is rather augmented ; because 
 battalions abroad have a higher establishment by 
 200 rank and file than they have when at home, 
 and the depots of the regiments are augmented 
 by 250 in order to supply the drafts to two bat- 
 talions abroad.' 
 
 Haliburton next proceeded to deal with a very 
 serious allegation, the inability of the short service 
 system to produce an efficient army for a war of 
 any magnitude. It had been asserted by the 
 military Members of Parliament in their memorial 
 to the Prime Minister that the battalions which 
 stood first for service were * to a large extent 
 composed of immature soldiers deficient in the 
 age and stamina necessary to enable them to 
 endure the hardships of a campaign.' If there was
 
 168 
 
 LOED HALIBUETON 
 
 [1897- 
 
 any foundation for this assertion, then Sir Arthur 
 Haliburton admitted that short service had broken 
 down ; but he was prepared to show that it was 
 the very reverse of the truth. 
 
 In the first place he produced a table giving 
 the average peace strength of battalions at home 
 under long and short service respectively : 
 
 Age 
 
 Long Service, 
 1870 
 
 Short Service, 
 1897 
 
 Under 20 
 
 114 
 
 266 
 
 20 to 25 
 
 134 
 
 344 
 
 25 to 30 
 
 142 
 
 85 
 
 30 to 35 
 
 141 
 
 32 
 
 35 to 40 
 
 50 
 
 12 
 
 Over 40 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 
 588 
 
 742 
 
 Deduct men under 20 
 
 114 
 
 2.66 
 
 Total 
 
 474 
 
 476 1 
 
 Striking out all men under twenty, as unsuit- 
 able for war service, the force available for war 
 was practically identical at both periods. But 
 under long service no means existed for raising 
 battalions from 474 to war strength (1,067), except 
 by pouring into the ranks newly-raised recruits 
 as best they could be obtained, or by denuding 
 other regiments of their best men. Even that 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 32.
 
 1898] THE SHORT SERVICE BATTALION 169 
 
 process, objectionable and destructive as it was, 
 would not have enabled the Government to fill 
 up more than one-third of the home battalions, 
 leaving the other two-thirds mere skeleton corps. 
 The creation, indeed, of the Militia Infantry 
 Reserve in 1867-68, had laid the foundation for 
 a certain measure of legitimate expansion ; but the 
 long service battalions of 1870, even thus expanded, 
 could only have taken the field 803 strong, or 264 
 below full war strength. The table by which 
 Haliburton contrasted the battalions of 1870 and 
 1897 as mobilised for war is a striking argument, 
 especially when it is remembered that the Militia 
 Reserve was a limited quantity, which could only 
 have stiffened the home battalions, leaving the 
 foreign battalions considerably below war strength. 
 
 
 Long Service, 1870 
 
 Short Service, 1897 
 
 Ages 
 
 03 
 
 B 
 
 II 
 
 
 
 From 
 Militia 
 Reserve 
 
 Expanded 
 Battalion 
 
 With the 
 Colours 
 
 
 a >> > 
 
 hi 
 
 * 
 
 Expanded 
 Battalion 
 
 Under 20 . . 
 
 Sent to dep6t as unfit for immediate field 
 
 
 service. 
 
 20 to 25 . 
 
 134 
 
 112 
 
 246 
 
 344 
 
 
 
 344 
 
 25 to 30 . 
 
 142 
 
 113 
 
 255 
 
 85 
 
 431 
 
 516 
 
 30 to 35 . 
 
 141 
 
 85 
 
 226 
 
 32 
 
 160 
 
 192 
 
 35 to 40 . 
 
 50 
 
 19 
 
 69 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 Over 40 . 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 474 
 
 329 
 
 803 
 
 476 
 
 591 
 
 1067 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 34.
 
 170 LOED HALIBUETON [1897- 
 
 But behind these figures lay a most vital 
 question : 
 
 ' The efficiency of the battalion thus mobilised 
 for war largely depends on the quality of the 
 Reserve, and in the mind of the public a distrust 
 of the Reserve undoubtedly exists. Some scarcely 
 believe in its existence, while others, prepared to 
 admit its existence, are filled with doubts as to 
 its efficiency.' 1 
 
 These words were written some two years 
 before the Reserve was put on its great trial, and 
 there was comparatively little in the way of 
 evidence to appeal to. Haliburton, however, was 
 able to cite the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Wolse- 
 ley, Sir Redvers Buller, and Sir Evelyn Wood in 
 praise of its efficiency. ' The Reserve called out 
 in 1882,' the Duke had told the Wantage Com- 
 mittee, ' behaved most admirably.' Lord Wolseley 
 testified to the rapidity with which they settled 
 down in the ranks, and the corresponding astonish- 
 ment of the commanding officers, one of whom 
 pronounced them to be the backbone of the 
 service. Sir Evelyn Wood declared emphatically 
 that in no foreign army had he seen such a 
 splendid body of men. 
 
 The root of the whole controversy, contended 
 Haliburton, lay in a confusion of mind as to 
 the purposes for which a Reserve existed. The 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 40.
 
 1898] THE FUNCTION OF A EESERVE 171 
 
 military parliamentarians, through the mouth 
 of Sir Henry Havelock Allan, complained that, 
 in the event of an expeditionary force of any 
 magnitude being required, the home battalions 
 designated for it would require between four and 
 five hundred men from the Reserve before they 
 could be embarked, and judges of military matters 
 were called upon to picture to themselves a state 
 of chaos, leading to inevitable disaster, in an army 
 every battalion of which had been suddenly rein- 
 forced fifty per cent., and in which the new-comers 
 were totally unknown to each other and to their 
 officers. 
 
 ' If British battalions,' was the retort, ' are not 
 to be made up to war strength as the battalions 
 of foreign armies are, by recalling the Reserve to 
 the colours, how are they to be made up, and for 
 what purpose is a Reserve maintained ? ' It was a 
 sheer mistake to suppose that when the Reservists 
 rejoined they would be unknown to each other 
 and their officers. As a rule they would go back 
 to their old regiments, and, even if this could not 
 be guaranteed in every case, the regimental system 
 had grown to be so uniform as regards drill and 
 discipline throughout the Army that no great 
 inconvenience could arise. 1 
 
 ' Even if inconvenience did result, how, under 
 any system, could that inconvenience be over- 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 43.
 
 172 LOED HALIBUETON [1897- 
 
 come except by keeping the Army always at war 
 strength, a course that would add six millions to 
 Army expenditure ? If battalions had to be pre- 
 pared for the field, as they were during the Crimean 
 War, by the transfer of men from other regiments, 
 or if their ranks were filled from the Militia Reserve, 
 or by young recruits, the same difficulty, in an 
 intensified form, would present itself with this 
 difference, that under short service the ranks 
 will be filled with first-rate fighting material 
 from the Reserve ; whereas under long service, 
 as far as they could be filled at all, they had to 
 be filled either with material of inferior value, or 
 with a limited amount of good material extracted 
 from other battalions to their complete undoing.' 1 
 
 The Indian Army, meaning thereby the 
 European Army in India, was often cited as the 
 model of what a fighting force should be in point 
 of age and physique. But a table quoted by 
 Haliburton 2 showed that, while the Indian bat- 
 talions contained on the average 314 men of 
 twenty-five to thirty years of age, or about thirty 
 per cent, of their total strength, the home mobilised 
 battalions contained 516 : that is to say, close on 
 fifty per cent, of their total strength were men of 
 the best fighting age. And a comparison of the 
 British, French, and German battalion, as mobi- 
 lised for war, revealed the fact that the British 
 soldiers with the colours, available for active service, 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 44. 2 Ibid. p. 36.
 
 1898] THE FRUITS OF SHORT SERVICE 173 
 
 exceeded, on an average, the French and German 
 by 245 and 201 respectively. The number of 
 Reservists required to bring a peace battalion 
 up to war strength was less by at least one 
 hundred in the British than in either of the two 
 selected armies. 1 
 
 Mr. Arnold-Forster had declared that the 
 system had not produced and could not produce 
 an army. Haliburton showed that short service 
 had not only given us a far stronger force than the 
 country ever possessed before, but gave us bat- 
 talions which in point of composition were superior 
 to those of the French and German armies. He 
 had found chapter and verse for Lord Wolseley's 
 memorable boast that 
 
 ' When the Army Reserve rejoins the colours 
 the home army will be immeasurably superior to 
 any army we have ever had in England for one 
 hundred years ; infinitely superior in every respect 
 to the army Wellington had at Waterloo or that 
 we landed in the Crimea ; of this I have no doubt 
 whatever, I am sure of it.' 2 
 
 The kernel of the prejudice against short 
 service lay in the fact that the critics refused to 
 
 1 These figures, on their first appearance in the Times, were 
 called loudly in question. But Sir Arthur Haliburton was able to 
 prove conclusively, with one trifling and technical exception, the 
 accuracy of his statistics and the soundness of his deductions. 
 See Army Organisation, pp. 38, 39. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 44.
 
 174 LOED HALIBUETON [1897- 
 
 accept its main principle. Cardwell had never 
 contemplated the maintenance of the home bat- 
 talions at fighting efficiency : it was never intended 
 that they should be kept in a position to take the 
 field unstiffened by the Keserve. ' It is not our 
 object,' said Lord Wolseley * before the Wantage 
 Committee, in explanation and qualification of 
 some of his previous answers, ' to have battalions 
 at home ready to go on service ; that would mean 
 an army without a Reserve or theatrical army 
 such as we had before the Crimean War.' It was 
 demanded that a battalion should be ' a fighting 
 unit, or the cadre of a fighting unit, capable of 
 expansion at a moment's notice, and perfectly 
 prepared, when expanded, to take its place in the 
 fighting line.' The home battalion under short 
 service, retorted Haliburton, exactly fulfilled these 
 conditions in national emergencies which admitted 
 the recall of the Reserve to the colours. 
 
 In the matter, however, of small wars, which do 
 not admit the definition of a national emergency, 
 he allowed that Mr. Arnold- Forster had touched a 
 grave blot in the Cardwell system. And it was a 
 blot which was very largely responsible for the 
 disfavour with which the existing organisation of 
 the Army was regarded by those who did not 
 understand it. The remedy, as Lord Wolseley 
 
 6 See Army Organisation, p. 54.
 
 1898] A NECESSAEY EEFOEM 175 
 
 had pointed out long ago, was very simple. It 
 was only necessary so to amend the Keserve Forces 
 Act as to enable the Government to complete at 
 any time, and not merely on the occasion of a 
 national emergency, the force requisite for small 
 wars by recalling men from the Reserve to the 
 colours. 
 
 * It is not that short service is incapable of 
 this elasticity,' said Haliburton, * it is simply that, 
 having the means within its reach, the Government 
 has not given itself the power to make use of 
 them.' l 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 55.
 
 176 LOED HALIBUETON [1898 
 
 CHAPTER VIII . 
 
 1898 
 
 The Short Service Controversy Continued Effect Produced by 
 Haliburton's Letters Attacks upon him in the 'Times ' Warm 
 Appreciation by Lord Wolseley Lord Lansdowne's Edinburgh 
 Speech Letters of ' Reform ' and of Mr. Arnold-Forster 
 Haliburton's Rejoinder. 
 
 To rouse the British public to the point of hearing 
 both sides on a question which involves careful 
 reasoning and the intelligent handling of statistics 
 is a Herculean task. The man who is first in the 
 field, who pitches his story in the highest key, and 
 who deals the swashing blows of Master Gregory, 
 has an almost overwhelming advantage. The 
 classes, indeed, leisured and educated, whom Sir 
 Arthur Haliburton addressed through the columns 
 of the * Times,' were the most favourable audience 
 to whom a controversialist could appeal, but they 
 numbered a large proportion of those among 
 whom the Cardwell system, imperfectly under- 
 stood, still excited strong prejudice. The abolition 
 of purchase had hit a number of interests very 
 hard, the competitive examinations for com-
 
 1898] THE EFFECT OF THE KEPLY 177 
 
 missions in the Army were highly unpopular, and 
 though these reforms had nothing to do with the 
 merits or demerits of short service, they con- 
 tributed to swell the outcry against the new 
 model which Lord Wolseley and his fellow- workers 
 were so painfully building up. 
 
 Neither the necessity for the creation of the 
 Reserve, nor its proper functions, nor the manner 
 in which it was working, had ever been set out in 
 a manner ' to be understanded of the people,' and 
 the studied, persistent, depreciation to which it had 
 been subjected had aroused a very general belief 
 that neither in point of quality nor of quantity was 
 it to be depended on. Haliburton's apologia was 
 received in many quarters with indifference and 
 careless incredulity ; in others with pronounced 
 and vociferous hostility. 
 
 Yet to the open-minded reader, who did not 
 start with the conviction that the War Office had 
 inherited a double dose of original sin, these letters 
 came with the force of a revelation. ' So we really 
 have a Reserve ; I had never believed it,' was the 
 remark of one of the most highly placed of Her 
 Majesty's Judges l to Lady Haliburton. And in 
 the ranks of those behind the scenes, on both sides 
 in politics, the men who had experience in public 
 administration, and who, in City phraseology, 
 
 1 The late Lord Morria. 
 
 N
 
 178 LOED HALIBUETON [1898 
 
 knew how to read a banking sheet, Sir Arthur's 
 vindication of short service was recognised as 
 triumphant and conclusive. 
 
 4 It has come as an absolute astonishment to 
 most people,' wrote a general officer who occupied 
 one of the most important posts in the War Office 
 and to whom more than to any man was due the 
 successful mobilisation of 1899-1 900, l 
 
 ' to find that there was such a strong case as 
 you have put, and it has set others thinking. They 
 are just awaking to the fact that, after all, there 
 may not be any bottom under the pile of abuse 
 which, so far, they have accepted as true without 
 inquiry. It is the first time that the nature and 
 results of our present organisation have been put 
 clearly and fairly before the public, and the public 
 is a little staggered when it finds what it has been 
 abusing.' 
 
 The same correspondent, who moved largely 
 in circles outside the official and ministerial sphere, 
 was able to gratify Sir Arthur Haliburton with 
 the assurance that the letters were influencing 
 thinking men very strongly, and that since their 
 appearance there had been an unmistakable 
 swing round in opinion. And in the midst of 
 the attacks to which he was now about to be 
 exposed no approval gave Haliburton more 
 
 1 Major-General Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B., then Military 
 Secretary.
 
 1898] THE 'TIMES' 179 
 
 pleasure than a warm letter of congratulation 
 from Sir William Harcourt, the old colleague of 
 Mr. Cardwell in the representation of Oxford City. 
 On the morning on which the last of Hali- 
 burton's letters appeared l the * Times ' came out 
 with what is known journalistically as a * slating 
 leader.' An ironical compliment was paid to his 
 ' forensic ability,' and his dexterity in handling 
 a mass of figures, which it was insinuated had been 
 obtained by him from the War Office since his 
 retirement in September. The strongest evidence 
 of the essentially official origin of his defence was 
 declared to be the invincible optimism that 
 breathed in every line. 
 
 ' Dr. Pangloss in his most exalted moods was 
 never so convinced that everything is for the best 
 in the best of all possible worlds as is Sir Arthur 
 Haliburton that everything is for the best in the 
 best of all possible armies, administered by the 
 best of all possible War Offices upon the best of 
 all possible systems.' 
 
 Then, after pouring scorn on Lord Wolseley's 
 assurance that he could bring two corps d'armee 
 to the port of embarkation before the transports 
 for them could be got together, 1 ' the writer pro- 
 ceeded to gibe at Sir Arthur for entirely omitting 
 
 1 December 9, 1897. 
 
 ' J ' We have to take so much upon trust that we must over- 
 look the want of actual experience of mobilisation.' 
 
 N a
 
 180 LORD HALIBUBTON [1898 
 
 from his survey the artillery and cavalry, as well 
 as the commissariat and transport, ' things that 
 the War Office has not always managed with 
 unqualified success.' With an extraordinary mis- 
 apprehension of the A B C of the Cardwell system, 
 Haliburton was derided for explaining ' that while 
 every battalion is perfect so far as it goes we 
 need more battalions.' And then in a tone which 
 by no stretch of language could be described as 
 courteous the writer went on to declare that 
 
 ' These nicely drawn out tables of averages do 
 not impress anybody who knows what can be done 
 in the way of manipulating figures. We cannot 
 check the averages for the past, therefore the 
 comparison is not effective. . . . Throughout all 
 his comparative arguments Sir Arthur Haliburton 
 is beating the air. Their basis is unsound or un- 
 verifiable, and none but War Office officials imagine 
 that the substantial question is between a six 
 years' and a twenty-one years' service.' l 
 
 As some set-off against this diatribe Hali- 
 burton received from the Commander-m-Chief a 
 letter, from which the following extracts may be 
 quoted : 
 
 ' How grateful to you I am,' said Lord 
 Wolseley, * and I am sure all that is best in the 
 Army is to you for your admirable closely-reasoned 
 
 1 The writer apparently supposed that the term of service on 
 Cardwell's accession to office was twenty-one years, instead of 
 twelve, as was the actual case.
 
 1898] THANKS FROM LORD WOLSELEY 181 
 
 and unanswerable letter in the * Times.' . . . The 
 
 * Times,' finding you doubled up this man and made 
 mincemeat of his arguments, had only the old re- 
 source of abusing the plaintiff's attorney to fall back 
 upon. . . . They must have enough intelligence 
 to feel they have made fools of themselves, and are 
 naturally sore with you and me and others here, 
 and angry with themselves and their foolish 
 military advisers. You have done the State yeo- 
 man's service by your letters. If you had never 
 done anything else for England, they alone would 
 entitle you to the gratitude of all thinking men. 
 
 Nor was Haliburton without his champions in 
 the Press. The ' Broad Arrow,' one of the most 
 influential and best written of the Service papers, 
 hailed it as a happy accident that he was now a 
 free lance, with time on his hands, and free to 
 state the case for the War Office. 1 It was of small 
 importance, urged the writer, whether the late 
 Permanent Under-Secretary drew his statistics from 
 memory or from the archives of the War Office : 
 
 * From whichever source they come they are at 
 least as valuable as the information picked up, 
 hole and corner fashion, by amateur military 
 detectives. 
 
 4 Mr. Arnold-Forster,' the same paper asserted, 
 
 * has but a superficial appreciation of what he 
 writes about, and facts, so far, have not been 
 taken by hiniseriously into account. His supporters 
 are, most of them, either greater amateurs than 
 
 1 Broad Arrow, December 11, 1897.
 
 182 LORD HALIBURTON 
 
 himself who desire to have a share in the valu- 
 able advertisement which the * Times ' is so kindly 
 according his name ; or they are military men 
 without knowledge or experience of army organisa- 
 tion and administration who simply reproduce 
 the complaints of those officers of battalions 
 serving at home who regard the fact that the home 
 battalion has to labour to prepare the reliefs for 
 the battalion serving abroad as a conclusive argu- 
 ment for the necessity of the immediate intro- 
 duction of a new system.' 
 
 And the military correspondent of the ' Ob- 
 server ' declared 1 that ' on the question of short 
 service under the Cardwell system,' the only topic 
 with which Sir Arthur Haliburton was for the 
 moment concerned, he had proved his case * indis- 
 putably by the logic of incontrovertible facts and 
 figures.' 
 
 On the very day in which Haliburton brought 
 his ' Times ' correspondence, for the moment, to a 
 close, Lord Lansdowne addressed a large political 
 meeting at Edinburgh. The Secretary of State 
 for War, who was not a familiar figure on plat- 
 forms, had selected the occasion for a declaration 
 of the Government's Army policy and an outline 
 of its programme. Much of his speech was taken 
 up by a vindication of the British troops during 
 the recent frontier campaign in India, and of the 
 
 1 Observer, December 12.
 
 1898] LOED LANSDOWNE'S SPEECH 183 
 
 short-service soldier generally, together with a 
 tribute to the inestimable value of the Reserve. 
 At the same time he declared that the Government 
 had an open mind both as to the practicability 
 of reducing the term of service with the colours 
 to an optional three years instead of seven, and 
 as to the abolition of deferred pay. He admitted 
 that there were serious deficiencies in the working 
 of the existing Army system, but these were due 
 to the fact that it had never had a fair trial. The 
 growth of the empire and the corresponding 
 demands upon the Army had never been met by 
 the requisite increase in the number of battalions 
 which, though on a higher establishment, were 
 still exactly the same in number as in 1870. The 
 Government proposed to raise extra battalions and 
 also to make a special contract with a certain 
 number of Reservists, by which they bound 
 themselves to rejoin the colours for warlike opera- 
 tion during their first year in the Reserve if so 
 called upon. 1 
 
 1 Vide supra, p. 175. This was effected by the Reserve Forces and 
 Militia Act, 1898 (61 and 62 Viet. c. 9), which abolished the necessity 
 in such cases for a Royal Proclamation and for the calling together 
 of Parliament, as laid down by the Reserve Forces Act of 1882. Not 
 more than 5,000 men were to be called out, and the service was 
 limited to twelve months. The Act can only be put in operation 
 ' when warlike operations are in preparation or progress.' With 
 regard to the general increase in the strength of the Army, Mr. 
 St. John Brodrick (now Viscount Midleton, and then Under-Secretary 
 for War) was very emphatic, in a letter to Haliburton, that it was
 
 184 LORD HALIBURTON [1898 
 
 The ' Times ' promptly seized upon these ad- 
 missions as a confirmation of the attacks that 
 had been made upon the War Office in its columns 
 and elsewhere, and greeted Lord Lansdowne's 
 proposals as an acceptance of the suggestions put 
 forward by Mr. Arnold-Forster. The fact that 
 Lord Lansdowne advisedly abstained from entering 
 into any defence either of the military or civil 
 side of the War Office, and from alluding in any 
 way to Sir Arthur Haliburton's letters, was con- 
 strued into a tacit surrender ; he was congratu- 
 lated upon having ' absolutely thrown over the 
 complacent optimism which regards our military 
 system as a close approximation to the ideal.' 1 
 There was a widespread impression that the 
 assailants had got the Government ' on the run,' 
 and that a vigorous campaign would show further 
 concessions when Parliament met. 
 
 In pursuance of this campaign there im- 
 mediately appeared in the ' Times ' the first of a 
 new series of letters on ' The Condition of the 
 Army,' this time over the signature of ' Reform.' 
 The identity of the writer has never been dis- 
 closed, but he has generally been associated with 
 
 not due to the agitation in the press ' there has been a strong 
 pressure on us from above for months past.' 
 
 1 It may be remarked that this line of argument ' estopped ' 
 the critics from resort to their former arguments that Haliburton 
 was Lord Lansdowne's mouthpiece.
 
 1898] RENEWAL OP THE CONTROVERSY 185 
 
 the name of an officer of the Royal Engineers, 
 who at one time had been high in the councils of 
 Printing House Square. Whoever the unknown 
 may have been his tactical eye was keen enough 
 to show him that Haliburton was the pivot of 
 the defence, and against him he launched out 
 with a superabundance of personality. Sir Arthur, 
 he maintained, had been placed upon the Wantage 
 Committee in order to play the part of the 
 dynamite charge controlled by clockwork, and 
 wreck the ship at a given moment ; 
 
 ' He was now, as in 1891, the representative of 
 the powerful forces which for years have success- 
 fully obstructed the reform alike of the War Office 
 and the Army. 
 
 1 With your permission, sir, I propose to show 
 that Sir Arthur Haliburton's figures and alleged 
 facts are largely illusory, 1 and that, as might have 
 been expected, vital military considerations find 
 no place in his philosophy. . . . The controversial 
 
 1 How very far from impeccable were ' Reform's ' own facts 
 may be shown by two instances exposed by Haliburton. (1) He 
 had stated that ' at a moderate estimate ' there were 50,000 men in 
 the Army ' who do not fulfil the requirements of British soldiers.' 
 The latest Army annual return had shown a total of 28,929 under 
 twenty in the ranks. (2) He had laid it down as a consummation 
 devoutly to be wished that non-commissioned officers should be 
 permitted and encouraged to re-engage up to twenty-one years' 
 service. Haliburton pointed out that they had always been both 
 ' permitted and encouraged ' to do this. ' So carefully is the 
 privilege guarded that no non-commissioned officer can be refused 
 re -engagement except by the express veto of the Secretary of 
 State.'
 
 186 LORD HALIBURTON [1898 
 
 methods adopted by Sir Arthur Haliburton show 
 three marked characteristics. He uniformly ignores 
 or misrepresents the views of the critics ; he 
 makes effective use of carefully selected shreds of 
 the evidence of military authorities, even when 
 they are contradicted by other statements or by 
 facts ; he adduces statistics which are either 
 irrelevant or directly misleading.' 
 
 ' Keform's ' letters appeared on December 14, 
 17, 22, and 28, and on January 4, 7, and 8, and the 
 editorial columns of the " Times " supplied a chorus 
 of approving comment. The game was to play 
 off Lord Lansdowne and Sir Arthur Haliburton 
 against each other. The late Permanent Under- 
 secretary was no longer treated as the mouth- 
 piece of his former chief, who now figured as a man 
 thwarted by the inertia and obstruction of ' an 
 organisation which is blind to fact, impervious to 
 argument, and impregnably entrenched in self- 
 sufficiency.' And before ' Reform ' had delivered 
 his last testimony Mr. Arnold-Forster returned 
 to the charge in a final letter which appeared on 
 January 4. 
 
 Whether his much vaunted acquaintance with 
 all sorts and conditions of military men extended 
 in those days to the civil side of the War Office I 
 cannot say, but the tone which he thought proper 
 to adopt towards the late Permanent Under-Secre- 
 tary betrayed a strange ignorance of the character
 
 1898] MR. ABNOLD-FORSTER 187 
 
 and reputation of Sir Arthur Haliburton. A retired 
 public servant of the highest rank, who had 
 enjoyed the unbounded confidence of his official 
 superiors, and whose knowledge and states- 
 manlike capacity were conspicuous in whatever 
 company he might find himself, was rated by the 
 honourable member for West Belfast in the sort 
 of tone that Picton and Craufurd might have 
 adopted towards an incapable or dishonest com- 
 missary. 
 
 * If the Civil officials during the past five-and- 
 twenty years,' he wrote, ' have really approached 
 Army questions in the spirit which animates the 
 late Permanent Under-Secretary, no wonder the 
 Army is in urgent need of reform. ... It requires 
 very little knowledge of the Army as it really is 
 to be aware that the contents of the letters are 
 strangely at variance with known facts, and are for 
 the most part so irrelevant to the only issues with 
 which the public are concerned that they can have 
 very little weight as soon as their true character 
 has been exposed.' 
 
 The Indian table given by Sir Arthur Hali- 
 burton } was declared to represent 
 
 * nothing except Blue Book calculations which every- 
 one in the War Office and everyone in the Army 
 knows to be false and untrue.' ... 'I am much 
 mistaken,' was his parting shot, ' if, before the 
 present controversy is completed, Lord Lansdowne 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 36, and supra, p. 172.
 
 188 LORD HALIBURTON [1898 
 
 will not hear some very frank utterances as to the 
 qualifications of more than one of the officials 
 whom he so generously, but perhaps not so wisely, 
 defends.' 1 
 
 Meanwhile the object of all these onslaughts 
 remained calm and unruffled but not idle. In 
 acknowledging a letter from Sir William Harcourt 
 dated December 12, he intimated that ' Reform's ' 
 letters might perhaps afford him an opportunity 
 for resuming the controversy, though 
 
 ' the tone of the " Times " is so hostile that it 
 may deny me the hospitality of its columns.' * I 
 hope that " Reform " will " draw you," ' was Sir 
 William's cheery answer, 'as I feel sure you will 
 have the best of him, and you need not fear that 
 the " Times " will refuse you hospitality. They 
 know well enough that the Government have in 
 substance adopted your principles of Army organi- 
 sation.' 2 
 
 1 As a matter of fact, Lord Lansdowne in his Edinburgh speech 
 had rather pointedly abstained from any allusion to the personnel 
 of the War Office. ' With what indignation,' wrote a member 
 of the Government to Haliburton, ' I have read Arnold-Forster's 
 letter and the Times article ; not only in reference to yourself, but 
 in the general tone towards the permanent officials. They are 
 fomenting the idea, held in very high quarters, that all War 
 Office mistakes are the work of the men who carry out the policy 
 of the Secretary of State usually dictated to him by the Military 
 Adviser. This is neither true nor fair.' 
 
 2 In this connexion the following letter (December 20) from 
 Lord Lansdowne to Haliburton is both interesting and instructive. 
 ' Many of my colleagues regard the existing system with the utmost 
 disfavour, but can find nothing to put in its place ; it therefore 
 holds the field, and the policy indicated in my Edinburgh speech
 
 THE LOGIC OF FIGUKES 189 
 
 Thus encouraged Haliburton expressed to his 
 friend Sir Charles Welby his intention of writing 
 one more letter 
 
 4 1 will begin to-day, 1 if I can persuade myself, 
 and I will try and strengthen Lord Lansdowne's 
 hands against those who would drive him on. 
 I will deal with deferred pay and extended service. 
 I will not go against modifying deferred pay, 
 but I will bring out the evidence as to it, and the 
 effect its abolition may have on extensions and the 
 effect they would have on the Army if excessive. 
 I feel compelled to write once more because the idea 
 is widespread that I did not answer A.-F.'s figures 
 because I could not, and that feeling has shaken 
 faith in mine, or, rather, prevented it. They 
 suggest to me the broad issue and then find fault 
 with me for not going into details. 
 
 ' The thing that strikes me as so odd is this 
 How can anyone look at the figures I gave, go 
 carefully into them, and yet not admit that the 
 system has been a great success ? Of course to 
 those who do not believe the figures to be correct 
 it is different ; but even those who do admit their 
 correctness seem to me to draw no satisfactory 
 conclusions from them. 
 
 ' It was, as things turned out, unfortunate that 
 Lord Lansdowne did not say something at Edin- 
 burgh about his department and about my defence. 
 His silence has given rise to the false idea that he 
 has thrown them both over, and those Press people 
 
 is accepted. But the question of money has to be faced, and my 
 difficulties are only beginning.' 
 1 December 25.
 
 190 LOED HALIBUBTON [1898 
 
 want to see how far they can push him along their 
 own lines. 1 
 
 The editor of the * Times ' graciously consented 
 to allow the victim of these varied onslaughts the 
 right of reply, and Haliburton's fourth letter on the 
 condition of the Army appeared on January 11. 
 Three columns and a-half of that journal were 
 insufficient to contain the flood of pent-up fact 
 and argument, and another letter, the fifth and 
 last, was published on the 22nd of the same month. 
 
 Haliburton began by explaining that owing 
 to a misapprehension his former letters had con- 
 tained a less detailed reply to the statements of 
 Mr. Arnold-Forster and the others than he had 
 originally contemplated. He now found that this 
 omission had been construed into a tacit admission 
 that their statements were unanswerable. He 
 had imagined, moreover, that if he proved by 
 statistics, the perfect accuracy of which he was in 
 a position to guarantee, supported by the opinions 
 of distinguished soldiers and administrators, that 
 the short- service system actually gave the ' legions ' 
 it was intended to supply, and that the Army 
 was not in the condition of collapse described by 
 
 1 The purport of this letter, as was probably intended, seems 
 to have reached Lord Lansdowne, who wrote to Haliburton on 
 January 6 : 'I am all for your carrying war into the enemy's 
 country ; nor do I object to a gentle peppering of the " friendlies " 
 under the head of Deferred Pay.'
 
 1898] THE EEGIMENTAL RETUENS 191 
 
 the critics, it would be unnecessary to meet their 
 statements to the contrary with direct and detailed 
 refutation. 
 
 In this he had been mistaken ; his facts, his 
 figures, and his inferences had been equally de- 
 rided. 
 
 * I will explain,' he wrote, * how these tables 
 were compiled. Regiments send to the War Office 
 monthly returns detailing the service of their non- 
 commissioned officers and men. These form the 
 basis of the general annual return of the British 
 Army. 1 In July last, in consequence of the 
 memorial of the military Members of Parliament, 
 I wished once more to study the condition of the 
 Army, in order to satisfy myself whether views, 
 formed in 1891, were justified by existing condi- 
 tions. I therefore directed the statistical branch 
 of the War Office to compile returns showing the 
 numbers and ages of all ranks in the battalions 
 at home and abroad. There can be no possible 
 doubt as to the correctness of these returns. They 
 are simply the sum total of the regimental rolls 
 worked out to an average. I might have given 
 the whole of the 114 battalions in detail, but 
 even your hospitable columns could not have 
 found space for such a mass of figures, and no 
 reader would have had the patience to do what I 
 did for him, reduce them to reasonable and in- 
 telligible limits. 2 
 
 1 Vide Parliamentary Papers, C. 8558 of 1897. 
 
 3 A few weeks later, when his letters were reproduced in 
 pamphlet form, Haliburton added after the words quoted in the 
 text the following passage : ' Though my statistics have been
 
 192 LORD HALIBUETON [1898 
 
 Then, after paying a tribute to * the labour and 
 marked ability which Mr. Arnold-Forster had 
 brought to bear upon the question,' Haliburton 
 lamented his approach to the subject with ' that 
 " little knowledge " which " is a dangerous thing," 
 and his inability * to separate the wheat from the 
 chaff in the statements with which his numerous 
 friends have supplied him.' 
 
 In order to demonstrate to the public what 
 an absolute sham an infantry battalion at home is, 
 Mr. Arnold-Forster had given, in his own words, 
 
 4 plain facts with regard to some, taken at 
 random, which happen to be on the higher esta- 
 blishment, and are therefore supposed to be in 
 a more perfect state of preparation and efficiency 
 than less favoured corps.' 
 
 He had enumerated accordingly five battalions, 
 designated by letters of the alphabet. One of 
 these, he represented, would require 711 Reservists 
 to make it up to war strength, another 688, and 
 so on. If these were favourable samples of the 
 battalions at home it followed that the rest of the 
 
 repudiated, their accuracy has never been shaken. Indeed, that 
 would be impossible. They show the actual living strength of 
 the battalions on the dates they refer to, and I once more guarantee 
 their substantial accuracy. It is said I am optimistic. It is the 
 facts, and not I, who speak. Let those who repudiate the inevitable 
 conclusions to which these facts lead show where they err, or 
 accept their guidance.'
 
 1898] THE HOME BATTALIONS 193 
 
 Army would require an even larger proportion of 
 Reservists to fit them for service in war. 
 
 ' The tables I have already given, 1 answered 
 Haliburton, prove that on July 1, 1897, the home 
 battalions were not in the condition Mr. Arnold- 
 Forster describes. At that date they only re- 
 quired, on the average, 591 Reservists to make them 
 up to full war strength of 1067, or 100 less than 
 German and French battalions require. Mr. Arnold- 
 Forster wrote in November 2 and my statistics 
 were not later than July, but in November the 
 battalions would have been stronger, not weaker. 
 He abstains from giving information which would 
 enable me to check his figures, and it is only from 
 his chance expressions that one can form an idea 
 of how he fell into the exaggerations that charac- 
 terise his statements.' 
 
 In the first place there was no such thing as a 
 home battalion ' on the higher establishment ' ; 
 all were on the same establishment of 777. 3 Then 
 again, he apparently assumed that all men ' dis- 
 qualified for Indian service ' were equally dis- 
 qualified for field service. 
 
 ' It seems possible that this may explain some of 
 the errors into which he has fallen. Under a 
 financial arrangement with India we do not send 
 soldiers to that country with less than two years 
 
 1 Vide supra, pp. 168, 169, and Army Organisation, p. 37. 
 3 Times, November 16. 
 
 3 See Lord Wolseley's answer (Q. 4391) to the Wantage Com- 
 mittee. 
 

 
 194 LOED HALIBUETON [1898 
 
 to serve. They are not sent in order to save 
 India the expense of the transport of men with so 
 little service to give. These men are all, however, 
 fit and available for field service, and are only 
 excluded from India on financial grounds.' 
 
 It was in reliance on fallacies such as these, 
 continued Sir Arthur, that Mr. Arnold- Forster 
 declared that short service had broken down and 
 that the home battalions were worthless for fighting 
 purposes. His alarmist statements about the 
 Militia were equally devoid of foundation. It was 
 true, indeed, that in 1896 the ' constitutional force ' 
 had been 16,937 below establishment with an actual 
 strength of 117,773 against an authorised strength 
 of 134,746. But this was not sufficient for Mr. 
 Arnold-Forster, who produced from his own imagi- 
 nation a purely fancy picture. 
 
 ' Because there are 30,000 men in the Militia 
 who have assumed the contingent liability of serving 
 abroad in the Regular forces if required, which they 
 would not be if the Militia were embodied for the 
 defence of our shores, he calmly strikes them 
 altogether out of official existence. He equally 
 dismisses from the service 35,000 more militiamen 
 as " untrained recruits." No untrained recruits 
 join for Militia training ; they all undergo a two 
 months' drill, as well as a short musketry course 
 before training. Having thus wiped out of 
 Militia existence 65,000 very effective men, besides 
 a few driblets for deserters, etc., Mr. Arnold-
 
 1898] A PROPHECY 195 
 
 Forster ventures to tell the public that we have 
 " what might by courtesy be called an effective 
 remnant of 41,578 " ; whence the Army Annual 
 Return for 1896 shows that there were present at 
 Inspection that year 98,761 in addition to 11,781 
 absent without leave.' 
 
 * Mr. Amold-Forster,' said Sir Arthur Hali- 
 burton, with a gleam of prophecy, * has evidently 
 persuaded himself and many others that the Army 
 needs a brand new constitution which he is pre- 
 pared to supply and doubtless to administer.' In 
 less than six years Mr. Arnold-Forster was Secretary 
 of State for War. 
 
 Leaving for a moment the original protagonist, 
 Haliburton turned upon ' Reform ' who had 
 charged him with consistently assuming that the 
 official was the real age of the recruit. 
 
 ' I not only did not say this ' [was the retort] 
 ' but I said exactly the contrary and proved by 
 reference to old records l that there had always 
 been deception on the part of recruits in this 
 matter, and I distinctly stated that we still get 
 the same class of recruits that we always got.' 
 
 ' Reform ' had further objected that he gave no 
 definition either of long or of short service ; and 
 he chose to assume that by long service Haliburton 
 meant life enlistments, or enlistments for twenty- 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 18. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 LOED HALIBUETON [1898 
 
 one years. These, explained the latter, had ceased 
 in 1848, exactly half a century ago. 
 
 ' By long service I refer to the ten year system 
 which collapsed in 1867, and the twelve year 
 system which was on the high road to collapse 
 when Mr. CardwelPs reforms were adopted. The 
 term short service is not limited to any particular 
 number of years. It may be two with the colours 
 as in Germany, three as in France, three, six, seven, 
 eight, as with us ; the limit must depend upon 
 national requirements. Short service means such 
 a term with the colours as will allow the soldier 
 to give, in addition, a period of effective Reserve 
 service. No long service system can yield a 
 Reserve because men serve with the colours until 
 they are no longer suited for service in the field.' 
 
 ' Reform ' had contended that ' the popular 
 misuse of the term " Reserves " ' had led Sir Arthur 
 Haliburton into a quagmire of errors. ' A Reserve 
 is, strictly speaking, a force intended to replace 
 loss in war.' The term, replied Sir Arthur Hali- 
 burton, has no such restricted meaning. In this 
 country, as on the Continent, Reservists are 
 the force which brings the peace establishment 
 to war strength at a moment's notice. 1 
 
 ' The Reserve must fulfil this duty if it is to be 
 a means of salvation to the Army. It may be 
 large enough not only to fit the Army for the 
 field but to maintain it there for a time more or 
 
 1 ' Soldiers of the first line on furlough,' as they have been 
 described.
 
 1898] THE EESBEVE 197 
 
 less long. The Continental reserves accomplish 
 this, and ours also, but not nearly to so great an 
 extent. If we want more reserves we must 
 increase our reserve producing power, but most of 
 the measures advocated by the critics would not 
 only not increase our Keserve, but would tend to 
 diminish and enfeeble it.' 
 
 ' Reform ' had contended that in the opinion 
 of every student of war it was desirable to keep 
 the Reservists with the colours. This Haliburton 
 emphatically denied. 
 
 * Sir Redvers Buller has pointed out that for 
 every man who goes from the colours to the Reserve 
 and is replaced by a recruit, the country gets two 
 soldiers instead of one " supposing you have 1,000 
 men serving on for a pension, for the same cost 
 you can get 1,000 soldiers and 500 in the Reserve, 
 so that you really get 1,500 instead of 1,000, and 
 these 1,500 would be better soldiers, you get more 
 efficient men for the same money. . . . Our 
 Reserve of 80,000 men costs us 720,000/L a year ; 
 if they were kept with the colours they would cost 
 us the loss of 80,000 fighting men in the flower of 
 their age, or four and a half millions a year for an 
 equal number of additional soldiers with the colours 
 who in time would deteriorate in quality." ' 1 
 
 According to ' Reform ' neither Mr. Arnold- 
 Forster nor any other critic of the War Office had 
 evinced the smallest desire to go back to pre- 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 68. This quotation hod actually been 
 used by Sir A. Haliburton in his letter to the Times of December 6, 
 before 'Reform' had appeared upon the field.
 
 LOED HALIBUETON [1898 
 
 Cardwellian organisation or ' reproduce the con- 
 ditions which nearly entailed national disaster.' 
 Sir Arthur Haliburton rejoiced to hear it, but he 
 found it curious that, ' while making this admission, 
 all their arguments should be based on an admira- 
 tion for long service, and nearly all the reforms 
 they propose would lead to its establishment.' 
 In illustration of these longing, lingering looks 
 at the dear dead days he quoted the following 
 sentence from ' Reform ' : 
 
 * If Sir Arthur Haliburton, instead of taking 
 1870 as the period for comparison, had gone back 
 to the period 1862-63 before the pay of the soldier 
 had been doubled or his comforts augmented, he 
 would have found that for every British battalion 
 more than 1,000 men were rated and that the 
 total strength of Regular forces with the colours 
 was 227,151, and in 1860-61, 235,800.' 
 
 'If "Reform,"' retorted Haliburton, * had 
 possessed any knowledge of military history he 
 would carefully have avoided the thin ice on 
 which these words had placed him. 
 
 * The exceptional number of soldiers with the 
 colours in the early sixties was partly due to the 
 patriotic feelings evoked by the Crimean War and 
 the Indian Mutiny. Many of the soldiers enlisted 
 for those campaigns remained in the service all 
 through the sixties. In order to obtain these 
 men, however, every conceivable measure was 
 resorted to. Militia officers were given commis- 
 sions in the Regular Army on condition that they
 
 1898] SOME MISSING FIGURES 199 
 
 brought 100 recruits with them, and bounties 
 ranging from IQl. to 22., besides " bringing money," 
 were paid for recruits. In 1858, 91,000 recruits 
 were obtained. The standard was 5 feet 3 inches, 
 half an inch lower than at present, while there 
 existed no standard for chest measurement, which 
 is much more important than height. Of these 
 91,000 recruits 29,000 were rejected on medical 
 and other grounds, over 6,000 absconded before 
 attestation, and, showing the demoralising effects 
 of bounties, over 14,000 more deserted within the 
 year. It is said, " returns of actual strength are 
 not given, but it can hardly be supposed that the 
 force voted in those years was immensely in excess of 
 the possible supply." Here are the missing figures. 
 During the five years 1859 to 1863 the Army was, 
 on the average, 11,000 below establishment. 
 
 1 The average number of recruits raised was 
 12,000, the desertions 4,792, the annual cost of 
 recruiting 95,9872. During the past five years 
 the establishments have been maintained up to 
 and even over full strength, the number of recruits 
 has averaged 33,756, the desertions only 2,200, 
 and the cost of recruiting has fallen to 30,0002. ' : 
 
 ' Reform ' had united with Mr. Arnold -Forster 
 in demonstrating from the Royal Marines, who 
 enlisted for twelve years, that there could be no 
 insuperable aversion among working men to a 
 ten years' term. 
 
 ' Those who use this argument must be 
 lacking in the sense of proportion. The Royal 
 Marines during the past five years have averaged 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 15.
 
 200 
 
 LOED HALIBUETON 
 
 [1898 
 
 15,318 all told, the Army over 200,000. The 
 Royal Marines require 2,000 recruits, the Army 
 over 33,000. The Royal Marines have a very 
 easy life in Portsmouth, Devonport, and Chatham 
 and on board ship, where their duties expose them 
 to few hardships and privations. A marine after 
 twenty years' service may be as useful on board 
 ship and in barracks as a young man of twenty- 
 four, but the soldier must be young enough to 
 endure both exposure and privation, such as they 
 have recently experienced on the Indian frontier, 
 and yet be able and willing to "come up to 
 time." 1 It is as reasonable to compare the 
 conditions applicable to the Marines and the 
 Army as it would be to compare those applicable 
 to an elephant and a toy-terrier.' '- 
 
 And to round off the comparison of the fruits of 
 long and short service he now produced a final 
 table inadvertently omitted from his earlier letters : 
 
 * The following figures show the average fighting 
 strength of the Regular Army, at home and abroad, 
 in 1870 and 1896 : 
 
 
 
 1870 
 
 1896 
 
 Home 
 Abroad . 
 Reserve . 
 
 Total 3 . 
 
 89,670 
 90,774 
 5,824 
 
 106,408 
 114,334 
 78,100 
 
 186,268 
 
 298,842 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 17. 
 
 2 Times, January 11, 1898. This 'shrewd nip,' as old Foxe 
 would say, does not reappear in the pamphlet. 
 
 3 Haliburton discovered before the republication of his letters 
 in pamphlet form that he had included in the Reserve of 1870 the
 
 1898] OFFICIAL STATISTICS 201 
 
 ' This table shows that the short-service system 
 has given us a fighting force over 100,000 stronger 
 than we had when Mr. Cardwell introduced his 
 despised reforms ! 
 
 4 These were some of the fruits of Short Service,' 
 added Haliburton, whose temper was warming as 
 he went on, * and of the labours of that War Office 
 which they would sweep off the face of the earth 
 and replace by a brand new office manned from the 
 amateur administrators and faddists who now 
 seek to enlighten the nation. The figures which 
 I have laid before you, if- correct and their cor- 
 rectness is, I believe, beyond cavil prove that 
 I am justified in answering your question, of 
 whether the existing organisation gives the legions 
 it was intended to supply, a most emphatic 
 affirmative. In the interests of the Army and 
 of the nation it is not sufficient to ignore the 
 official statistics I have given you, or to meet 
 them with the reply that they " cannot be verified " 
 or that they are " astonishing statements " truth 
 generally is astonishing. They are too weighty 
 and important to be thus disregarded. They are 
 either true or false. If they are true they knock 
 the bottom out of the indictment framed by 
 Mr. Arnold- Forster and " Reform." If they are 
 false, their falseness should be proved and I should 
 be gibbeted as an impostor.' 
 
 The gibbet was never erected. 
 
 Having dealt seriatim with the allegations 
 against the existing organisation of the Army, 
 
 men of the Militia Reserve who were not liable to serve abroad. 
 This reduced the figure 5,824 to 4,302, and the total regular Army 
 from 186,268 to 184,746. See Army Organisation, p. 49.
 
 202 LOED HALIBUETON [1898 
 
 Haliburton turned to consider some of the pro- 
 posed remedies. It had been asserted that he 
 was an optimist who considered the Army perfect. 1 
 Nothing was further from the truth. His earlier 
 letters had been a defence of the principles on 
 which the Army was organised, and he had care- 
 fully refrained from entering into details which 
 might lead him aside from the wide aspects of the 
 case. Even now he would prefer to leave the 
 question with those who have the full information 
 at their disposal and who are in a position to know 
 not only what is desirable but what is practicable. 
 It was with diffidence and with full knowledge of 
 the pitfalls which surrounded even trivial changes 
 in Army organisation that he ventured his 
 suggestions. 
 
 * In judging of the present system it must be 
 remembered that ever since its establishment it 
 has been worked short-handed. Before ending 
 or mending it, it would be wise to complete it, and 
 see the results it would then give. As long as our 
 existing foreign requirements continue, the number 
 of battalions which sufficed in 1870 is inadequate 
 to our present needs. I have always thought 
 that Mr. Card well made a mistake in 1870 in pro- 
 viding an exact equilibrium between home and 
 foreign battalions. To my mind " he cut his coat " 
 too closely, and did not make sufficient allowance 
 for occasional and unavoidable disturbance of the 
 
 1 Vide supra, p. 179.
 
 1898] MOEE EEGIMENTS WANTED 203 
 
 equilibrium. If he had provided two or three 
 extra regiments for home service the machine 
 would have worked more smoothly and much of 
 the present dissatisfaction would never have 
 arisen.' 
 
 In his former letters Haliburton had shown 
 that an increase in the number of battalions and an 
 amendment of the law to enable a section of the 
 Reserve to be recalled at any moment would ease 
 the situation without prejudicing the principles 
 of our organisation. Nor did he entertain any 
 fundamental objection to raising the age of the 
 foreign drafts. Soldiers of only twenty were young 
 for Indian or field service and greater maturity 
 was very desirable. But the suggested remedy of 
 enlisting older men he believed to be absolutely 
 impracticable. 
 
 * The industrial classes all take to some occupa- 
 tion by the time they are seventeen to eighteen. 
 If we decline to enlist them until they are twenty, 
 we shall only get those who have failed in their 
 chosen career or who, for a variety of reasons, wish 
 to abandon it. If evidence is of any value, it 
 proves that no increased pay which any Govern- 
 ment is likely to offer would materially affect the 
 class of recruits obtained, while the expense 
 would be enormous, and a reduction of that ex- 
 pense, when the experiment failed, would be im- 
 possible. We must be content to take recruits 
 young, and keep them until they develop into first-
 
 204 LOED HALIBUETON [1898 
 
 rate soldiers. If the " official " age of twenty is too 
 young for India let it be raised to twenty-one. This 
 would necessitate an increase to the home estab- 
 lishments in order to ensure drafts of the requisite 
 age. An actuary alone can say what the increase 
 of establishment and cost would be ; but the latter 
 would be trifling compared to that involved in an 
 endeavour to bribe young men to quit their em- 
 ployments for Army service. In the one case, the 
 increased expenditure would certainly give the 
 older drafts ; in the other, we should incur the cost, 
 and in all probability fail to obtain the desired 
 remedy. This proposal would diminish the foreign 
 service obtainable from soldiers, and thus increase 
 the cost to India of its European Army ; but I fear 
 it is impossible to perfect our volunteer Army, 
 without incurring some increased expenditure.' 
 
 There were two suggested remedies, however, 
 the abolition of deferred pay and the introduction 
 of three-year enlistments for the battalions of the 
 Line, which did cut right at the system established 
 by Cardwell ; and in combating them Haliburton 
 knew that he was strengthening the hands of Lord 
 Lansdowne against those whom in private corre- 
 spondence he designated as ' the Arnold-Forsters 
 in the Cabinet.' 
 
 The abolition of deferred pay was one of the 
 recommendations of the Wantage Committee, 
 though three members, Lieutenant- General Sir 
 Edward Bulwer, Lieutenant- General Feilding and 
 Colonel Salis-Schwabe, as well as Haliburton
 
 1898] DEFEREED PAY 205 
 
 himself, had dissented in that respect from the 
 majority. Deferred Pay was a sum of 211. given 
 to the soldier on leaving the colours, and had 
 been instituted in 1876, by Mr. Gathorne Hardy, 
 who felt it wrong and undesirable to send some 
 thousands of men yearly into the labour market 
 without securing for them a sum of money to 
 keep them until they could find work. 
 
 ' Up to that time, extension of colour service 
 had not been optional with men unless they were 
 likely to make good non-commissioned officers. 
 When deferred pay was given, it was felt that per- 
 mission to extend might safely be granted, on 
 condition that deferred pay should not be issued 
 while the men remained with the colours, and that 
 if drawn on transfer to the Reserve should be re- 
 funded as a condition of return to the colours. 
 Those who wish to make a career of the Army can 
 thus do so without any ultimate sacrifice of pecu- 
 niary advantages, for on extension their deferred 
 pay accumulates, while the desire to obtain de- 
 ferred pay at the end of the first period of service, 
 coupled with the natural desire for change, is a 
 sufficient safeguard against too many men ex- 
 tending their service, and thus injuriously affecting 
 the Reserve.' ] 
 
 Haliburton did not contend that there was any 
 special virtue in deferred pay handed over in a 
 lump sum to the men on joining the Reserve, though 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 64.
 
 206 LOED HALIBURTON [1898 
 
 the evidence taken before the Wantage Committee 
 showed an overwhelming majority 1 in favour of 
 it being issued in that form. But in its abolition 
 he saw clearly a danger to the existence of short 
 service. The witnesses before the Committee 
 had been in general agreement that if deferred pay 
 were abolished, large numbers of men would extend 
 their colour service. And a calculation made for 
 him in the War Office had shown that, if 25 per cent. 
 of the privates extended their service, at the end 
 of seven years the Reserve would be reduced by 
 39 per cent. As a result we should no longer be 
 able, with the same establishments, to mobilise 
 the Army to war strength. 
 
 This difficulty, indeed, could be got over by 
 increasing the peace establishments with the 
 colours, so that a smaller Reserve would suffice to 
 raise the battalions to war strength. But this 
 would add considerably over a million to the cost 
 of the Army without adding a single man to its 
 fighting strength. ' For every man who unneces- 
 sarily extends his service we gain strength where it 
 
 1 27,714 to 5,234 on a plebiscite taken by printed form sent to 
 upwards of 40,000 Reservists. (See Report of Committee, p. 30 ; 
 Ei4dence, p. 641 (Appendix xxx.) The whole question was raised 
 before Mr. Stanhope on the report of the Committee in 1892, and, 
 on the advice of his military staff, he decided against abolition. 
 The number of Reservists who declared that deferred pay had 
 been of advantage to them on leaving the colours was even more 
 emphatic 32,053 to 2,155.
 
 1898] THREE-YEAR ENLISTMENTS 207 
 
 is unnecessary on parade ; and we lose it where it 
 may be of vital importance in the line of battle.' 
 The abolition of deferred pay was, in fact, part of 
 a scheme for having a short service Army rilled 
 with long service soldiers, which would inevitably 
 result in our drifting back to a long service 
 Army. 
 
 As for three-year enlistments, which we have 
 recently seen tried by Lord Midleton and aban- 
 doned by Mr. Arnold-Forster during their respec- 
 tive tenures of the Secretaryship of State for War, 
 the difficulties were scarcely less grave. 
 
 ' At present we know that battalions can provide 
 drafts for India, because a sufficient proportion of 
 seven-year men is available. The home establish- 
 ment is fixed with a view to accomplish this object, 
 and yet to leave an efficient stock on which to 
 graft the Reserve on mobilisation. The strength of 
 the establishment was fixed by actuarial calculation 
 as sufficient to yield the Indian draft ; but there is 
 some doubt whether it has not been drawn a little 
 too fine. No men are sent as drafts to India with 
 less than four years to serve, and as a proportion 
 of the three-year men would certainly not extend, 
 it follows that a larger number of men with the 
 colours will be required to insure drafts being avail- 
 able. The more three-year men we enlist the more 
 men must be kept with the colours to make certain 
 of keeping up the foreign garrisons. Nothing must 
 ever be permitted to interfere with that supreme 
 obligation. If the numbers rose to 300 per regiment,
 
 208 LOBD HALIBUBTON [1898 
 
 that would mean an addition of considerably over 
 a million a year to the cost of the Army. It 
 would give a more numerous Reserve, the cost of 
 which would have to be added to the above amount ; 
 but a less highly trained Reserve than that which 
 we at present possess. It is not clear whether it 
 is proposed to place any limit on the number of 
 three -year men, or whether the option of three and 
 seven years' enlistment would be open to all re- 
 cruits. If three-year enlistments be conceded it 
 would be very difficult to maintain any limitation, 
 and if no limitations were enforced, the up-keep of 
 our foreign by our home garrisons might become 
 impossible under the existing system, and a sepa- 
 rate Army for Colonial and Indian service would 
 become a necessity. This, again, would mean a 
 long service Army. 1 
 
 In his final letter, Mr. Arnold-Forster had given 
 Haliburton opportunity for an explanation, of 
 which he gladly availed himself. The former had 
 declared that the comparison of German and 
 British battalions 2 was misleading because, under 
 certain conditions, dependent upon the time of 
 year when mobilisation was ordered, the Germans 
 would send men into the field with less than one 
 year's service. 
 
 * Perfectly true,' came the answer, ' the German 
 battalions might have been shown less efficient 
 
 1 Army Organisation, p. 77. The passage as quoted in the text 
 is slightly expanded from its original form in the Times. 
 
 2 Vide supra, p. 173.
 
 1898] THE HISTORY OF THE LETTERS 209 
 
 than I gave them, and thus have strengthened 
 the comparison in favour of British* battalions ; 
 but wishing to avoid the slightest appearance of 
 unfairness, I preferred to show them with all men 
 of less than a year's service excluded, as is the case 
 in the British battalions.' 1 
 
 Nor was Mr. Arnold-Forster's further com- 
 parison between the two armies better grounded. 
 ' While German officers,' he had written, ' train 
 their own men whom they will lead in war, British 
 officers train boys who, when trained, will imme- 
 diately pass out of their hands for ever.' This 
 Haliburton described as ' an absurd exaggeration,' 
 for the men trained in the Home battalions still 
 belonged to the regiment, and would return to it 
 when recalled from the Reserve. 
 
 And before laying down the pen, he turned to 
 Mr. Arnold-Forster's allegation that his former 
 letters had been written in careful collaboration 
 with his late colleagues. 
 
 ' This statement is absolutely without founda- 
 tion. The War Office had no knowledge of the 
 contents of my letters until they appeared in the 
 " Times." When I stated that I did not represent 
 the views of the Secretary of State, you, sir, with 
 others scoffed, but you have since acknowledged 
 
 1 Compare Army Organisation (p. 38 and note) with Times, 
 January 22.
 
 210 LOKD HALIBUKTON [1898 
 
 that I spoke truly. I wish it to be clearly 
 understood that I speak for no one but myself, 
 though I have the satisfaction of knowing that 
 the views I have expressed have met with the 
 general and hearty concurrence of my late military 
 colleagues.'
 
 211 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 1898-1900 
 
 The Echoes of the Controversy Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 
 He Defends Haliburton in the House of Commons Extracts 
 from Haliburton's Correspondence Ill-health The Athenaeum 
 The Boer War The Reserve called out Their Splendid 
 Response. 
 
 THE final stages of the Short Service controversy 
 had been closely followed by the chiefs, past and 
 present, of the incriminated War Office. 
 
 4 The hornets are all out of the nest,' wrote 
 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, on January 6, 
 ' and more audacious than ever. What, can you 
 tell me, has happened to the Times ? It used to be 
 so reasonable and willing to support the present 
 system in the main. Is it a new man ? and who ? 
 Its articles are not only violent, but personally 
 abusive ; and though in ordinary politics it has 
 unfortunately caught the tone of the " Eatanswill 
 Gazette " of late years, and my poor friends are 
 always denounced as knaves and swindlers. I have 
 not seen that spirit applied to " service " questions 
 until lately. 
 
 * Another point on which I am doubtful is this : 
 what 'is the attitude of our big soldiers who have 
 always supported the system, and had not a little 
 
 p 2
 
 212 LOED HALIBUETON [1898- 
 
 to do with, creating it e.g. Wolseley, Buller, Wood ? 
 Will they face the music, or will these boar-hounds 
 join the chorus of mongrels and turnspits who are 
 yelping in the press ? If they do, how can the 
 mere civilian be " plus royaliste que le roi " ? . . . 
 The whole wrath and venom is poured out, not 
 upon the soldiers, but upon the " War Office " 
 the civilian clerks, who are obstructive fossils, 
 mummies, and I know not what. Boiling this 
 down it means Knox l and you ; and everyone 
 knows how wanting you two are in ability, energy, 
 and intelligence ! 
 
 ' But (except in the mere matter of checking 
 extravagant expenditure) you civilians have never 
 hindered the soldiers, or dictated to them. The 
 whole thing has been the idea and creation of 
 soldiers. ... It comes to this, that the barrack- 
 yard is to outweigh the headquarters staff. It is 
 the barrack-yard alone that is represented among 
 the militaires in the House of Commons, and they 
 are having it all their own way. They will sweep 
 that august assembly like a whirlwind. Will the 
 staff stand out against them ? Such men as 
 Wolseley, Buller, Wood, Brackenbury, Grove, 
 Neville Lyttelton will they speak up, or will they 
 bow their head ? Their names would have great 
 weight with the public ; at present, owing to silly 
 
 1 Sir Ralph Knox, K.C.B., for many years Accountant-General, 
 had succeeded Hali burton as Permanent Under-Secretary of State, 
 a post which he held till 1901. Entering the War Office as far 
 back as 1856 he had an unusually distinguished record of public 
 service. It was he, in conjunction with Lord Cromer (then Captain 
 Baring) and Lord Wolseley, who worked out the details of the 
 Cardwell reforms of 1870-72; and outside his official duties he has 
 acted as Chairman of Commissions and inquiries innumerable.
 
 1900] SIB HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN 213 
 
 answers given before your Committee, 1 they are 
 quoted on the other side. If they turn tail we 
 had better have a new deal altogether.' 2 
 
 A few days later, when Haliburton had returned 
 to the charge, he was cheered by another letter from 
 the same correspondent: 
 
 * You have eclipsed yourself in yesterday's 
 " Times." I never saw such a regular cidbute as 
 you give to the enemy. The letters are all admir- 
 able, even in the parts you yourself deprecate, 
 where you " answer a fool according to his folly ;" 
 and it will be invaluable to have them reprinted. 
 But I must add that no praise, admiration, and 
 gratitude can be too great for your gallant defence, 
 single-handed ! 
 
 * You casually refer to it in this letter, but the 
 public are ignorant of the fact that you are in 
 reality a fresh and impartial defender ; your duties 
 with the Wantage Committee having never brought 
 you into dealing with these questions. When 
 known, this will greatly enhance the value of your 
 
 1 Sir Henry had presumably in mind Lord Wolseley's often- 
 quoted comparison of the home battalions to ' squeezed lemons ' 
 an answer which, taken by itself, was in strange contrast both to 
 the tenour of his evidence before the Wantage Commission and to 
 his letters contained in this volume. It related, of course, to the 
 home battalions as they stood, without the Reserves. 
 
 2 It is difficult to see how the distinguished soldiers enumerated 
 in the text, all of them employed on the Headquarters Staff, could 
 have joined in the hurly-burly. But Haliburton undoubtedly 
 felt that there were others, labouring under no such disqualification, 
 who might have helped him. ' It is a marvel to me,' he wrote to a 
 friend, ' that not one soldier strikes a blow in favour of the organisa- 
 tion of the Army. Prodigious ! ' 
 
 3 January 11, 1898.
 
 214 LOED HALIBUETON [1898- 
 
 letters. At present they are discounted, as coming 
 from an author defending his own work. I only 
 wish I saw equal pluck and equally high sense of 
 honour and public duty in all quarters. 
 
 ' I am very glad my big friend W. V. H. 1 has been 
 communicating with you. He at first was all on 
 the economical, resist-the-demands-of-the-services 
 tack. That line will not do at all ; the thing must 
 be met on its merits, and you have cleared the 
 ground of a great tangle of absurdities by your 
 letters.' 
 
 This opinion was cordially endorsed by Lord 
 Lansdowne in a letter dated January 22nd. * The 
 position has changed a good deal for the better, 
 and no one will deny that you have been the 
 principal contributor to the result.' ' I think the 
 victory in the correspondence rests certainly with 
 you, and that you have completely disposed of 
 A.-F. and " Reformer," ' wrote Sir William Har- 
 court. Nor was it less gratifying to Haliburton to 
 receive, a couple of months later, the following 
 note from one towards whom he had been com- 
 pelled on a former occasion to assume so divergent 
 an attitude : 
 
 ' 2, Carlton Gardens, March 20, 1898. 
 
 ' DEAR SIR ARTHUR, I am much obliged to you 
 for sending me your pamphlet on Army Organisa- 
 tion. I believe I could have obtained a copy in 
 the usual way through E. Stanford, but I much 
 prefer receiving it from you. 
 
 1 Sir William Harcourt, vide, supra, p. 179.
 
 1900] LETTEE FEOM LOED WANTAGE 215 
 
 * I think the main purpose for which you have 
 contended has been gained. And you and I have 
 been so far shoulder to shoulder in maintaining 
 the principles of the existing system. I am sorry 
 to learn from your note that you have been so 
 unwell. Bulwer tells me that you are being quite 
 re-established, in which I, in common with your 
 many friends, rejoice. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 WANTAGE. 1 
 
 Parliament met on February 8, and Mr. 
 St. John Brodrick, the Under-Secretary for War, 
 introduced the Army estimates on February 25. 
 The Ministerial proposals for an increase of the 
 establishment and the concessions of certain small 
 privileges to the soldiers were met with a chorus 
 of subdued approval from the service members. 
 Mr. Brodrick made a pointed allusion to the 
 honourable member who was destined to be his 
 immediate successor in Pall Mall, as one of those 
 * who denounce and deride ' all official refutation 
 and explanations. 2 Mr. Arnold-Forster expressed 
 himself as being only partially satisfied by the 
 
 1 In a long letter to the Times, dated March 7, 1898, Lord 
 Wantage gave a hearty support to Lord Lansdowne's Army policy. 
 He strongly deprecated the ' desire which had been expressed in 
 some quarters to upset ' a system which was capable of providing 
 the expeditionary force promised by the Government and only 
 made possible by the Reserve. 
 
 2 Hansard, liv. 32.
 
 216 LOED HALIBUETON [1898- 
 
 year' s programme ; but there was no renewal of 
 the fiery onslaught of the recess. 
 
 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman has given 
 a graphic account of the evening's proceed- 
 ing in a letter to Lady Haliburton, dated 
 February 28 : 
 
 ' You can tell your victim 1 when he is fit to hear 
 it, that whether from the brilliancy of his defence 
 or for whatever reason the enemy collapsed entirely 
 on Friday night. There was no trace of the fierce 
 words of the newspaper attack. They professed 
 to be quite satisfied with the Government's con- 
 cessions. The three nights' debate that was pro- 
 mised shrivelled up into one night sustained with 
 difficulty. One result was that poor I, 2 who had 
 meant to speak on Monday, with a nice Saturday 
 and a possible Sunday for polishing up my tropes, 
 arguments, and epigrams, had to dive into a back 
 room and hastily scramble together some sort of a 
 speech. I am glad, however, that, looking back, 
 I think I contrived to get in all that was required 
 by way of protests or doubts as to the reactionary 
 parts of the proposals. On the whole I think 
 we may well be content with the way things 
 went.' 
 
 ' Backing of his friends ' was an obligation 
 which ' C.-B.' never neglected, and the reference 
 
 1 Haliburton had recently been in the hands of the doctors. 
 
 2 Sir Henry had been chosen as the Liberal Leader in the House 
 of Commons at the opening of the Session.
 
 1900] DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 217 
 
 in his speech to Haliburton l was unmistak- 
 able. 
 
 ' One almost begins to wonder,' he said, 2 * what 
 the War Office meant. We are told that the 
 officials or some of them are fossils only fit to be 
 put into the British Museum. As for the military 
 officers, I can only say that they have comprised 
 some of the most distinguished men of the British 
 Army. If there are better officers I do not know 
 where they are to be found ; and these officers have 
 been close to the Secretary of State. These officers 
 have not only a large voice but an overwhelming 
 voice in the control of the affairs of the Army. 
 
 6 And then there are the civilians. It is some- 
 times said that if the soldiers had their own way 
 everything would be right, but that, unfortunately, 
 there are civilians who distort the mind of the 
 Secretary of State and prevent the right thing being 
 done. I only wish those who have spoken dis- 
 respectfully of the leading civilians would have 
 half an hour's conversation with any one of them, 
 and if at the end of that half hour they still thought 
 there was a fossil somewhere they would be con- 
 vinced it was not the civilian from the War Office. 
 My honourable friend 3 will bear me out that 
 nothing can exceed the ingenuity, the adapta- 
 bility, the extraordinary acquaintance with all 
 the history of the Army, and the public spirit and 
 intelligence of the gentlemen to whom I refer.' 
 
 In the birthday Honour List of this year Kali- 
 burton' s name figured among those upon whom 
 
 1 And, it should be added, to Sir Ralph Knox. 
 
 9 Hansard, liv. 125. Mr. St. John Brodrick.
 
 218 LOED HALIBUBTON [1898- 
 
 her late Majesty was graciously pleased to confer 
 a peerage. As a loyal Canadian he took the title 
 of ' Baron Haliburton of Windsor, in the Province 
 of Nova Scotia and Dominion of Canada.' 
 
 * I agree with you,' he wrote in answer to the 
 congratulations of one of his old subordinates, 
 ' that it is a very satisfactory reply from Lord 
 Lansdowne to the civilian element in the War 
 Office, and I think the office should be pleased. 
 I need scarcely say that I cannot and do not 
 pretend to despise these things. They are the 
 external and visible sign of a successful career 
 and of official approval. I should like to have 
 done more, but doing anything was uphill work, 
 and on the whole I should be pleased that I did 
 not make a fiasco.' 
 
 The exacting claims of his work in Pall Mall 
 had left Haliburton small opportunity for non- 
 official correspondence. In the enforced leisure 
 of his later years his pen was at the disposal of his 
 friends, and the mass of his letters to which I have 
 access show his keen interest in public affairs, his 
 shrewd outlook on life, and that playful, ever 
 courteous turn of expression which helps one to 
 understand the affection which he inspired in 
 all who were admitted to his intimacy. In 
 writing to those much younger than himself, and 
 who regarded it as a privilege to lighten his 
 labours, there is an air of deference which
 
 1900] SOME PEESONAL TEAITS 219 
 
 made his letters the delight and prize of their 
 recipients. * " What a bore this man is," I hear 
 you say. Quite true ; I admit it and apologise.' 
 ' My dear Fawcett, I think you are right as usual.' 
 * Take care of yourself ; the public never thanks 
 a man for getting ill in its service and the public 
 is a beast.' One of the hardest-worked men 
 alludes in a deprecating way to ' my naturally 
 indolent habits.' ' I am fairly satisfied with it,' 
 he declares, of one of his letters to the ' Times,' 
 ' but, as you know, I never feel that anything I do 
 is as good as it might and should be that is the 
 nature of the beast.' x Referring to a young gentle- 
 man who was hoping to gain admission to Sand- 
 hurst, he observes that London is not a good place 
 for a boy of nineteen to study in ' unless the 
 subject be human nature of the female type,' and 
 he adds sarcastically, * of course, if his sight be 
 defective it is quite right to reject him even 
 for that " kingdom of the blind " the British 
 Army ! ' 
 
 Two more of his letters, written in the summer 
 of 1898 to Sir Charles Welby, show the keen interest 
 
 1 Caddy Jellaby, whose views on Africa were summed up in 
 the comprehensive verdict that Africa was a beast, was one of 
 Lord Haliburton's favourite characters in fiction. 
 
 a At that particular moment the unfortunate British Army 
 and those who were responsible for it could do nothing good in 
 the sight of the newspapers ; an attitude which Haliburton strongly 
 resented.
 
 220 LOED HALIBUETON [1898- 
 
 he continued to take in the affairs of his old office 
 and in military matters generally. 
 
 *A great calm seems to have come over the 
 War Office, and we may hope that the " back- 
 hander " the " Times " gave one the other day is 
 the last " kick " of dissatisfaction. I see from Lord 
 Lansdowne's speech at the Mansion House that he 
 is going to act on the Decentralisation Committee's 
 Keport, though probably not on the whole of it. 
 
 * I am a believer in decentralisation up to the 
 fullest possible point consistent with a due regard 
 to a proper control of public expenditure, and to 
 exercising a wholesome check on the tendency 
 that will always exist in large services towards 
 malpractices of the clever black sheep who find 
 themselves in a position to exercise their cleverness 
 for their own purposes. " The means to do ill 
 deeds makes ill deeds done," and therefore public 
 expenditure of both money and stores must be 
 sufficiently safeguarded. The difficulty, of course, 
 is to know exactly what " sufficiently " is. In 
 deciding that, two conditions must not be lost 
 sight of. As a rule the soldier is not a good business 
 man and does not pose as such. He therefore 
 leaves a great deal in the hands of his subordinates, 
 and himself gets into their hands without sus- 
 pecting it. This tendency must be guarded 
 
 against. Give as much initiative to as you like, 
 
 but keep a careful check on all that is done to see 
 that it is well done. After all, exercising the check 
 does not necessarily involve increased correspon- 
 dence unless something turns up which necessitates 
 it. And the value of the knowledge that there is 
 a careful examination, and check, on all trans-
 
 1900] LETTEES TO SIB CHAELES WELBY 221 
 
 actions, and that detection is probable and not 
 merely possible, far exceeds the cost of a half- 
 dozen War Office clerks. Apart from the question 
 of safeguarding public funds, there is the desir- 
 ability of uniformity of action, and where dis- 
 cretion is given to numbers of people, uniformity 
 can only be approximated by careful supervision. 
 You did not expect a sermon on administration 
 from the Highlands, did you ? Grouse would be 
 more welcome, but they are not so handy just now 
 as sermons, and so I send you what I have got ! ' 
 
 * I agree with you that some of the recommenda- 
 tions of the Decentralisation Committee are good, 
 and that it is wise, as far as possible, that the 
 responsibility for carrying out details of military 
 business in the commands should be exercised by 
 the General Officer Commanding with the least 
 possible reference to the War Office. In an 
 army the main administration must always be 
 centralised because the limits of a G.O.C.'s 
 authority must necessarily be confined by the 
 boundaries of his command, and few important 
 movements can be made that do not affect several 
 commands, and they must necessarily be concerted 
 and ordered by a central authority. 
 
 *I do not object to all that is possible being 
 transferred from W.O. to districts. My objection 
 to the Committee's report, and the action taken 
 on it, is that it gives rise to false impressions. It 
 " fouls its nest " and gives the idea that large organic 
 changes are being carried out, whereas the Com- 
 mittee know that the main administration cannot 
 be decentralised and that the ' reforms ' merely 
 touch the fringe of the question touch it advan-
 
 222 LORD HALIBURTON [1898- 
 
 tageously no doubt, but it was a pity to cast un- 
 necessary discredit on the office. It is a popular 
 thing to do, but scarcely a wise thing, I think. 
 
 * I hope Lord Lansdowne will be able to admit 
 in some speech that there was no maladministra- 
 tion, and that the changes are merely those prunings 
 which all administrative offices require from time 
 to time. And looking through the report, and 
 the recommendations, I see most of the details 
 which are to be changed are purely military, though 
 the civilian gets the discredit of having clung to 
 them for purposes of their own. 
 
 * Grier son's evidence is to me very interesting. 
 It shows that the Germans have the system which 
 we established in 1869 the control department 
 for purely business matters. The controller was 
 to be the business man on the staff of the G.O.C., 
 doing exactly what Grierson describes. Unfor- 
 
 c? / 
 
 tunately the Conservatives in 1875 abolished all 
 that because officers thought the Controller was 
 to " control " the General, not the business merely. 
 I found the measure about to be carried out when 
 I returned from India, and wrote a strong minute 
 against it ; but it was too late, and the deed was 
 done, which is responsible for many of the details 
 of the work being done in the W.O. 1 I feel sure that 
 we shall have to come to some such organisation 
 again, probably on a more military basis, but the 
 time is not yet. Even with such a business staff, 
 however, the main lines of administration must be 
 governed in Pall Mall. I think my minute of 1875 
 was printed, and if the question ever comes up, 
 you might ask someone to look it up for you. 
 
 1 Vide supra, p. 35.
 
 1900] THE ATHEN^UM 223 
 
 * What is the " clerical question " you refer to ? 
 I hope it does not contemplate making the second 
 division the avenue to the first division. I feel 
 that there are political temptations to adopt that 
 course, but it would be fatal to the Civil Service. 
 It would mean that we were prepared to accept 
 men of inferior qualifications. 
 
 ' If that is the question, ask for a minute I wrote 
 for Lord Lansdowne in 1895 when he first came 
 into office ; the second division then accepted it 
 as finally disposing of the question. 
 
 * The only other clerical question I know of, 
 though I never heard it discussed, is the proposal to 
 abolish " senior clerks " and retain only " clerks " 
 and " principal clerks." I think it would be fatal 
 to the prospects of the clever young men and be a 
 premium on inefficiency. Now we can at a com- 
 paratively early date push up the exceptional men 
 over the heads of respectable inefficiency. 
 
 ' Here goes the lunch bell. You are saved ! ' 
 
 Through all his correspondence there runs the 
 note of bodily pain bravely and uncomplainingly 
 borne. His increasing lameness and his failure to 
 obtain relief at the Continental Spas, where he had 
 been in the habit of taking his annual ' cure,' 
 curtailed, year by year, his enjoyment of society, 
 and restricted him to a comparatively small band 
 of friends, some of them old colleagues, others 
 chosen from a much younger generation. In 1894 
 he had been 'specially selected' under Rule II. 
 to the Athenaeum Club, and within the sedate
 
 224 LOED HALIBUETON [1898- 
 
 portals of that haunt of ancient peace some 
 of his happiest hours were spent. Wet or fine, 
 his carriage would deposit him there between 
 three and four o'clock, and the afternoon would be 
 occupied in a succession of rubbers at Bridge amid a 
 congenial and accomplished company of those who, 
 like himself, had insured against old age by devo- 
 tion to the card-table. There was a peculiar quality 
 about Lord Haliburton which seemed to create 
 and diffuse geniality. Suffering could not spoil 
 the sweetness of his temper. The conversation of 
 a club smoking-room is wont from time to time 
 to assume an acrid and personal tone ; but ill- 
 humour could not survive the atmosphere of cheer- 
 ful optimism which Haliburton diffused around 
 him. The little formal phrases of old world 
 politeness seemed to trip naturally from his tongue. 
 And the writer of these pages can well recall the 
 noble forehead and the fine presence, and the 
 tall figure supported by crutches, 1 whose arrival 
 upstairs was always the signal for such hearty 
 greetings. 
 
 1 The further accident to his leg in the spring of 1897 had 
 led to the contrivance of a special invalid carrying-chair. When 
 his present Majesty had the misfortune a year or so later to sprain 
 his knee badly at Waddesdon Manor, and was transferred as a 
 convalescent to his yacht in the Solent, Haliburton, who was 
 spending the summer in the neighbourhood of Cowes, placed the 
 chair at the disposal of the royal patient, an offer which was 
 gracefully and gratefully accepted.
 
 1900] CALLING OUT THE RESERVES 225 
 
 In the autumn of 1899 came at last the oppor- 
 tunity of testing that system to the defence of 
 which he had devoted so much of his powers. 
 On October 9, some weeks too late for the fair, 
 the Reserves for the First Army Corps were called 
 out, and the mobilisation scheme which had for 
 years engaged the best brains at the War Office 
 was put in operation. Her Majesty Queen Vic- 
 toria signed the authority for the Secretary of 
 State at 11.30 A.M. ; it was received at the War 
 Office at 11.45 ; the telegraph lines had already 
 been * cleared ' by the joint authority of the Post- 
 master-General and the Adjutant- General, 1 and 
 by two o'clock the posters summoning Reservists 
 were out in nearly all the regimental districts. 
 So prompt was the response that the General Officer 
 commanding the Home District came into Sir 
 Evelyn Wood's room in Pall Mall with the remark, 
 * Now I shall go away and buy old furniture.' 
 It was thus that von Moltke had occupied himself 
 after despatching the historic telegram on July 15th, 
 1870, ' Krieg Mobil.' 2 ' We called out 24,519 men,' 
 wrote Lord Wolseley to Haliburton on the 24th 
 of the month. ' Of these there came up 24,040, i.e. 
 98*04 per cent. ; 1638 were rejected by the doctors 
 
 1 Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood, who, by an extraordinary 
 slip of the pen, gives the date as November 1 (From Midshipman to 
 Field- Marshal, ii. 243). 
 
 2 From Midshipman to Field- Marshal, ii. 244. 
 
 Q
 
 226 LOED HALIBUETON [1898 
 
 on joining. This is creditable all round, and ought 
 to silence all the asses who speak in Parliament 
 upon subjects they don't understand.' A couple 
 of days earlier Haliburton had written to a friend : 
 
 ' I felt sure the Reserve would come up, and 
 expected that about seven per cent, would fail to 
 respond from a variety of causes absence, 
 illness, death, imprisonment and what not. This 
 result justifies my argument of two years ago. . . . 
 I trust the War Office will now cease from measures 
 calculated to diminish the reserve, and will realise 
 that peace home battalions full of boys are exactly 
 what we want because they are preparing that 
 Reserve without which we should be nowhere when 
 war broke out. It is very difficult in time of 
 peace to persuade people that the Army is made 
 for war, not for parade.' 
 
 And the following extract from a letter written 
 on October 27 is interesting as a protest against 
 an excess of esprit de corps which tends to sacrifice 
 the efficiency of the Army to that of the individual 
 battalion. 
 
 'I quite agree about the Reserve. It is an 
 example of professional pedantry. Of course, if 
 perfectly convenient, there is at any rate a senti- 
 ' mental advantage in sending Reservists to their 
 own regiment ; but it is absurd to send battalions 
 away below strength rather than take men of other 
 regiments. No expedition has ever before left 
 these shores when regiments were not very largely 
 made up from volunteers from other regiments.'
 
 1900] MINISTEKIAL EECONSTKUCTION 227 
 
 Haliburton watched the fortunes of the war 
 with the same interest and the same disillusion- 
 ment and disappointment which absorbed us all. 
 ' These two victories,' he wrote after Talana and 
 Elandslaagte, ' are equal to another army corps in 
 their effects. I fancy that Buller will have only a 
 walk-over when he gets out.' A day or two later, 
 on the eve of ' Mournful Monday,' his tone is 
 altered, * fogged, and unhappy about the military 
 operations in Natal.' 
 
 * Why did not Buller take that hill l before ? * 
 he comments, when the road to Ladysmith 
 was opened at last. * I pointed it out to Grove 
 when Bailer's telegram came describing the Colenso 
 battle. My solution of the case is that someone 
 pointed this out to Buller at the time, and out of 
 sheer cussedness he did not do it. 
 
 ' The English are never sharp ' 2 is another of 
 his obiter scripta after the news of one of the re- 
 grettable incidents. ' They fight well when they 
 find themselves in a trap, but they never weary of 
 getting into fresh ones,' and when the Ministerial 
 reconstruction after the General Election of 1900 
 was pending, he pays a strong tribute to his old 
 chief and his old associates. 
 
 ' I can't believe that the Government propose 
 to change the Secretary of State at present. To 
 
 1 Pieter's Hill. 
 
 2 ' Slim ' was the cant expression of the day. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 LOED HALIBUETON [1898 
 
 do so would be to admit that the War Office had 
 failed and that Lord Lansdowne was responsible. 
 I think the War Office has done marvellously well. 
 There were mistakes before the War, but they 
 were Cabinet mistakes, and many mistakes out 
 there, but they were purely military, and may 
 be ascribed to most Generals, from Roberts down- 
 wards.' 
 
 The change was made, however, and Lord 
 Lansdowne was transferred to a sphere in which 
 he has rendered services to the Empire that are 
 happily beyond the reach of political controversy. 
 With his departure from Pall Mall ' that poor old 
 War Office,' as Haliburton was fond of calling it, 
 entered upon a bewildering succession of masters 
 and methods. 
 
 Many of us will remember how, while the fate 
 of Natal was still trembling in the balance, the late 
 Marquess of Salisbury added, if possible, to the 
 general gloom by a depressing, half-cynical speech, 
 in which the quality of ' self-detachment ' was 
 strained almost to breaking-point. 
 
 * I do not believe,' declared the Prime Minister, 
 * in the perfection of the British Constitution as 
 an instrument of war. . . . The exercise of the 
 powers of the Treasury in governing every depart- 
 ment of the Government is not for the public 
 benefit. The Treasury has obtained a position in 
 regard to the rest of the departments of the Govern- 
 ment that the House of Commons obtained in the
 
 1900] LOED SALISBUBY'S SPEECH 229 
 
 time "of the Stuart dynasty. It has the power of the 
 purse.' l 
 
 Haliburton was one of the listeners. ' I went 
 to the House of Lords,' he writes on January 31, 
 1900. ' Poor Lord Salisbury made a lamentable 
 speech, throwing the blame on the British Consti- 
 tution and the Treasury. I fear it is not only 
 generals we lack just now.' And a few days later, 
 in the columns of the ' Times,' he threw a flood of 
 dry light on the Premier's disclaimer of responsi- 
 bility. 2 He had already been to some degree 
 anticipated, as the opening sentence of his letter 
 shows : 
 
 ' Your correspondent, " K," states very cor- 
 rectly and conclusively the arguments in favour of 
 some central control by the Government over the 
 expenditure of the various departments. No great 
 business like that of the nation could be success- 
 fully conducted if each department of the service 
 were permitted to spend whatever seemed good 
 in its eyes ; the department that knows how much 
 cloth is available must obviously have an in- 
 fluential voice in deciding how it can be cut to 
 the best general advantage. It is not the extrava- 
 gance of individual heads of departments only 
 that has to be controlled. It is necessary to 
 guard these heads of departments against endless 
 schemes, involving public expenditure, constantly 
 
 1 Hansard, Ixxviii. 30. 
 
 2 Times, February 11, 1900. The letter is signed 'Adminis- 
 trator.'
 
 230 LOED HALIBUKTON [1898 
 
 pressed upon them, and which they are not strong 
 enough to resist without Treasury backing. The 
 complaints about Treasury control have for some 
 years been so persistent and so angry that there 
 has evidently been some cause at work disturbing 
 the normal harmony of the public departments. 
 There can be no smoke without fire, and the 
 volume of smoke has become so dense of late that 
 the fire must evidently be of considerable extent. 
 What has caused that fire I will endeavour, with 
 your permission, to explain. 
 
 'In addition to the special financial control 
 exercised by the Treasury on behalf of the Govern- 
 ment as a whole, there is supposed to exist a 
 general control over the policy of the Government, 
 and over the heads of the departments who con- 
 stitute the Cabinet. This disciplinary control it 
 is the function of the Prime Minister to exercise. 
 If he has, as he should have, a complete general 
 knowledge of the working of the various depart- 
 ments of State, and of the policy by which each 
 is actuated, he is in a position to settle autho- 
 ritatively the differences that must and will 
 arise between the spending departments and the 
 Treasury, and to secure the efficient and har- 
 monious working of the Government machine. 
 The popular notion that the Cabinet as a whole 
 can perform that function is a delusion. The 
 various political heads of departments as a rule 
 know little or nothing about the work of the other 
 departments of State certainly nothing about the 
 details of their administration and take little 
 interest and no part in inter-departmental dif- 
 ferences. These are, or rather should be, settled 
 between the differing departments and the Prime
 
 1900J TEEASUEY CONTEOL 231 
 
 Minister. To discharge this function successfully 
 one of the most difficult a Prime Minister has to per- 
 form, and one essential to the harmony, stability, 
 and efficiency of a Cabinet he must be well in- 
 formed, impartial, and strong, and must have the 
 time to devote to the investigation and settlement 
 of the many differences that must come before him. 
 As the function of the Opposition is to oppose, so 
 the function of a Chancellor of the Exchequer is to 
 check, or in other words to object to, any unusual 
 expenditure. During Mr. Gladstone's Govern- 
 ment a very strong, perhaps too strong a statesman 
 presided over the Treasury, and unfortunately 
 Mr. Gladstone, though very strong in one sense, 
 was never very intimately acquainted with the 
 departmental necessities of the public service, and 
 was never impartial where public expenditure was 
 concerned. His inclination was always to cut down, 
 a virtue that can be carried too far, and his leaning 
 in any differences that arose between the public 
 departments and the Exchequer was always to- 
 wards the Chancellor's views. In his day, there- 
 fore, complaints against the action of the Treasury 
 were rife, and it was constantly accused of sacri- 
 ficing the public interests to the exigencies of a 
 popular Budget. 
 
 * Under the present Government things have 
 gone from bad to worse, but from a different cause. 
 Lord Salisbury has never been credited with an 
 extensive knowledge of the general administration 
 of the Government and of the requirements of the 
 service outside those dealt with by the Foreign 
 Office, and he has never taken any personal interest 
 in, or been in a position satisfactorily to settle, 
 the differences that have frequently arisen between
 
 232 LOED HALIBUETON [1898-1900 
 
 the Chancellor and the heads of the departments. 
 For many years the country has practically had 
 only a nominal Prime Minister, and the controlling 
 power which must exist somewhere in a Cabinet, 
 and which he is supposed to exercise, has gradually 
 slipped into the grasping hand of the Chancellor. 
 The Chancellor's duty is to exercise a limited 
 control over the departments subject to appeal, 
 and that limited control has become almost un- 
 limited owing to the court of appeal being practi- 
 cally closed. The Government machine is out of 
 gear owing to its various parts not performing 
 well and duly the duties assigned to them. Fortu- 
 nately the present permanent head of the Treasury 1 
 is a man of great ability and common sense and 
 replete with tact and knowledge. The result is 
 that the evil which the Prime Minister sees and 
 misunderstands has not worked the evil to the 
 service that might have been expected from the 
 dislocated machine that governs it. If the British 
 Constitution needs amendment, that amendment 
 should find its expression in a rule prohibiting 
 the Prime Minister from holding a portfolio in 
 any of the great departments of State. He will 
 then have time to cultivate his own proper duties, 
 to control those of others, and will no doubt 
 soon grow in faith in the possibilities of the British 
 Constitution as an engine for war.' 
 
 1 Sir Francis Mo watt, G.C.B., vide supra, p. 142.
 
 233 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 1901 
 
 Sweeping Reorganisation in the Army Haliburton's Distrust of 
 the Changes His Pamphlet, 'Army Administration in Three 
 Centuries' Summary of its Contents. 
 
 THE series of reorganisations to which the British 
 Army was subjected from the commencement of 
 the present reign down to the date of his death 
 was followed by Lord Haliburton with close 
 attention, and brought him to some very decided 
 conclusions. On March 8, 1901, Mr. St. John 
 Brodrick, who had succeeded Lord Lansdowne as 
 Secretary of State for War in the previous Novem- 
 ber, introduced his scheme for ' decentralisation,' 
 and for, the creation of the six army corps. The 
 debates in both Houses of Parliament were dis- 
 cursive in character and personal in tone. They 
 served to illustrate a favourite saying of Halibur- 
 ton's, that in this country few understood the 
 Army system though all felt competent to criticise 
 and refashion it. It seemed to him more than ever 
 desirable, in view of the recent attacks to which 
 the War Office had been subjected, especially on
 
 234 LOED HALIBUETON [1901 
 
 its civil side, and of the ingrained repugnance of 
 the military profession to parliamentary control, 
 that the public should gain a general knowledge 
 of the broad constitutional grounds on which the 
 administration of the Army was originally founded, 
 and of the principal changes which had led to the 
 administration as it then existed. 
 
 Accordingly under the thinly veiled disguise 
 of ' Constitutionalist ' he put together a pamphlet 
 of some eighty pages entitled ' Army Administra- 
 tion in Three Centuries.' J Haliburton understood 
 as few men have done the working of every part of 
 the administrative machine of the British Army, 
 and he saw clearly that it was want of historical 
 knowledge, as well as of administrative experience, 
 which had led to so many futile experiments. To 
 him it was simply astounding that a practical 
 people like the English should know and care so 
 little about one of the great institutions of the 
 country, an institution vital both to their safety 
 and to the existence of the Empire. 
 
 Two generations of tinkering had so obscured 
 the constitutional safeguards introduced at the 
 Revolution that it had become impossible to say 
 where military authority ends or where effective 
 civil control is to be found. And Haliburton 
 viewed the gradual transference of financial control 
 
 1 Published by Edward Stanford, 1901.
 
 1901] AEMY ADMINISTEATION PAMPHLET 235 
 
 in Army matters with grave apprehension ; not 
 only because it tended to strengthen the hands of 
 that powerful section which is always afraid of 
 ' militarism/ but because it ran counter to the 
 basis of the constitution, government by the civil 
 power. It is my object to rescue from that oblivion 
 which is the almost inevitable fate of the brochure 
 the main outline of Haliburton's argument, using, 
 for the most part, his own language, and following 
 him in the only safe method of exposition, the 
 chronological and historical. 1 
 
 The existence of the British Army as a con- 
 stitutional force dates from the Kevolution of 1688. 
 The painful experience of half a century had 
 implanted in the hearts of the people a distrust of 
 a standing Army which survives to the present 
 day. Charles I. had based his personal monarchy 
 on the government of the Army by Royal Pre- 
 rogative. This Prerogative Parliament had trans- 
 ferred into its own hands and, working through 
 it, had created the New Model and brought 
 Charles to the block. ' The Army, conscious of 
 its power and dominated by its great commander, 
 then turned upon and purged the Parliament,' : 
 
 1 The same ground is covered, but from a different standpoint 
 and with greater wealth of detail, by Sir William Anson (Law and 
 Custom of the Constitution, Part II. c. viii. s. 2). See also Clode, 
 Military Force of the Crown, ii. 698 et seq. 
 
 3 Army Administration, p. 4.
 
 236 LOED HALIBUETON [1901 
 
 and gave the nation its first and only taste of 
 military rule. When the Restoration came, king, 
 Parliament, and people had each good cause for 
 disliking a standing army. It was determined to 
 disband it and trust to the Militia, a force ad- 
 ministered by the Secretary of State, governed 
 locally by Lords-Lieutenant of counties in whose 
 hands the patronage of the force was vested, 
 commanded by country gentlemen, and composed 
 of men having other means of sustenance than their 
 
 Pay- 
 Foreign and domestic complications, 1 to say 
 
 nothing of the unrelinquished aspirations of the 
 last two Stuart kings, rendered the continued 
 existence of a British Army unavoidable. Its 
 strength crept gradually up ; it was free from all 
 parliamentary control, and its numbers were only 
 limited by the amount of money with which to pay 
 the soldiers that the king could scrape together. 
 The camp at Hounslow and the packing of the 
 ranks with Royal partisans was one of the chief 
 causes of the Revolution. 
 
 When William III. was placed on the throne 
 war was raging in two out of the three kingdoms, 
 and the Dutch ' deliverer ' wanted British regiments 
 for eventual use in the Low Countries. The 
 problem before him and his advisers was how, 
 
 1 Tangiers, to wit, and the risings in Scotland. 

 
 1901 J AEMY ADMINISTRATION PAMPHLET 237 
 
 without risking a divided allegiance, the Army 
 could be placed equally between the Crown and 
 Parliament, so that the interests of the one should 
 not disturb the influence of the other. 
 
 ' It was solved not by destroying, but by streng- 
 thening, the existing departments of the Govern- 
 ment, by defining the prerogative of the Crown and 
 by adding to the legitimate functions of Parliament. 
 By the Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement, and 
 the Mutiny Act the Powers of the Crown and 
 Parliament were settled on fixed and satisfactory 
 lines. The number of troops to be maintained 
 being decided by the Cabinet, 1 with the approval 
 of the king, was voted by Parliament, together with 
 the funds estimated by the Secretary at War for 
 their maintenance. To keep more men than 
 Parliament voted was thenceforth illegal, while 
 pay for a greater number could only be expended 
 with the express sanction of Government and the 
 covering authority of Parliament.' 2 
 
 The Army being established on this footing, 
 its ' Government and Command,' including appoint- 
 ments, promotions, the grant of honours and 
 rewards, organisation and training of troops, and 
 maintenance of discipline, remained one of the 
 prerogatives of the Crown. But its exercise was 
 guarded and controlled by the constitutional 
 practice now developed under which every action 
 
 1 A convenient term, though the Cabinet as we know it was 
 not evolved till some time after the Revolution. 
 3 Army Administration, p. 7.
 
 238 LORD HALIBUETON [1901 
 
 of the king was taken on the advice of a responsible 
 minister of the Crown, whose counter-signature 
 was essential to its validity. The king remained 
 the Fountain of Honour in the Army, exercising 
 supreme control over its discipline. But the 
 appointments and promotions which he alone 
 could initiate required the approval of a Secretary 
 of State. And the power of discipline was doubly 
 guarded by this minister, who was responsible 
 for all acts of the Crown, and by the Judge 
 Advocate General, a high parliamentary official. 1 
 It was the duty of the latter to report to the 
 king on all courts-martial, to secure that no 
 soldier was illegally condemned or oppressed^ 
 and to communicate the king's orders to the 
 Army. 
 
 For over a century after the Revolution the 
 Sovereign, as a rule, was his own Commander-in- 
 Chief. When, during the reign of Queen Anne 
 and on some other occasions, a ' Captain General ' 
 or a ' General of the Force ' was appointed, that 
 high officer exercised the royal prerogative of 
 command subject to the same constitutional checks 
 which surrounded its direct exercise by the Crown. 
 There was no ' Department of the Commander-in- 
 chief, 5 no ' Horse Guards ' ; and the king carried 
 
 1 Of whom it was facetiously said that he was neither a Judge, 
 an Advocate, nor a General.
 
 1901] AKMY ADMINISTEATION PAMPHLET 239 
 
 on the duties of administration through the office 
 of the ' Secretary at War.' This member of the 
 Ministry, who was not a Secretary of State, was 
 responsible to the king for the routine of * com- 
 mand and government,' and to Parliament for 
 the exercise of financial control and for the pre- 
 vention of military encroachments. 1 
 
 As important military questions arose, * Boards 
 of General Officers ' were appointed to report upon 
 them. To these the Judge Advocate General 
 acted as secretary. He submitted their reports 
 to the Secretary at War, who took and com- 
 municated to the Army the king's decision. 
 Meanwhile the Board of Ordnance and the 
 commissariat Department were charged with the 
 administrative services necessary to the menage 
 of an army. 
 
 The Board of Ordnance, which dated back 
 from Tudor times, was the most venerable, and in 
 Haliburton's opinion the most successful depart- 
 ment connected with the Army. 2 It was under a 
 Master- General, usually a military officer of high 
 rank and a member of the House of Lords, having 
 a seat in the Cabinet and recognised as the proper 
 
 1 For the original functions of the Secretary-at-War see Fortescue 
 History of the British Army, i. 311, 359, 392 ; and for the gradual 
 growth of hia office, ibid. 409, 554, 581, and ii. 21. 
 
 3 But, on the other hand, its efficiency varied very much from 
 time to time. Fortescue, ii. 563, and iv. 880.
 
 240 LOED HALIBUETON [1901 
 
 military adviser of the Government. He was 
 assisted by high civil officials, two of whom, the 
 Clerk of the Ordnance and the Survey or- General, 
 were usually members of the House of Commons. 
 The Board was responsible for the supply of arms, 
 armament and stores to the Army and Navy, and 
 had charge of barracks and fortifications. The 
 Master- General assisted by a lieutenant-general 
 administered and commanded the corps of Artillery 
 and Engineers ; the subordinates of the Board were 
 civilians holding local appointments. They com- 
 municated direct with the Board in London, 
 but in large garrisons they acted under a com- 
 mittee, composed of the officers commanding 
 Artillery and Engineers and of the Ordnance 
 storekeeper. It was the duty of the Master- 
 General and the Board to furnish detachments of 
 sappers and miners and gunners on the demand of 
 the Commander-in- Chief, and equipment on the 
 authority of the Secretary at War. But in the 
 details of its administration the Board was inde- 
 pendent of both those officials. 
 
 In the Commissariat Department the supply 
 and transport services were performed, under the 
 direct orders of the Treasury, by civil Treasury 
 agents called Commissariat officers and more 
 familiarly known as Commissaries who were 
 represented in Parliament by the First Lord
 
 1901] AEMY ADMINISTEATION PAMPHLET 241 
 
 of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer. 
 
 * They held the funds for the use of all branches 
 of Government abroad, acted as contract agents 
 for military and naval services at foreign stations, 
 and were generally responsible for supplying the 
 Army with food, forage, land and inland water 
 transport. It was their duty to obey all orders 
 given by competent authorities, but it was equally 
 their duty to point out any objection to those 
 orders, and when overruled to report the facts to 
 the Treasury. The control of the Treasury over 
 military expenditure was completed by means of 
 the Commissioners of Public Accounts and of the 
 Board of Audit who examined all expenditure 
 of money and stores.' J 
 
 Thus, while the command of the Army was a 
 royal prerogative, exercised by the king or his 
 deputy, the Commander-in-Chief, subject to the 
 constitutional control of the ministry, its busi- 
 ness administration was entirely in the hands of 
 civilians appointed by, and directly responsible to, 
 the Government. 2 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 12. It took many years and much 
 persistent effort to establish effective control over Army expendi- 
 ture, and the great Duke of Marlborough does not provide a solitary 
 instance of military irregularities in dealing with the public funds 
 (vide infra, p. 261). 
 
 3 As Sir William Anson forcibly puts it (ii. 355) : ' The soldier 
 was fed by the Treasury and armed by the Ordnance Board. The 
 Home Secretary was responsible for his movements in his native 
 country ; the Colonial Secretary superintended his movements 
 abroad. The Secretary of State took care that he was paid, and 
 
 R
 
 242 LORD HALIBUETON [1901 
 
 This organisation continued until the closing 
 years of the eighteenth century ; but, as the 
 patronage of the Army gradually accumulated in 
 the hands of the Secretary at War, who was subject 
 to political pressure, influences were exerted most 
 inimical to the well-being of the Army. It was 
 frequently suggested that a permanent Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, free from the taint of politics, 
 should be appointed to exercise, on behalf of the 
 Crown, those prerogatives of government and 
 command which had practically been allowed to 
 fall into abeyance. This proposal was viewed by 
 the public with the old jealousy provoked by 
 Charles L, by Cromwell, by James II. There 
 seemed to lurk in it a possible danger to the 
 liberties of the people. And it was not until 1793, 
 at the beginning of the struggle with France which 
 lasted down to 1815, that Lord Amherst was made 
 Commander-in-Chief. The Adjutant- General's and 
 the Quarter master- General's departments, which 
 had hitherto been attached to the office of Secretary 
 at War, were transferred to him, and he was given 
 a War Office clerk as his military secretary. 
 
 When, however, Lord Amherst was succeeded 
 in 1795 by the Duke of York, the latter selected 
 a soldier for this position, and the Horse Guards 
 
 was responsible for the lawful administration of the flogging which 
 was provided for him by the Commander-in-Chief.'
 
 1901] AEMY ADMINISTRATION PAMPHLET 243 
 
 establishment was thus completed in very much 
 the form which endured down to the changes of 
 1904. And in 1805 the Secretary at War was 
 relieved of all duties connected with the discipline 
 of the Army, which was thenceforth supervised 
 by the Commander-in-Chief under the constitu- 
 tional control of the Judge Advocate General and 
 the Secretary of State. 
 
 'The Commander-in-Chief was responsible to 
 the king and to the Government, but not directly 
 to Parliament for the efficiency of the Army, 
 while the Secretary at War was directly responsible 
 to Parliament for military expenditure and for the 
 preservation of civil rights and privileges from 
 military encroachment. Each acted as an inde- 
 pendent check on the other, the one to secure that 
 efficiency was not impaired by undue economy, the 
 other to see that efficiency was obtained without 
 unnecessary expenditure. When they differed, their 
 differences were submitted to the decision of the 
 Crown through one of its responsible ministers.' * 
 
 It was some time before the position assigned 
 to the Commander-in-Chief in relation to the 
 civil administration and the military government 
 of the Army was authoritatively defined. 
 
 * Lord Palmerston 2 in a well-known minute 
 explained the relative position of the two offices. 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 16. 
 
 2 Secretary at War, 1809-1828. His ' Memorandum on the 
 Office of Secretary at War ' will be found in Clode, ii. 698. See also 
 Military Life of the Duke of Cambridge, i. 102. 
 
 E 2
 
 244 LOED HALIBUETON [1901 
 
 " Power cannot be vested where there is no respon- 
 sibility, or responsibility be imposed where autho- 
 rity does not exist. The Legislature has imposed 
 a responsibility upon the Secretary at War from 
 which he cannot discharge himself, and it would 
 be placing him in a position perfectly anomalous, 
 and unknown to any office in the constitution, to 
 deprive him of that independence by which alone 
 he can secure to himself the power of faithfully 
 performing his duty. The office of Secretary at 
 War has existed in point of fact, and has been 
 considered in point of law, as a sort of barrier 
 between the military authority of the officer in 
 command of the Army and the civil rights of the 
 people, and as a civil and constitutional check on 
 the expenditure of the money granted by Par- 
 liament for the maintenance of the Army." 
 
 It was ordered accordingly * that the separation 
 between the Financial and Accounts Department 
 and the military discipline of the Army should 
 continue to be observed. But since financial 
 matters could not be entirely dissevered from 
 discipline, the Secretary at War was forbidden to 
 issue orders or regulations without informing the 
 Commander-in- Chief. If they could not come to 
 an agreement the Secretary at War was to submit 
 his proposed order together with the Commander - 
 in-Chiefs objection to the Government in order 
 that it might take the king's pleasure, which 
 
 1 In a memorandum of the Prince Regent's, countersigned by 
 Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister (given in Clode, ii. 722).
 
 1901] AEMY ADMINISTEATION PAMPHLET 245 
 
 reflected that of his constitutional advisers. This 
 order settled for many years the limits of civil 
 and military control over the Army. 
 
 The extent and completeness of the civil control 
 over military action and expenditure can best be 
 illustrated by the saying of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington's, uttered in no spirit of complaint, that 
 1 he could not move a corporal's guard from 
 London to Windsor without obtaining the autho- 
 rity of the civil power.' Changes in the methods 
 of locomotion have obscured the meaning of the 
 well-known phrase. The document which ordered 
 any movement of troops, even a few soldiers from 
 one garrison to another, required the signature of 
 the Secretary at War because it was the sole legal 
 authority for magistrates and constables, directing 
 and empowering them to impress transport and 
 provide billets for men on the march. The com- 
 pulsory provision of these things was a direct and 
 by no means a popular tax on large classes of the 
 people, and its imposition was therefore most 
 properly fenced round with precautions by the 
 civil authority. 
 
 Haliburton laid especial stress upon the fact 
 that this complete supremacy of the civil over the 
 military power was not * forced by ambitious and 
 aggressive civilians on a reluctant army.' J The 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 20.
 
 246 LOED HALIBUETON [1901 
 
 strongest supporters of that supremacy were 
 found in the Army itself, and no one had used more 
 emphatic language on the subject than ' the two 
 great soldier statesmen of the last century,' the 
 Duke of Wellington and Lord Hardinge. From 
 the parliamentary utterance of the former he 
 quoted a complete and characteristic resume of 
 the constitutional status of the British Army. 
 
 * I have always understood that it was a prin- 
 ciple of the Government of this country that he 
 who exercised the military command over the 
 Army should have nothing to say to its payment, 
 its movement, its equipment, or even the quar- 
 tering thereof, excepting under the sanction of a 
 civil officer who was himself a subordinate in the 
 hierarchy of civil office, and could not take the 
 King's pleasure except upon matters of account. 
 The Secretaries of State were responsible upon 
 all the larger political questions arising out of the 
 existence of the Army, while the Commander-in 
 Chief exercised the military command, and under 
 their superintendence administered the patronage 
 as well for the benefit and encouragement of the 
 Army itself as upon constitutional grounds, in 
 order to keep the patronage out of the usual course 
 of a parliamentary and ministerial management.' l 
 
 This system remained in force until the Crimean 
 War, but in the epoch midway between Waterloo 
 and the Alma a series of suggestions were made 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 23.
 
 1901J AKMY ADMINISTEATION PAMPHLET 247 
 
 for its modification. During the years 1833-37 
 it was proposed to abolish the Master- General of 
 the Ordnance, and to give his military duties 
 to the Commander-in-Chief ; and to transfer the 
 Ordnance Board and the Commissariat Depart- 
 ment of the Treasury to the Secretary at War, 
 making him, in virtue of his enlarged powers, a 
 Secretary of State. 
 
 The Duke and Lord Hardinge opposed the 
 change, dreading this concentration of authority 
 in a single official of Cabinet rank, and, to Hali- 
 burton's lasting regret, their great influence pro- 
 cured the complete rejection of the proposals. 
 It was inevitable that, sooner or later, the adminis- 
 tration of the Artillery and the Engineers must 
 pass into the hands of the Commander-in-Chief, 
 and it was very desirable that the number of co- 
 equal departments concerned in every movement 
 of the Army should be reduced and concentrated. 
 It was merely proposed to do deliberately and on 
 well-thought-out lines what was done subsequently 
 in a panic. 1 Instead of rejecting the scheme as 
 
 1 We may compare the remarkable anticipation of these words 
 in the recently published Panmure Papers (i. 47). 'The lamentable 
 results which have attended our present expedition, as far as the 
 waste of human life has been concerned, are solely to be attri- 
 buted to the want of proper control by a single minister of every 
 department of the Army. The confusions, delays, and disappoint- 
 ments may be traced to this source to a very considerable extent, 
 and as the nation is now alive to this fact, it is quite possible that
 
 248 LOED HALIBUBTON [1901 
 
 a whole the Duke should have so modified it as to 
 achieve the purpose the Government aimed at, 
 without destroying the principle on which the 
 administration of the Army was founded. 
 
 * When the Crimean War burst upon the 
 country it found a Cabinet asleep, and a war 
 administration rusted with forty years of peace, 
 years that had worn out its trained experts and 
 enfeebled its knowledge and grasp of war ad- 
 ministration. Because the military machine was 
 rusty, and creaked and groaned in its movements, 
 for want of the oil of able administration, the 
 public, forgetting that its army system had, in the 
 words of the Duke of Wellington " worked with 
 safety to the constitution, and promoted the 
 honour and interests of the country," jumped to 
 the conclusion that it was fundamentally unsound 
 and must be replaced by a new machine which, 
 like a quack medicine, was to cure all the ills that 
 military flesh was heir to. The country, having 
 no Lincoln to warn it, " swopped horses when 
 crossing the stream," and failed to recognise that 
 it was the drivers and not the horses that were 
 at fault.' l 
 
 A new Army Department and a new system of 
 Army administration was created, as it were, 
 
 it may rush into some extreme course which may entirely over- 
 throw the present system, which by prudence and a little fore- 
 sight might have been preserved in all its better parts.' The quota- 
 tion is from ' some observations by Lord Panmure suggested by a 
 memorandum of Prince Albert, dated February 1855.' 
 1 Army Administration, p. 27.
 
 1901] AEMY ADMINISTRATION PAMPHLET 249 
 
 under the fire of the enemy. In June 1854 the 
 Department of War was separated from the 
 Colonial Office and placed under a fourth Secretary 
 of State, who assumed control over all the military 
 departments. Henceforward he was known as 
 the * Secretary of State for War,' and in February 
 1855 the Office of ' Secretary at War J was absorbed 
 by him, the Deputy Secretary at War becoming 
 an Under- Secretary of State. 1 
 
 In order to complete the constitution of the 
 War Office as we now know it, the Board of 
 Ordnance was next abolished, 2 and its duties 
 distributed between the Commander-in-Chief and 
 the civil branches of the new War Department. 
 The Commissariat Department had already 3 
 been taken from the Treasury and placed under 
 the Secretary of State. The subordinates, alike 
 of the absorbed and of the newly created depart- 
 ments, 
 
 * unaccustomed to work together, and with differ- 
 ent business habits and traditions, were hastily 
 collected into detached and widely scattered build- 
 ings, and were expected to perform, under an 
 
 1 See Lord Cardwell at the War Office, p. 9. 
 
 3 May 1855 ; greatly to the chagrin of Lord Raglan, who had 
 been at the head of the office since 1852, and who ' conscientiously 
 believed that the change will be the reverse of beneficial to the 
 public.' Panmure Papers, i. 203. 
 
 3 December 1854.
 
 250 LOED HALIBUETON [1901 
 
 inexperienced head, services of which neither the 
 head nor the subordinate had any practical know- 
 ledge.' 1 
 
 The resulting inconvenience was serious at any 
 time, and trebly so when war was raging ; but the 
 ultimate consequences of this hasty reconstruction 
 were graver still. By the formation of the new 
 War Office under the direct and immediate control 
 of a Cabinet Minister the delicate balance which 
 characterised the pre-existing administration was 
 absolutely destroyed not intentionally, not with 
 knowledge and design, but through that fertile 
 source of evil, want of thought. 
 
 'Under the previous system, when the civil 
 and military departments differed and were unable 
 to adjust their differences, they appealed to the 
 Crown through an independent power, the Secre- 
 tary of State, the representative of the Govern- 
 ment which controlled each and all of them. 
 Under the new system, when the Horse Guards 
 and the War Office differed, the Commander-in- 
 Chief could only appeal from the Secretary of State 
 to the Secretary of State, who thus became litigant, 
 judge, jury, and Court of Appeal in one. This 
 was the great initial mistake of the new system, 
 and to it can be traced the growth of that discord 
 between the civil and military elements in the 
 administration, which has culminated, after half a 
 century, in the demand that the Commander-in- 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 28.
 
 1901] AEMY ADMINISTRATION PAMPHLET 251 
 
 Chief should be permitted direct appeal from the 
 Secretary of State to the public, through Parlia- 
 ment or through the Press.' 1 
 
 And out of the consolidation of the War Office 
 there arose the cry against Dual Government in 
 the Army. The now submerged post of Secretary - 
 at-War, though occasionally filled by a soldier of 
 distinction like Sir Henry Hardinge, had been 
 usually regarded as a civilian appointment, 2 and 
 the office establishment had consisted entirely 
 of civilians. Into the new War Office was intro- 
 duced a military element by the appointment of a 
 soldier immediately subordinate to the Secretary 
 of State, who had the title, first, of Secretary 
 for Military Correspondence, and, subsequently, of 
 Permanent Under- Secretary of War. The inevit- 
 able result was grave friction and irritation between 
 the War Office and the Horse Guards. The 
 Commander-in-Chief was responsible for dealing 
 with purely military questions, and yet, when he 
 submitted proposals to the Government, the 
 answers were, or were supposed to be, dictated by 
 military officers, of inferior rank, who had no 
 
 1 A very lucid exposition of the changes thus introduced wil 
 be found in Lord Panmure's speech in the House of Lords on 
 February 21, 1856, quoted in full in the Panmure Papers, ii. 117 (n.). 
 
 3 One of its most distinguished and incongruous civilian 
 occupants was the Right Hon. T. B. Macaulay, who received the 
 Cabinet rank which Lord Palmeraton during his prolonged tenure 
 of the office had always declined.
 
 252 LOED HALIBUETON [1901 
 
 direct responsibility, but whose advice and in- 
 fluence were distinctly traceable in the Secretary 
 of State's decisions. 
 
 The dual control lasted until the year 1870, 
 when, on the recommendation of Lord North- 
 brook's Committee, a civilian was appointed once 
 more to replace a soldier Under-Secretary of State, 
 and the position of the Commander-in-Chief was 
 largely restored to what it had been prior to the 
 reorganisation of 1855. He was charged with the 
 personnel, including enlistment, military training, 
 distribution of troops, military information, dis- 
 cipline, appointments, honours and rewards ; 
 subject, indeed, to the constitutional control of the 
 Government exercised through the Secretary of 
 State, but with his position no longer undermined 
 by irresponsible military advisers in the Secretary 
 of State's office. 
 
 At the same time a fundamental change was 
 effected by the addition to the War Office establish- 
 ment of a Survey or- General a military officer 
 of high rank, with a seat in Parliament and a 
 Financial Secretary, also with a seat in Parliament, 
 but a civilian. These * well-conceived and well- 
 considered ' departments were, in a great measure 
 a revival of defunct organisms. To the Surveyor- 
 General were confided the duties of supply, which 
 had formerly been carried out by the Board of
 
 1901] AKMY ADMINISTEATION PAMPHLET 253 
 
 Ordnance and by the old Commissariat Depart- 
 ment of the Treasury, while the Financial Secre- 
 tary had the general control over Army ex- 
 penditure and establishments which the Secretary 
 at War exercised before his office was abolished. 
 In its main lines this system was a return to the 
 administration which existed before the Crimean 
 War, but with a distinctly more military character 
 outside the walls of the War Office, and with the 
 seeds of decay implanted in some of its chief con- 
 stituent parts. 
 
 The ambiguous position of the Surveyor- 
 General was, from the first, regarded by the Army 
 with jealousy and mistrust. Serving directly 
 under the Secretary of State, and as part of his 
 office, he was credited with a reflected importance 
 which seemed to give him greater influence, if not 
 greater power and authority than was possessed 
 by the Commander-in-Chief. We have already 
 seen the misunderstanding which proved fatal to 
 what was unhappily named 4 Control.' l In 1875 
 the latter was abolished, and the Commissariat, the 
 Ordnance, and the Pay Departments came, as 
 separate organisations, under the control of the 
 Commander-in-Chief, so far as camp and garrison 
 were concerned. In the War Office itself these 
 services continued, though only for a time, to be 
 
 1 Vide supra, p. 33.
 
 254 LOED HALIBUKTON [1901 
 
 administered by the Survey or- General and the 
 Financial Secretary. 
 
 In 1883 the Commissariat became a purely 
 military corps under the Commander-in-Chief, and 
 the Ordnance and Pay Departments soon followed 
 suit. After a short interval came the demand for 
 the transfer of control over the Supply and 
 Transport service from military to civil hands, in 
 the War Office as well as outside. It was urged 
 that the Survey or- General whose office had now 
 become a purely political appointment and the 
 Director of Supplies and Transports, could not 
 understand the wants and feelings of soldiers. 
 
 * An agitation arose against the Ordnance De- 
 partment. " Punch " made merry over its swords 
 that would not bend and its bayonets that would 
 turn into corkscrews, and the public, frantic at 
 the thought that the Army, without a voice in 
 the matter, was compelled to receive and fight 
 with useless weapons, forged by ignorant civilians, 
 clamoured for the appointment of a strong and 
 responsible Commander-in-Chief to whom the 
 administration of these services should be trans- 
 ferred. It was argued that the military autho- 
 rities could not be responsible for the efficiency of 
 the Army if they did not control the administra- 
 tion of its equipment, its food, transport, arma- 
 ments and barracks services vital to its efficiency. 
 The Government, with that yielding spirit which 
 has characterised it in modern times, following, 
 instead of guiding, public opinion, abolished the
 
 1901] AEMY ADMINISTRATION PAMPHLET 255 
 
 department of the Survey or- General, and in 1888 
 administrative control over Army services passed 
 from the civilian to the soldier in the War Office, 
 as it had done a few years previously in garrison 
 and in the field.' x 
 
 The consequence of this step was to limit 
 the powers of the Financial Secretary to an 
 examination of accounts, which merely secured 
 the integrity of charges without affording any 
 effective supervision over their necessity or their 
 extent. The old civil and constitutional control 
 over military expenditure was weakened if not 
 destroyed. 
 
 1 The abolition of these civil branches of the 
 War Department, and the increased power and 
 responsibility conferred on the Commander-in- 
 Chief, gave for a time great satisfaction to the 
 public. Before very long, however, the hosannas 
 which had greeted the creation of a " strong Com- 
 mander-in-Chief " became fainter and fainter, and 
 a new set of reformers, who knew not the Josephs 
 of the previous agitation, and who had no faith 
 in a strong Commander-in-Chief, commenced a 
 fresh crusade against the administration of the 
 Army. 2 They urged that no human being 
 could support the weight of responsibility that 
 had been cast on the unfortunate Commander- 
 in-Chief ; that he must be an accomplished soldier, 
 a scientific constructor of arms and ammunition, 
 of barracks and fortifications, of gun-carriages and 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 37. 2 Ibid. p. 39.
 
 256 LOED HALIBUETON [1901 
 
 transport wagons, a master baker and learned in 
 the gentle art of slaughtering cattle and sheep, and 
 dressing them for the mess table ! ' l 
 
 This catalogue of distracting responsibilities 
 got upon the nerves of the public, and produced 
 the appointment of the Hartington Commission 2 
 which reported, in effect, that no one man could 
 possibly perform all the duties now concentrated 
 in the person of the unfortunate Commander-in- 
 Chief. The Commissioners, remarked Haliburton, 
 failed to see that every great business must 
 have a general manager or superintendent, and 
 that, while no single individual could grasp in 
 complete detail, or personally perform, all these 
 various duties, yet, assisted by trained and expert 
 subordinates, of rank and experience, one man 
 could perfectly well superintend their operations 
 and be responsible to the Secretary of State for 
 their successful working. 
 
 * The Royal Commission recommended that the 
 Commander-in- Chief, who may be regarded as the 
 General Military manager under the Secretary of 
 State, should be abolished ; that his work should 
 be divided among several independent heads of 
 departments ; and that the Secretary of State 
 should do what they had said no man could do, 
 be responsible for all these services, unaided by 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 39. 
 a Vide supra, p. 127.
 
 1901] ARMY ADMINISTRATION PAMPHLET 257 
 
 any general manager, though assisted, as to 
 questions of policy, and schemes of offence and 
 defence, by a Chief of the Staff, who should not 
 interfere with the current work of the departments 
 of the office.' 
 
 As we have seen, it was not until 1895 that 
 the system which was in force at the date when 
 Haliburton was writing came into existence. And 
 while following in the main the lines laid down 
 by the Hartington Commission, it was allowed 
 to retain the office of Commander-in-Chief, nor 
 did it affect the questions of financial control 
 over the Army services ; the changes merely 
 dealt with the division of duty among the 
 military heads of departments in the War 
 Office. 
 
 And here ended Haliburton' s historical re- 
 trospect of the five systems under which the 
 British Army had been administered since the 
 Revolution. 
 
 ' The years of the life of each system indicate 
 the soundness and vigour, or the delicacy and 
 feebleness of its constitution. The first lived 167 
 years ; the second 15 ; the third, after undergoing 
 many very serious operations, succumbed in its 
 seventeenth year ; the fourth died in infancy, aged 
 7 ; and the life of the fifth is despaired of by the 
 authors of its being on account of the repeated 
 attacks which threaten its existence.'
 
 258 LORD HALIBUKTON [1901- 
 
 Its destined span was indeed under ten years, 
 and Haliburton lived to see the installation of 
 system number six. 1 
 
 The closing pages of the pamphlet are devoted to 
 the relations which have from time to time existed 
 between the civil and the military elements at the 
 War Office, and to the gradual abandonment of the 
 system of constitutional check and balance which, 
 in Haliburton's eyes, were the fundamental principle 
 upon which Army administration should be based. 
 
 4 Under the four systems created since 1855 the 
 lines separating the command from the business 
 administration of the Army, which were so dis- 
 tinctly drawn at the Revolution, have been 
 blurred where they have not been completely 
 obliterated. Before 1855 civilians initiated, con- 
 trolled, conducted, accounted for and audited 
 Army expenditure, free from all personal interest 
 in the expenditure they controlled. Now Army 
 expenditure under the Secretary of State is in- 
 itiated, controlled, conducted and accounted for 
 by soldiers who are the beneficiaries of the 
 expenditure they deal with. Even these extensive 
 powers are considered insufficient. It is fre- 
 quently urged that the Accounts Branch of the 
 War Office and the Contract Department, still 
 under civil control, should be made subordinate 
 to the military administration, on the ground that 
 soldiers must necessarily be the best judges of 
 
 1 These are the actual dates : 1688-1857, 1855-1870, 1871-1888, 
 1888-1895, 1895-1904.
 
 1901] AEMY ADMINISTRATION PAMPHLET 259 
 
 what the interests of the service require. The 
 doctrine of Fox and Palmerston, as to the necessity 
 for ' constitutional checks and counter- checks ' ; 
 ' making one department a check and a control 
 on the other,' is to modern military administrators 
 unintelligible, or at any rate very distasteful. 
 
 ' The public have an idea that the civil element 
 is all-powerful in the War Office, and ascribes to the 
 malign influence of the " War Office clerk " every 
 failure, from a bent bayonet to a bungled battle. 
 A reference to a paper recently presented to Par- 
 liament, giving the rules of office procedure, should 
 dispel that delusion. It provides that all pro- 
 posals affecting expenditure, made by the Military 
 Departments, shall be referred to the Finance 
 Department for opinion, and that when these 
 departments differ the former shall submit the 
 difference for the decision of the Secretary of 
 State. On the other hand, appeals by officers 
 and others against decisions given by the Finance 
 Department must be referred to the Military 
 Departments for opinion, and when they differ 
 the former must submit the difference for the 
 Secretary of State's decision. If the office is 
 worked in strict accordance with its constitution, 
 neither the military nor the civil branches can 
 over-ride each other. The Secretary of State 
 alone has that power and that responsibility.' ] 
 
 And, in Lord Haliburton's judgment, the sepa- 
 ration of finance from discipline was the key to 
 Army administration. 'Efficiency and economy,' 
 he was fond of quoting, 'are always principles of 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 65. 
 
 s 2
 
 260 LOED HALIBUETON [1901- 
 
 antagonism. The views of one who has to bear the 
 expense and of others who enjoy the benefit are 
 not certain to be identical.' Speaking from long 
 experience, Sir Henry Hardinge had declared that 
 it would be most undesirable under our constitu- 
 tion to have the Commander-in-Chief of the Army 
 transacting the finance of the Army. But, com- 
 plained Haliburton, * these sound constitutional 
 views, which once actuated statesmen and soldiers, 
 no longer prevail.' l 
 
 In the years before the great changes of 1855 
 there had been one exception to the rule that the 
 control of Army expenditure was exclusively the 
 function of the civil administration. Certain ex- 
 penditure, not included in the Army estimates 
 noted by Parliament, but known as c Army extra- 
 ordinaries,' was left in military hands, with results 
 that were not encouraging to the advocates of 
 military control. Two instances were quoted by 
 Haliburton ' as throwing some light on the pos- 
 sibilities of our modern system.' During the 
 War of Independence the Quartermaster- General 
 in America had complete charge of the transport 
 services, free from all local civil control ; his depart- 
 ment made contracts for transport, fixed the 
 establishments to be maintained, paid for the 
 transport and accounted for it. The result was a 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 50.
 
 1901] ARMY ADMINISTRATION PAMPHLET 261 
 
 loss to the public of 417,592^., and a recommenda- 
 tion from the Commissioners of Public Accounts 
 that all expenditure of money for military services 
 should be entrusted ' to civil authorities of the 
 Crown, acting under the control not of General 
 Officers but of the highest civil department in the 
 State the Treasury.' A few years later, when a 
 sum of ten millions was about to be expended on 
 the construction of barracks in the United King- 
 dom, a purely military department, free from the 
 ordinary civil control, was called into existence 
 under a Barrack-master. A serious misappro- 
 priation of public funds was the consequence. 
 
 'No satisfactory accounts could be obtained, 
 the Barrack-master General objecting to his ex- 
 penditure being subject to audit by civilians, 
 except as to the accuracy of computations, on the 
 ground that he must be the best judge of the 
 necessity and the propriety of the charges he had 
 incurred. 1 The British officer of to-day indeed is 
 above suspicion in his dealings with public funds. 
 Malversation such as above referred to is not likely 
 to recur, but systems of administration should not 
 depend for their integrity solely on the honour of 
 those administering them.' 
 
 1 Army Administration, p. 58. For the story of Barrack-master- 
 General Delancey see Fortescue, iv. 903. ' There can be no doubt 
 that Delancey was guilty of a shameful breach of trust towards the 
 Ministers, and they as guilty of a breach of trust towards the 
 nation. . . . However, the fact remains that in a few short years 
 the British Army was imperceptibly transferred from quarters in 
 ale-houses to quarters in barracks.'
 
 262 LOED HALIBUKTON [1901- 
 
 And to Lord Haliburton it seemed more than 
 curious that our modern system should be based, 
 not on the constitutional principles of check and 
 balance introduced under William III., but 
 
 * on the unfortunate exceptions to these principles 
 which form almost the only blot on the military 
 administration of the eighteenth century. 1 Once 
 more we have created a trust and an interest in 
 the same individuals, and abandoning constitu- 
 tional check and counter- check we largely rely 
 for the integrity of public expenditure on the 
 capacity and the honour of individuals.' 
 
 The civil establishment at the War Office had 
 been founded by Pitt in 1804. In that year civil 
 clerks were first introduced into the departments 
 which had previously been staffed with officers 
 and non-commissioned officers. One reason for 
 the innovation was ' the frequent changes that 
 took place among the persons employed ' ; and 
 there was the further grave objection to the former 
 system, that it withdrew useful men from their 
 regiments and did not, in fact, furnish that de- 
 scription of public servant absolutely necessary 
 for the business of the office. 
 
 ' Pitt's policy is now reversed. That valuable 
 body of subordinates is being gradually got rid 
 of and replaced by soldiers. The change will 
 not stop there. It has frequently been proposed 
 
 1 Here indeed we have ' Haliburton the optimist.'
 
 1901] AEMY ADMINISTKATION PAMPHLET 263 
 
 to replace the higher grade civilians in the Secre- 
 tary of State's office by retired officers, and 
 those of the lower grade by non-commissioned 
 officers. Such a change would no doubt reduce 
 discussion and friction within the office, for it is 
 not the " custom of the service," which to soldiers 
 is an unchanging law, for officers of the Army 
 to give official expression to views which do not 
 accord with those of their seniors. But while it 
 may reduce friction it will narrow the sources and 
 reduce the value of the information at the Secre- 
 tary of State's disposal, and give rise to grave 
 constitutional complications. 
 
 ' Formerly, when the people thought themselves 
 injured by the action of the soldiery, they could 
 appeal with confidence to a tribunal free from 
 military influence, and therefore commanding 
 their confidence. That tribunal no longer exists. 
 If the people now feel themselves aggrieved by 
 the action of the military authorities they can 
 only appeal to a military department for redress, 
 and its decisions, even when just and reasonable, 
 will never command their confidence. It is true 
 that the head of the department will be a member 
 of the Government and probably always a civilian. 
 The head may be the head of a civilian, but the 
 voice will be the voice of the soldier ! Even 
 should complaints reach the Secretary of State 
 personally, his decision must be based on a brief 
 prepared by a military official. So surrounded 
 and so advised there will be a danger of the Secre- 
 tary of State, in the quaint words of Bacon, " being 
 counselled more for the good of them that counsel 
 than of him that is counselled." The result will 
 be that people, when they have cause to complain
 
 264 LORD HALIBURTON [1901- 
 
 of the action of the military authorities, will 
 direct their appeals to the House of Commons 
 instead of to the military department, and thus 
 will be brought about that which it was the great 
 object of the statesmen of the last century to 
 avoid, the direct intervention of Parliament in 
 the detail administration of the Army.' ] 
 
 It is not altogether easy for a modern reader 
 to share Lord Haliburton's enthusiasm for the 
 old order which was swept away in 1855. The 
 century that elapsed between Malplaquet and 
 Vimiero is not a chapter in our military annals to 
 which we are accustomed to recur with pleasure, 
 and the regime of the Iron Duke and Lord 
 Hardinge brought forth bitter fruit in the Crimea. 
 But though one may not be able to accept all his 
 conclusions, it is impossible not to recognise the 
 historical value of the retrospect, or ignore the 
 weighty warning contained in this recapitulation 
 of ' certain fundamental principles, once universally 
 accepted, but which have failed to obtain recogni- 
 tion in the various modern systems which have 
 replaced that framed at the Revolution.' 5 
 
 1 Army Administration, pp. 74-75. 2 Ibid. p. 77.
 
 265 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 1901-1907 
 
 Changes at the War Office the Esher Committee Letters to the 
 'Times' Mr. Haldane becomes Secretary for War Haliburton's 
 Expectations ' Nineteenth Century ' Article on Universal 
 Service Disappointment at Mr. Haldane's Scheme The End. 
 
 DUEING the three years for which Mr. Brodrick 
 held the seals as Secretary of State for War, Lord 
 Haliburton took no further part in controversy. 
 Long experience had made him sceptical of cut-and- 
 dried schemes for Army reorganisation, however 
 promising they might appear on paper. But 
 there was nothing in the much-abused Army corps 
 or in the Reserve battalions for Mediterranean 
 garrison duty, which ran counter to his principles. 
 The somewhat factious opposition which the 
 Ministerial proposals encountered in Parliament 
 was largely regarded as a personal protest on 
 the part of some of the unruly members of the 
 Unionist party. 
 
 With the autumn of 1903 came a mighty change. 
 The reconstruction of the Balfour Ministry after 
 the September resignations which deprived the
 
 266 LOED HALIBUETON [1901- 
 
 Cabinet of the services of the Duke of Devonshire, 
 Mr. Chamberlain, and several others of their col- 
 leagues, sent Mr. Brodrick to the India Office, 
 and his place in Pall Mall was filled by Mr. 
 Arnold-Forster. For the last three years Mr. 
 Forster had been serving his official apprenticeship 
 as Under Secretary to the Admiralty, but he had 
 never abated his interest in the Army or wavered 
 in his conviction that he had mastered the secret 
 of the Army problem. The publication, a few 
 weeks earlier, of the Report and the evidence 
 taken before the Royal Commission to inquire 
 into the South African war had roused the nation 
 to one of its periodical fits of self-examination and 
 self-reproach. The War Office had come in for 
 some especially hard knocks at the hands of the 
 Commissioners, and there was a widespread inclina- 
 tion to see the broom vigorously applied to that 
 institution by one who had in the past made it the 
 object of so much hostile criticism. 
 
 Early in the new year the ' Reconstitution ' 
 Committee, appointed with a wide, but undefined, 
 reference as the outcome of the War Commission, 
 issued their first Report.. Effect was given to its 
 Recommendations without warning or delay. On 
 February 1, 1904, the office of Commander-in- 
 Chief ceased to exist, its place was taken by 
 an Army Council, framed avowedly, but with
 
 1907] THE ' EECONSTITUTION ' COMMITTEE 267 
 
 many important distinctions, on the model of the 
 Board of Admiralty, and the Secretary of State for 
 War became ex-officio its President. The existing 
 * Horse Guards staff,' beginning with Earl Roberts, 
 were swept out of existence with a brusquerie 
 that took small account of the extraordinary 
 services which the last of the Commanders-in-Chief 
 had so recently rendered to the empire. 
 
 A general chorus of approval went up in the 
 Press, 
 
 ' founded,' as Haliburton wrote, * not so much on 
 an extensive knowledge of the subject, as on the 
 conviction that some change in the administration 
 was essential, and on the satisfaction felt that the 
 new administration was to be framed on the same 
 lines as that of the sister service, which had com- 
 manded the confidence of the country and worked 
 without that friction which has been such a marked 
 feature in the case of the Army.' 
 
 There were many very distinguished soldiers, 
 however, who failed to share in the general satis- 
 faction. The composition, ' unique in the history 
 of committees,' of the triumvirate which had been 
 entrusted with the destinies of the British Army 
 was not one which appealed to the military mind. 
 Lord Esher, Admiral Sir John Fisher, and Colonel 
 Sir George Clarke, R.E.,- were all of them men of 
 mark, but only the last named was a soldier, and 
 
 1 Times, March 16. a Since 1906 Governor of Bombay.
 
 268 LOED HALIBUETON [1901- 
 
 his career in the Army had brought him the scan- 
 tiest administrative experience. 
 
 After giving himself several weeks to master 
 and assimilate the details of the successive Reports 
 of the Committee, Haliburton took up his pen 
 once more, and the ' Times' of March 16 and 19 
 contained letters over his signature which strongly 
 criticised certain of the Recommendations. The 
 first of these dealt with purely military questions, 
 with the new regulations touching military pro- 
 motion and appointments, with the abolition of the 
 military levees, and the formation of a Permanent 
 Department of Defence under the Prime Minister. 
 
 The Committee of Defence was not the creation 
 or invention of the triumvirate, but had been 
 nominally in existence for some time : it had been 
 reconstituted in the spring of 1903 on the initiative 
 of Mr. Arthur Balfour, and a very important altera- 
 tion had been made in its composition by the 
 inclusion among its members of the First Sea Lord 
 and the Director of Naval Intelligence, and of 
 the Chief of the General Staff and the head of the 
 Intelligence Branch of the Army. The Report of 
 the Esher Committee added to it a salaried military 
 secretary who was to hold his post on a five-year 
 tenure. It must be admitted that the recon- 
 stitution on this basis of the Defence Committee 
 was highly popular out-of-doors, and was hailed as a
 
 1907] THE COMMITTEE OF DEFENCE 269 
 
 recognition of the necessity for closer co-ordination 
 between the land and the sea forces. But any 
 one who has followed the argument and the 
 historical reasoning contained in the last chapter 
 will be prepared to find that the creation of this 
 department, and especially the appointment of the 
 Permanent Secretary, seemed to Haliburton a 
 dangerous departure from the constitutional prac- 
 tice of the country. 
 
 ' It will place the Prime Minister,' he wrote, 1 
 4 with regard to those two services in a totally 
 different position from that he occupies towards 
 the departments presided over by other Cabinet 
 Ministers. The First Lord and the Secretary of 
 State for War are his proper advisers on all naval 
 and military subjects, but if between them another 
 and irresponsible adviser is introduced great friction 
 will inevitably arise. 
 
 ' An analogous case will illustrate this. Prior to 
 1857 the Commander-in-Chief was the legitimate 
 adviser of the Secretary of State for War on all 
 military questions. In that year Sir Henry Storks, 
 subsequently succeeded by Sir Edward Lugard, 
 was appointed ' Secretary for Military Correspon- 
 dence ' in the War Office. Up to that time no 
 question of dual government in the Army had 
 arisen, but following immediately on these appoint- 
 ments, complaints became numerous and bitter 
 that the advice of the Commander-in-Chief was 
 disregarded owing to the intervention of an irre- 
 sponsible military officer, who, behind his back 
 
 1 Times, March 10.
 
 270 LOED HALIBUETON [1901- 
 
 and without openly appearing, influenced the 
 Secretary of State against his proposals. Business 
 was hampered and obstructed, and the friction 
 continued for many years until the appointment 
 of a military secretary on the civil side of the office 
 was abolished. 
 
 ' The meetings of the Defence Committee in 
 ordinary years cannot be numerous, and the 
 Secretary during the intervals would have no 
 sufficient work to justify his office. The duty of 
 collecting information on naval and military 
 subjects belongs to the intelligence branches of the 
 two services. They must possess that information 
 if they are responsible for their departments, and 
 it would be a mere duplication of work if the Secre- 
 tary of the Defence Committee also collected the 
 same information. The Council l and the Board of 
 Admiralty can supply the Defence Committee with 
 that information, and their Intelligence Branches 
 are capable of furnishing competent secretaries to 
 the Committee and of keeping available for instant 
 reference any records and information it may 
 require. If, however, a clever and ambitious 
 secretary is appointed, who will be independent of 
 the Admiralty and the War Office, he will inevitably 
 become a thorn in their flesh, and such heat and 
 friction as formerly existed between the Horse 
 Guards and the War Office will be engendered and 
 found intolerable. The more able and more 
 ambitious the secretary, the more impossible will 
 become his position.' 
 
 It must be confessed that in this protest Lord 
 Haliburton seems to make imperfect allowance 
 
 1 The Army Council.
 
 1907] THE CIVILIANS IN THE WAR OFFICE 271 
 
 for the enormously increased complexity of the 
 problem of Imperial Defence, or for the constant 
 failure, in the past, of the two great services to 
 understand one another, and to keep their respec- 
 tive duties clearly denned. Nor is the analogy 
 drawn from the * Secretary for Military Corre- 
 spondence ' by any means complete. Time alone 
 can show how far his strictures and forebodings 
 are justified. 
 
 In his second letter, which is confined to the 
 judgment of the Committee on the relations exist- 
 ing between the Military, the Financial, and the 
 Contract Departments of the War Office, he was 
 on surer ground, and had very genuine cause for 
 complaint. The civil side of the War Office, with 
 which, in one capacity or another, he had been 
 associated for so many of his working years, had 
 been assailed by the Committee in the picturesque 
 and highly coloured language which is the stock-in- 
 trade of the Press whenever anything goes wrong 
 with the Army. The Report had stated that 
 
 ' criticism of military policy by civilians has become 
 a habit.' ' War Office papers teem with minutes, 
 showing that clerks of the finance branch freely 
 express their opinion on matters of military policy.' 
 ' The War Office is divided into two hostile camps, 
 whose occupants regard each other with mutual 
 suspicion.' * The system combines the maximum 
 of friction with the minimum of efficiency.'
 
 272 LOED HALIBURTON [1901- 
 
 There was no Secretary of State for 
 Haliburton asseverated, not a single military 
 authority of position and character who had ever 
 served in the War Office, who would endorse these 
 reckless paragraphs; and they were the less ex- 
 cusable that while the report of the Dawkins' 
 Committee, to inquire into War Office organisation, 1 
 issued as recently as 1901, gave no countenance to 
 them, the published evidence of some of the most 
 distinguished military witnesses called before it 
 was eloquent in favour both of the officials and of 
 the system. Sir Henry Brackenbury, the Director 
 General of Ordnance, had given the following 
 testimony : 
 
 * The great step, which has been of immense 
 advantage, was that which I got carried out last 
 year : I got a branch of the Accountant- General's 
 office put into my office, which has been of great 
 assistance and advantage to me. Its head is my 
 adviser, who keeps me straight and prevents me 
 going wrong. It is an immense advantage.' 
 
 Sir Evelyn Wood declared that he had received 
 the warmest and most cordial assistance from the 
 Accountant- General's department. Sir Coleridge 
 Grove, the Military Secretary, bore witness that 
 the civilians and military had worked together in 
 the War Office for many years on the best 
 
 1 Haliburtou gave evidence before it: see 1901, C. 581, p. 79.
 
 1907] THE CIVILIANS IN THE WAE OFFICE 273 
 
 of terms. Colonel Cowans said, most emphati- 
 cally, that his department the Quarter master - 
 General's had never had any difficulty whatever 
 with the finance branch, or any delay caused 
 by it. 
 
 Sir George Clarke, added Haliburton, had him- 
 self been a member of the Dawkins' Committee, 
 and yet, without producing any evidence whatever 
 to rebut this evidence of the military heads of 
 the War Office, he permitted the Esher Com- 
 mittee to make statements absolutely at variance 
 with it. 
 
 * There must necessarily be some heat and 
 friction in any great business like that con- 
 ducted by the War Office, when the projects of 
 the military, who are responsible for the efficiency 
 of the Army, have to be financially opposed by 
 the department responsible for its finance. This 
 natural heat evolved by clashing opinions never 
 degenerates into personal acrimony or enmity. 
 If the financial control were such a poor thing as 
 never to assert itself or to disturb the equanimity 
 of those who advocate projects of public expendi- 
 ture, it would be of little value to the Government 
 in guarding the Exchequer from undue or useless 
 expenditure.' 
 
 In a leading article l the ' Times ' volunteered 
 the explanation that the hard words of the Com- 
 
 1 Times, March 19, 1904. g
 
 274 LORD HALIBURTON [1901- 
 
 mittee had been used in a purely Pickwickian 
 sense. 
 
 ' Their statement that the War Office is divided 
 into two hostile and mutually suspicious camps . . . 
 in reality means nothing more or less than that the 
 War Office is at present organised on that system of 
 " checks and oppositions " which Lord Haliburton 
 considers ideal, 1 but which the Committee consider 
 incompatible with real economy in peace, wasteful 
 in war, and combining " the maximum of friction 
 with the minimum of efficiency." Lord Haliburton 
 is convinced that giving the soldiers responsibility 
 for finance will lead to frauds and scandals of every 
 sort. That is simply, in polite language, the old 
 War Office view that the soldier is necessarily a 
 spendthrift and probably a thief.' 
 
 Against this most unwarrantable inference 
 Haliburton warmly protested : 
 
 *I have known the War Office intimately for 
 more than a generation, and during that time no 
 such view existed there. Certainly I do not hold, 
 and never have held, the view you impute to me. 
 Fortunately proof of this exists. Prior to 1870 
 the conduct of the business of the Army outside 
 the War Office was entirely in civil hands. I was 
 always of opinion that this was an unsound organi- 
 sation, and that the whole machinery for carrying 
 out Army services in camp and garrison should be 
 purely military, supervised and controlled by the 
 Secretary of State, by means of the military staff 
 of the War Office, as regards military affairs, and 
 
 1 Vide supra, p. 243. * Timex, March 26.
 
 1907] THE CIVILIANS IN THE WAR OFFICE 275 
 
 by means of his civil staff, as regards financial 
 transactions. It took some thirteen years to 
 accomplish this reform. It was only about 1883 
 that the last civilian departmental officers were 
 finally replaced by soldiers in garrisons at home 
 and abroad, where they had served for over two 
 centuries. This was a step in the right direction, 
 but it was wanting in completeness, and in 1887- 
 1888 the edifice was crowned by the transfer from 
 the civil to the military side of the War Office of 
 all administrative duties connected with what 
 may be called the business of the Army. I strenu- 
 ously advocated this measure, though it involved 
 the abolition of the office I held of Director of Sup- 
 plies and Transport, and my retirement from the 
 service. I think those facts prove that the War 
 Office did not regard the soldier as " necessarily a 
 spendthrift and probably a thief ! " 
 
 A few months later Lord Haliburton was again 
 in the field, enjoying once more the hospitality 
 of the ' Times ' which was always ready to welcome 
 so racy a combatant. 1 On August 8, just a week 
 before the rising of Parliament, the Secretary of 
 State for War introduced proposals for Army 
 reconstruction, which, it may briefly be said, his 
 old antagonist condemned lock, stock, and barrel. 
 Into this final controversy between Haliburton and 
 Mr. Arnold-Forster, in which the roles of assailant 
 and defender were now completely reversed, I do 
 
 1 Haliburton, however, was wont to complain that his letters 
 were sometimes held back till much of their savour had evaporated. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 LOED HALIBUETON [1901- 
 
 not propose to enter. Whatever the merits or 
 demerits of that Army scheme, it perished in the 
 General Election of January, 1906, and though it 
 cannot accurately be described as birth strangled, 
 it made few friends during its brief existence. 
 Its author has published a voluminous vindication 
 of his stewardship, 1 and I should be most loath to 
 write a line in disparagement of one of the most 
 devoted and indefatigable workers of his generation. 
 From the nine or ten letters contributed by Hali- 
 burton on the scheme itself, and on questions arising 
 out of it, I will only quote one characteristic 
 passage : 
 
 ' I have no personal interest to serve in advo- 
 cating any system of Army organisation. I am 
 not the author of any system. We have had a 
 Cardwell system, a Brodrick system, and now an 
 Arnold-Forster system. What we want is a national 
 system, not based on the opinions of any individual 
 statesman, but framed after full and exhaustive 
 national inquiry by a representative body of 
 statesmen and soldiers, on evidence which will 
 be open to the public," and which will justify it 
 and the Government in adopting and proclaiming 
 the resulting system as the national system of 
 Army organisation. 
 
 1 The Army in 1906 : A Policy and a Vindication, by the Right 
 Hon. H. O. Arnold-Forster, M.P. 
 
 2 It was one of Lord Haliburton's grievances against the Esher 
 Committee that the evidence, if any, on which they reported was 
 never published.
 
 1907] ME. HALDANE 277 
 
 'As an old servant of the public, whose poor 
 services it has more than generously rewarded and 
 honoured, I have felt it a duty to warn it against 
 an ill-considered scheme, which, I am convinced, 
 will reduce the strength, lower the efficiency, and 
 increase the cost of the Army.' l 
 
 The appointment of Mr. Haldane as Secretary 
 of State for War, in December, 1905, and the dis- 
 appearance into thin air of the Unionist majority 
 in the following January, opened a chapter in the 
 history of the British Army the final pages of 
 which it would be presumptuous to forecast. The 
 
 1 Times, October 13, 1904. Haliburton's other letters will be 
 found in the issues of August 8, 10, 31 ; September 7 and 23 ; 
 October 15, 18 and 19 ; December 24, 1904 ; March 6, 1905 ; and 
 in the Westminster Gazette, December 6, 1904. Their substance was 
 re-issued by him in pamphlet form, Army Organisation : The 
 Arnold- Forster Scheme (Stanford, 1905). The following extract 
 from the Preface is deserving of quotation : ' No one can frame 
 a reliable scheme of Army organisation without knowing the nature 
 and the extent of the strain that it will have to bear. To do so 
 would be like asking an engineer to bridge a dangerous river without 
 giving him information as to the strain his bridge would have to 
 endure. I have no knowledge, and I believe the general public 
 have no knowledge, of the strain that our Army may have to 
 meet in a possibly not remote future. Has not the time come 
 when the Government should give the public some idea of the 
 strain which its defensive forces may be called upon to meet ? 
 It will then, and only then, be able to form a reasonable opinion 
 on the character and strength of the forces it should maintain. 
 The British people are not niggards in expenditure they will 
 never refuse funds for expenditure they know to be absolutely 
 necessary in the interests of the country. What they reasonably 
 object to is extravagant expenditure for purposes they do not 
 understand, and on objects the necessity for which they are unable 
 to appreciate. 1
 
 278 LORD HALIBURTON [1901- 
 
 new minister was personally unknown to Lord 
 Haliburton, but I have reason to believe that his 
 attention was promptly drawn by one of his 
 colleagues to the pamphlets on Army organisation 
 and Army administration which loom so large in 
 these pages. Lord Haliburton's position of freedom 
 from party ties, and his absolute independence on 
 all Army questions, made him one of those to 
 whom Mr. Haldane, wandering in unfamiliar paths, 
 could turn without embarrassment. He became 
 a visitor in Lowndes Square, and in the course 
 of their conversations and correspondence Hali- 
 burton's varied store of information and his long 
 official experience were placed freely at the disposal 
 of the younger man, seated suddenly in what his 
 senior knew to be the thorniest chair in the 
 Cabinet. 
 
 The open mind and keen intelligence of the 
 Secretary of State filled him with hope that Mr. 
 Haldane might complete the edifice which another 
 lawyer statesman had begun. The lessons of the 
 South African War, and its revelation alike of our 
 responsibilities and of our dangers, had widened 
 Haliburton's outlook, while strengthening his faith 
 in our resources. He saw clearly that the Army 
 which the Cardwell system yields us, though 
 sufficient in its day for all then existing require- 
 ments, could not suffice for the contingencies to
 
 1907] UNIVEESAL MILITAEY TEAINING 279 
 
 which the Empire is now exposed, and that for 
 these contingencies other forces than the ordinary 
 Regular Army must be provided. 
 
 ' We require,' so he wrote to the ' Times,' l ' not 
 only a " Regular Army " with its Army Reserve for 
 all ordinary wars, but we require a " Reserve Army" 
 so recruited and so trained as to be capable of 
 supporting and acting effectively with the Regular 
 Army in any part of the world. The problem of 
 our Regular Army is simple. We have only to 
 give up experimenting, and to revert to a well-tried 
 and successful system. The problem of our 
 " Reserve Army " i.e. Militia and Volunteers is 
 more complicated. It must be raised under condi- 
 tions that will ensure its numerical strength and its 
 efficiency for field service, and it must be liable 
 to be sent abroad when national emergency renders 
 it necessary. If voluntary service will yield these 
 results, well and good. If it will not, then the 
 question of some sort; of compulsory service will 
 arise.' 
 
 The report of the Royal Commission presided 
 over by the Duke of Norfolk had proved conclu- 
 sively that our existing auxiliary forces were incap- 
 able of supplying a second line army capable of 
 effectively reinforcing the first line in the field. 
 How to produce that second line army, and at 
 the same time to maintain a home army capable 
 of resisting invasion, was the problem which now 
 exercised Haliburton's mind, to the exclusion of 
 
 1 August 2, 1906.
 
 280 LOED HALIBUETON [1901- 
 
 nearly every other topic. ' Universal service,' in 
 its Continental form of Conscription, 1 was never 
 entertained by him as possible or desirable; but 
 he was an enthusiastic disciple of the doctrine, 
 preached so eloquently by Lord Roberts, Lord 
 Rosebery, and Lord Milner, that it was the duty 
 of everyone to take part in the service of his 
 country, and to be so trained that he could do so 
 effectively. It seemed to him that in Mr. Haldane 
 a minister had been found who would give effect to 
 this principle. In a speech at Newcastle on Sep- 
 tember 15, 1906, the Secretary for War had declared 
 that 
 
 ' the nation in arms is the only safeguard to the 
 public interests. Unless we have an army based 
 upon the people, it must, according to modern 
 standards, be a weak army. . . . The time had 
 come to make a beginning, and to appeal to the 
 manhood of the nation to render this service.' 
 
 The appeal, indeed, was made, with results 
 which, in their present stage, cannot be fairly esti- 
 mated. But neither the ' Special Reserve ' nor 
 the ' Territorial Army ' were what Haliburton 
 understood by * a nation in arms,' and Mr. Haldane' s 
 speech in the House of Commons, 2 in which he 
 expounded the scheme, which after substantial 
 
 1 The term is of course inaccurate as applied to universal 
 compulsory service, but it has passed into common use. 
 * On February 25, 1907. Hansard, clxix. 1279.
 
 1907] UNIVEESAL MILITAEY TEAINING 281 
 
 modifications, has now materialised, was a bitter 
 disappointment to him. 
 
 Haliburton shared the ideal of Lord Roberts 
 that universal physical training of a military 
 character, and instruction in the use of the rifle, 
 should form part of the curriculum of all schools ; 
 and that, in the case of boys who leave school 
 before eighteen, there should be continuation of 
 this training, up to that age, in cadet corps, boys' 
 brigades, and similar institutions, under State 
 supervision. And in an article, which appeared 
 in the ' Nineteenth Century ' for March, 1907, 1 
 he ventured to formulate a scheme which would 
 give shape and effect to the teaching of the National 
 Service League and its kindred organisations. 
 
 * If the nation decides that part of the education 
 of its young men should consist of sufficient military 
 training to qualify them to take part in the defence 
 of their country, the establishment of the necessary 
 military schools of instruction throughout the 
 country will be a much more simple matter than 
 might be supposed. The schools must always be 
 open, and ready at all times to receive pupils. 
 An effective machinery for this is ready to our 
 hands. We have in this country the headquarters 
 and staff of 124 militia battalions. These are 
 only assembled for duty on twenty-seven days in 
 the year when the Militia undergo their deficient, 
 annual training. These Militia battalions form part 
 
 1 P. 304, Universal Military Training as a Practicable ticheme.
 
 282 LOED HALIBUBTON [1901- 
 
 of regiments of the Kegular Army, though the 
 connexion between the Regulars and the Militia 
 battalions has been much less intimate than Lord 
 Cardwell contemplated, and very much less than it 
 should be. 
 
 ' My proposal is that the staff of the Militia 
 battalions should be permanently embodied, that 
 they should become depot battalions of the Line 
 regiments, that the lieutenant-colonel commanding, 
 the adjutant, and perhaps one or two other officers, 
 should be drawn from the battalions of Regulars. 
 This measure will have the incidental advantage 
 of remedying the draft difficulty when both 
 regular battalions are abroad, of which we have 
 heard so much of late years. It should be the 
 duty of the depot battalions to train the recruits 
 for the Line battalions, and to give the youths of 
 the country their military training and knowledge. 
 This training should be for one year, or for such 
 other periods as might be sufficient. At the 
 expiration of that training the youths would have 
 three courses open to them : Those who wished to 
 enter the army might enlist ; those who preferred 
 to return to civil life could do so, but would be 
 required to be inscribed, for from three to five years, 
 in the reserve of their battalions, or they might, for 
 a small retaining fee, be enrolled in the Reserve of 
 the Regular battalions. During those three or five 
 years they would be required to undergo a certain 
 number of days' training, so as to keep alive their 
 military knowledge. That training should be 
 given by their battalion, at any time most con- 
 venient to them and that would interfere least 
 with their civil occupations. Or they might join 
 volunteer corps, and thus keep alive their efficiency.
 
 1907] ME. HALDANE'S SCHEME 283 
 
 By this system, we should, in five years, possess 
 depot battalions that could, in case of emergency, 
 call up their Reserve, and become efficient auxi- 
 liaries to the service battalions. Their service 
 would be confined to the United Kingdom, unless 
 they volunteered for active service abroad, either 
 in units, or as drafts from the reserve of trained 
 men.' 1 
 
 While Haliburton's article was passing through 
 the Press, Mr. Haldane's statement in the House 
 of Commons, 2 with its fundamental changes in the 
 status of the Militia, cut the ground from under 
 his feet. 
 
 ' The main difference,' he added, in a despairing 
 postscript, * between my scheme and that of the 
 Government is that I would draw closer the 
 Cardwell tie between the Regulars and the Militia, 
 making them the depot battalions of the Regulars, 
 and assigning to them the duty of training the 
 youth of the nation, so that in a few years we should 
 have the manhood of the " nation in arms." Mr. 
 
 1 Haliburton suggested that the training age should be from 
 seventeen to twenty, or whatever should be found most suitable 
 or convenient. The exemptions would be those usual in ' conscript ' 
 armies men serving in the Army, in the Navy, the Marines, and 
 the mercantile marine ; all physically unfit for military service : 
 clergy, bread-winners, and only sons of widows, &c. And he further 
 proposed that, ' apart from the Militia battalions forming tho 
 depots of Line regiments, it might be desirable to retain a certain 
 number of battalions or schools for what are known abroad as 
 one -year volunteers. With all it might bo desirable that residence 
 in barracks should be optional, just as there are boarders and day- 
 scholars in schools.' 
 
 - February 25. Hansard.
 
 284 LOED HALIBUKTON [1901- 
 
 Haldane disestablishes the Militia, and completely 
 divorces it from the Regular Army, transferring 
 it and the Volunteers to the administrative control 
 of the " Local Associations." He creates, in place 
 of the Militia, new depot battalions of Regulars to 
 enlist and train " non-Regular Reservists " for the 
 Army. 1 A valuable and essential measure, if 
 universal military training cannot be achieved ; 
 but one that will never give us " the nation 
 in arms," the only safeguard to the public 
 interests.' 
 
 Lord Haliburton was indeed grievously disap- 
 pointed, for he had convinced himself that Mr. 
 Haldane ' meant business,' and he had made no 
 allowance either for the tide of ' anti-militarism,' 
 which was then running with exceptional strength, 
 or for the strong opposition of the Trade Unions. 
 A few weeks later Haliburton concluded a letter to 
 the ' Times ' 2 with the following sentences, the last 
 he ever penned : 
 
 * The second line army of the future will be 
 formed of the same materials as those that composed 
 the existing Militia and Volunteers. Why did 
 Mr. Haldane draw back from calling on the 
 nation to form a National Army by making 
 its youth undergo, as part of their national 
 
 1 During the course of the session Mr. Haldane's plans were so 
 far modified that the bulk of the Militia was retained as the Special 
 Reserve, forming part of the Service Army, and free from all con- 
 nexion with the County Associations. 
 
 3 Written April 5 ; published April 22.
 
 1907] LAST LETTEES TO THE 'TIMES' 285 
 
 education, such training in arms as might be 
 found necessary to enable them to take their 
 place in the ranks for home defence in times of 
 great emergency ? 
 
 ' If Mr. Haldane had carried out his first inten- 
 tions his scheme would have been perfect, and he 
 would have become the greatest War Minister the 
 country has produced. His local associations 
 would work up the trained youth into volunteer 
 corps, and into brigades and divisions, and a great 
 and efficient national army would be called into 
 being. Why has he failed ? Are his colleagues 
 and his party more interested in their political 
 stability, and in the votes they can command, than 
 in the safety of the nation and the forces it can 
 command for its defence ? If the Government 
 would adopt universal military training as part of 
 the education of the nation, all its military diffi- 
 culties would vanish, and I believe they would 
 find an enormous mass of opinion in the country to 
 support them. The Conservatives, apparently, 
 are equally afraid of committing themselves to 
 any definite scheme for the creation of a national 
 army. Mr. Wyndham's motion, in opposition to the 
 second reading of Mr. Haldane' s scheme, which 
 has great merits, is purely negative in its criticism. 
 It regrets everything, and suggests nothing for the 
 consideration of the party and of the country. 
 Both sides are afraid to move, and the result will be 
 some more years of confusion and inefficiency, and 
 then, possibly in a time of great emergency, a 
 sudden and possibly fruitless call for compulsory 
 service. Compulsory service can only be made 
 really effective by having a carefully prepared or- 
 ganisation to give effect to it.'
 
 286 LORD HALIBURTON [1901- 
 
 This letter, which he never lived to see in print, 
 was Lord Haliburton's final effort on behalf of 
 those principles of military administration, which 
 he believed to be the best for his country. For 
 some time past his health had been failing, and an 
 attack of influenza still further reduced his ebbing 
 strength. He got up from his bed to make the 
 appeal from which I have just quoted, and the 
 exertion exhausted him so much that high fever 
 supervened, nor did he ever really rally. He died 
 at Bournemouth whither he had been moved 
 in the hope a change might be beneficial on April 
 21, 1907. He was buried at Brompton Cemetery 
 on April 26. 
 
 4 One of the noblest and finest men I have ever 
 known,' is the tribute paid to his memory by a 
 distinguished soldier, who had been brought into 
 constant contact with him officially, and had been 
 admitted to close intimacy with him in private life. 
 From early manhood Haliburton's great abilities 
 and immense powers of work had been placed 
 unreservedly and ungrudgingly at the disposal of 
 his country ; and at a period when he might justly 
 have claimed exemption from all further liability 
 he still laboured hard to further what he judged 
 to be the true interests of the Army and the nation. 
 Though a man of strong convictions, the vagaries 
 of political partisanship and the constraint of party
 
 1907] THE END 287 
 
 ties were to him simply incomprehensible. He was 
 no Utopian, and he realised to the full the limita- 
 tions and the stress of circumstances subject to 
 which the administration and the organisation of the 
 British Army have to be carried on. But, while 
 making allowance for them, he was never coerced 
 by them or led away from advocating strenuously 
 and fearlessly what he considered would be to that 
 Army's advantage. 
 
 Of servants such as he was any nation may be 
 proud. And to the ability and rectitude which 
 he showed through all his long official career he 
 added, in private life, the charm of a singularly 
 gracious and kindly nature, of a large and gene- 
 rous mind, and of the inability either to give or 
 to take offence. His public work brought him 
 the respect of all acquainted with him. His per- 
 sonal character endeared him to all who knew him. 
 He died full of honours, and warm in the affec- 
 tion of his many friends. And the honours and 
 the affection were alike deserved.

 
 INDEX 
 
 ACTS of Parliament 
 Act of Settlement, 237 
 Army Enlistment Act of 1870, 
 
 I58n. 
 
 Bill of Rights, 237 
 Cheap Trains Act, 23 
 Mutiny Act, 237 
 Recruiting Act of 1806, 159 
 Reserve Forces Act, 1882, 175, 
 
 183n. 
 Reserve Forces and Militia 
 
 Act, 1898, 183n, 
 Short Service Act of 1867, 155 
 Admiralty and the War Office, 
 
 127 seq, 268 seq. 
 Adye, General Sir John, quoted, 
 
 106 
 Albert, H.R.H. Prince Consort, 
 
 248n. 
 Alderson, General Sir Henry, 
 
 quoted, 138 
 
 Allan, Sir Henry Havelock, 171 
 Alleyne, General, 51n. 
 American War of Independence, 
 
 260 
 
 Amheret, Lord, 242 
 Anson, Sir William, ' Law and 
 Custom of the Constitution,' 
 235n, 241-242n. 
 Argyll, Duke of, 26, 27 
 Ariab, 60 
 
 * Army Administration in Three 
 Centuries,' 9n, passim ; 
 publication of, 234 
 
 Army Commissariat Dept., 1 seq. 
 
 ' Committee of Defence,' 268, 
 270 
 
 Control Dept., 32-7, 253 
 
 Decentralisation Committee, 
 220, 221 
 
 Deferred Pay, 204-7 
 
 Enlistment Act, 1870, 158n. 
 
 Fortescue's History of the 
 British, 154n, 239n, 261. 
 
 Long Service System, 121 
 seq, 152, 207, 208 
 
 Militia, 281-3 
 
 ' Organisation ; a short reply 
 to Long Service,' 152, I56n, 
 passim ; publication of, 277n, 
 278 
 
 Recruiting Commission of 
 1866-7, 121 seq. 
 
 Reform, 2, 7 seq; Wantage 
 Committee on, 86-113, 124, 
 155n, 160-164, 204, 213n. 
 
 Reserve, 105, 110, 111, 122 
 seq, 145 seq, 170-174, 196, 
 206-8, 279; called out, 
 225-7 
 
 Short Service in the, 89, 94, 
 98 seq, 120-126, 137 ; con- 
 troversy on, 145 seq. 
 Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hon. H. O., 
 98, 173, 174, 184, 190, 197, 
 199, 207 ; letters to the 
 ' Times,' 146 seq, 186, 187, 
 280, 209 ; "The War Office, 
 
 U
 
 290 
 
 LOED HALIBUETON 
 
 the Army and the Empire,' 
 146 ; attacks Haliburton, 
 186-8 ; Haliburton' s reply, 
 189 seq ; Secretary of State 
 for War, 195 ; quoted, 215, 
 216 ; final controversy with 
 Haliburton, 275, 276 ; ' The 
 Army in 1906,' 276. 
 Athenaeum Club, 223 
 
 BACON, Lord, quoted, 263 i 
 
 Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., 268 
 
 Baring, Major Sir Evelyn. (See 
 under Cromer, Lord) 
 
 Barttelot, Sir Walter, 104 
 
 ' Battle of Dorking, The,' 158 
 
 Bayard, Mr., 5 
 
 Beaconsfield, Lord, 51, 66, 
 87 
 
 Berber, 60 
 
 Biddulph, Sir R., quoted, 10 
 
 Bournemouth, 286 
 
 Brackenbury, General Sir Henry, 
 127, 212, 272 
 
 ' Broad Arrow,' quoted, 181 
 
 Brodrick, St. John. (See under 
 Midleton, Viscount) 
 
 Brown, General Sir George, 
 7m 
 
 Buller, Sir Redvers, 51, 89, 
 130, 131, 160, 170, 212; 
 differences with Halibur- 
 ton, 119 ; quoted, 197 ; in 
 the South African War, 
 227 
 
 Bulwer, General Sir Edward, 37, 
 92, 93, 204, 215 
 
 Butler, Major-General Sir Wil- 
 liam, 5 In. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, Duke of, 89, 160, 
 170 ; * Military Life of,' 
 14n, 50n, 126, 129n, 170n, 
 243 ; quoted, 15, 16 ; 
 Haliburton on, 17 ; on the 
 commissariat officer, 41 ; j 
 his service jubilee, 70 ; as ! 
 
 Commander-in-Chief, 128, 
 129 ; his retirement, 129- 
 131 ; on the Reserve in 
 1882, 170 
 
 Cameron, Dr., 71 
 
 Campbell - Bannerman, Sir 
 Henry, 116, 117, 127-129 ; 
 letters quoted, llSn, 211- 
 216 ; speech quoted, 217 ; 
 resignation, 131 
 
 Cardwell, Lord, 2, 14, 15, 28n, 
 31, 70, 179, 182, 204 ; ' At 
 the War Office,' lOn, 249 ; 
 opposition to his policy, 32, 
 33, 86, 89; his 'Short 
 Service ' system, 89, pas- 
 sim ; and the Militia, 282, 
 283 
 
 Ceylon, 82re. 
 
 Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J., 266 
 
 Charity Organisation Society, 89 
 
 Charles I., King, 235, 242 
 
 Cheap Trains Act, 23 
 
 Churchill, Lord Randolph, 75, 
 85, 107, 127; 'Life of,' 126n. 
 
 Clarke, Col. Sir George, 267, 273 
 
 Clay, Sir William Dickason, 46 
 
 Cleveland, President, 145 
 
 Clode's ' Military Force of the 
 Crown,' 235, 243, 244. 
 
 Colenso, Battle of, 227 
 
 Connaught, Duke of, 89 
 
 Cowans, Col., 273 
 
 Cowes, 224w. 
 
 Cranbrooke, Lord, 28n, 37, 205 
 
 Crawford, Sir T., 87 
 
 Crimean War, 6, 44, 121, 123, 
 155, 156n, 172^, 198, 246, 
 248, 253, 264 
 
 Cromer, Lord, quoted, 31, 32, 
 106, 107 ; and the Cardwell 
 Reforms, 212n. 
 
 Cromwell, 242 
 
 Cyprus, occupation of, 50 
 
 ' DAILY NEWS,' 67 
 Dalhousie, Lord, 121 
 Dawkins Committee, The, 272, 
 273
 
 INDEX 
 
 291 
 
 Decentralisation Committee, 
 220, 221 
 
 Deedes, Col., 83 
 
 Delancey, Barrack-master-Gen- 
 eral, 261n. 
 
 Derby, Fifteenth Earl of, 50, 
 67 ; letter quoted, 5ln. 
 
 Devonshire, Duke of, 266. (See 
 also under Hartington, Mar- 
 quess of) 
 
 Don, Deputy-Surgeon-General, 
 quoted, 161 
 
 Drake, Sir William, 46 
 
 EDWARD VII., H.M. King,224. 
 Egyptian Campaign, 48 seq, 63. 
 
 (See also under Soudan 
 
 Campaign) 
 
 Elandslaagte, battle of, 227 
 Ellis, Mr., 60 
 Esher, Lord, 267 
 
 Committee, 273, 276 
 
 FAWCETT, Mr., 219 
 
 Feilding, Lieut. -Gen. W. H. A., 
 
 87, 92, 93, 204 
 
 Fisher, Admiral Sir John, 267 
 Fitzroy-Somerset, Lord (after- 
 wards Lord Raglan), In. 
 Fletcher, Sir Henry, 102 
 Fortescue's ' History of the 
 British Army,' 154, 239%, 
 261n. 
 
 Fox, Charles James, 259 
 Franco-Prussian War, 157 
 Fraser, General Sir Charles, 103 
 
 GERMANY, Emperor of, 145 
 Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 231 ; 
 
 quoted, 62 
 
 Goldsworthy, General, 102 
 Gordon, General Charles, 48 
 
 General J. J. H., 87 
 Graham, Major-General Sir 
 
 Gerald, 48, 60 
 
 Grierson, Lieut. -Col., 222 
 Grove, Maj.-Gen. Sir Coleridge, 
 
 5ln, 212, 227 ; quoted, 178, 
 
 272, 273 
 
 HALDANE, Rt. Hon. R. B., 277 > 
 friendship with Haliburton, 
 278 ; speech quoted, 280 ; 
 and the Militia, 283-5 
 
 Haliburton, Lady, 1, 31, 118, 
 142, 177 ; marriage, 46, 47 ; 
 letter from General Sir 
 Henry Alderson, 138 ; letter 
 from Sir Henry Campbell- 
 Bannerman, 216, 217 
 Lord, parentage, 3-5 ; educa- 
 tion, 5, 6 ; Hon. D.C.L., 6 ; 
 called to the Bar, 6 ; enters 
 Army Commissariat Dept., 
 6-8 ; in Turkey, 9 ; ap- 
 pointed Deputy- Assistant 
 Commissary - General in 
 Canada, 9 ; his duties, 
 10 ; recalled to England, 
 10 ; at the Horse Guards, 
 16 ; and the Duke of 
 Cambridge, 17 n ; Assist- 
 ant Director of Supplies 
 and Transports, 17 ; his 
 memorandum to Lord 
 Northbrook, 18-22 ; and 
 the reduction of railway 
 rates, 22, 23 ; reduces the 
 clerical staff, 24, 25 ; 
 Deputy Accountant-Gene- 
 ral in the Military De- 
 partment in India, 26-8 ; 
 receives thanks of Indian 
 Government, 28, 30 ; and 
 soldiers' pay in India, 29, 
 30 ; on the Army Control 
 Department, 33-5 ; on the 
 status of Commissariat 
 Officers, 37-41 ; appointed 
 Director of Supplies and 
 Transports, 46 ; marriage, 
 46, 47 ; his work in war 
 time, 47-50 ; establishes
 
 292 
 
 LOED HALIBUETON 
 
 reserve supplies, 50, 51 ; 
 made a C.B. for services in 
 Zulu War, 51 ; thanked by 
 Lord Wolseley, 53, 54; 
 letter to Lord Wolseley, 54, 
 56-61 ; mentioned in de- 
 spatches, 61 ; complimented 
 by Mr. Gladstone, 62 ; made 
 a K.C.B., 63 ; his tact and 
 authority, 63-9 ; episode of 
 the furniture dealer, 64 ; 
 gratitude of his subordi- 
 nates, 65, 66 ; hospitality, 
 66 ; abolition of his position, 
 71 ; Mr. Stanhope's appre- 
 ciation, 74 ; appointed As- 
 sistant Under-Secretary for 
 War, 75 ; presides over 
 Committee on Colonial 
 Defence, 77-82 ; refuses 
 Commissionership of Cus- 
 toms, 82, 83 ; on Police 
 Pension Committee, 83 ; 
 appointed Assistant Under 
 Secretary for War, 83, 84 ; 
 on the Wantage Committee, 
 86 seq ; in favour of ' Short 
 Service,' 89, 94, 98-106 ; 
 letter to General Maurice, 
 96 ; controversy with Mr. 
 Arnold-Forster in the 
 'Times,' 98, 99, 152-180, 
 189 seq, 275, 276; on the 
 Wantage Committee's Re- 
 commendations, 92, 100, 
 101 ; his defence of ' short 
 service,' 105, 106, 150-180 ; 
 his supporters, 106-113 ; 
 appointed Permanent Un- 
 der-Secretary, 114 ; on his 
 duties, 115, 116 ; letters 
 from Sir Henry Campbell- 
 Bannerman, U8n, 211-214 ; 
 differences with Sir Redvers 
 Buller, 119 ; r&8um& to 
 Cabinet on ' short service,' 
 121-6 ; the Lansdowne- 
 Wolseley controversy, 126 
 eeq ; retirement and ill- 
 
 health, 137, 138; made 
 a G.C.B., 139; eulogies, 
 138-144 ; on Sir Michael 
 Hicks-Beach, 148 ; de- 
 fends ' short service ' in the 
 ' Times,' 150-180, letters 
 of congratulation, 177-182 ; 
 attacked by Mr. Arnold- 
 Forster, 186-8 ; his reply, 
 189-210, 213 ; reply to 
 ' Reform,' 195-201 ; on Lord 
 Cardwell's system, 202, 203 ; 
 more letters of congratula- 
 tion, 211 seq ; receives a 
 peerage, 218 ; his corre- 
 spondence, 218-223 ; in- 
 creasing lameness, 223 ; 
 election to Athenaeum Club, 
 223 ; on the calling out of 
 the Reserves, 226 ; and the 
 South African War, 227, 
 228 ; and Army reorganisa- 
 tion, 233 seq ; his relations 
 with the ' Times,' 274, 275 ; 
 final controversy with Mr. 
 Arnold-Forster, 275, 276; 
 friendship with Mr. Hal- 
 dane, 278 ; on modern 
 Army requirements, 279 
 seq ; on ' Universal Ser- 
 vice,' 281 ; failing health 
 and death, 286 
 Letters to the 'Times,' 33- 
 35n, 152-180, 189 seq, 213, 
 219, 229-32, 267-70, 274-9, 
 284-5 ; ' Memoranda on the 
 Administration of the Sup- 
 ply and Transport Service 
 at the War Office ' 1895), 
 71 ; Wantage Commission 
 Report, 92 aeq ; ' Army 
 Administration in Three 
 Centuries,' On, passim ; 
 publication of, 234 ; ' Army 
 Organisation : a short reply 
 to Long Service,' 152, 156rc, 
 passim ; ' Universal Military 
 Training as a Practicable 
 Scheme,' 281
 
 INDEX 
 
 293 
 
 Haliburton, Mrs. (mother), 5 
 Robert (brother), 6 
 Thomas (brother), 6n. 
 Thomas Chandler (' Sam 
 
 Slick ') (father), 4-5, 117 
 William Hersey Otis (grand- 
 father), 6n. 
 
 Hansard, quoted, 62, passim 
 Harcourt, Sir William, 179, 188 ; 
 
 letter quoted, 214 
 Hardinge, Lord, 246, 247, 264 
 
 Sir Henry, 251, 260 
 Hardy, Gathorne (See under 
 
 Cranbrook, Lord) 
 Hartington, Marquess of, 58, 59 ; 
 
 quoted, 62, 63 
 Commission, 107, 127, 129, 
 
 131, 135, 257 
 Hicks - Beach, Sir Michael, 
 
 quoted, 148. 
 
 Hull and Barnsley Railway, 
 57, 58 
 
 INDIAN Mutiny, 198 
 Inglis, Sir John E., 6 
 Isandhlana disaster, 49 
 Ismay, Mr., 127 
 
 JAMAICA, 3 
 James II., 242 
 Jameson Raid, 137 
 Johnson, Dr., 4 
 
 KELLNER, Mr., 29 
 Kipling, Rudyard, 56n. 
 Knowles, Sir James, 151 
 Knox, Sir Ralph, 89, 212, 21 In. 
 Knutsford, Lord, quoted, 79, 
 
 81 
 Kruger, Paul, 137, 145 
 
 LADYSMITH, 227 
 Lake, Captain (now Major- 
 General) Percy, 88n. 
 
 Lansdowne, Lord, 116, 117, 131, 
 135, 143, 151, 186, 189, 204, 
 218, 220-223; on War 
 Office' Administration, 128n.; 
 quoted, 129 ; appointed Sec- 
 retary of State for War, 131, 
 132; and Mr. Arnold- 
 Forster, 148 seq ; speech 
 quoted, 182, 184 ; letters 
 to Haliburton, 188-190n ; 
 retires from War Office, 228, 
 233 
 
 Launceston, 4 
 
 Lawson, Sir George, 53n, 56, 
 68 ; letter quoted, 140 
 
 Lincoln, President, 248 
 
 Liverpool, Lord, 244n. 
 
 Lucas and Aird, 57-60 
 
 Lugard, Sir Edward, 32, 269 
 
 Lyttelton, General Neville, 212 
 
 MACATJLAY, Rt. Hon. T. B., 
 251. 
 
 Mahdi, the, 60 
 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 241. 
 
 Maurice, Major-General Sir J. F., 
 96 ; quoted, 49 
 
 Mayo, Lord, 26 
 
 Metropolitan Police Pension 
 Committee, 83 
 
 Midleton, Viscount, 130, 207, 
 265, 266, 276 ; letter quoted, 
 183-1 84n; Under-Secretary 
 for War, 215, 217 ; Secretary 
 of State for War, 233 
 
 Militia Infantry Reserve, 169 
 
 Milner, Lord, 280 
 
 Moltke, Count, 225 
 
 Morris, Sir Edward, 53n. 
 Lord, 177n. 
 
 Mowatt, Sir Francis, 83, 232 ; 
 letter quoted, 142 
 
 NAPIER, Sir Charles, ' Life and 
 Opinions,' 18n.
 
 294 
 
 LOED HALIBUETON 
 
 Natal, 228 
 
 National Service League, 281 
 Neville, Captain Lawrence, 5 
 Newcastle, Duke of, I2ln ; 
 
 ' Life of,' 80%. 
 Nightingale, Col. A. C., 87 
 Nile Campaign, 51. (See also 
 
 under Soudan Campaign) 
 ' Nineteenth Century,' 146, 151, 
 
 281 
 
 Norfolk, Duke of, 279 
 Northbrook, Lord, 18, 26; 
 
 quoted, 28, 31 
 Committee, 252 
 
 ' OBSERVER,' quoted, 182 
 
 Osman Digna, 60 
 
 Owen, Sarah Harriet (after- 
 wards Mrs. Thomas Hali- 
 burton), 5n. 
 William Mostyn, 5%. 
 
 PALMERSTON, Lord, 156, 251%, 
 259 ; ' Memorandum on the 
 office of Secretary at War,' 
 quoted, 243, 244 
 
 Panmure, Lord, 121%, 248%. 
 ' Papers,' 155 ; quoted, 
 247-251%. 
 
 Parliamentary Papers, quoted, 
 61%, lln, 80-81%, 86%, 97, 
 98%, 191%. 
 
 Paulet, Lord William, 160 
 
 Peace of Paris, 9 
 
 Peel, General, 122 
 
 Pieter's Hill, 227%. 
 
 Pitt, William, 262 
 
 Police Pension Committee, 83 
 
 Portland, Duke of, 155 
 
 Power, Sir William Tyrone, 11, 
 12, 32 ; on Haliburton, 13, 
 14 ; letter quoted, 42-45 
 
 ' Punch,' 254 
 
 RAGLAN, Lord, 7, 249n. 
 Red River Campaign, 51 
 
 Redan, assault on the, 156n. 
 
 ' Reform ' (pseudonym), 184-8, 
 195, 214 
 
 Reserve. (See under Army) 
 
 Reserve Forces Act 1882, 175, 
 183%. 
 
 Reserve Forces and Militia Act 
 1898, 183%. 
 
 Richards, Admiral, 127 
 
 Ripon, Marquess of, 81 
 
 Roberts, Earl, 228 ; his evidence 
 before the Wantage Com- 
 mittee, 90% ; last Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, 267 ; on 
 'Universal Service,' 280, 281 
 
 Robinson, Sir Hercules (after- 
 wards Lord Rosmead), 78 
 
 Rosebery, Lord, 81, 130, 280 
 
 Russell, Sir William, quoted, 
 156% 
 
 Russo-Turkish War, 48 
 
 SADOWA, battle of, 157 
 
 Salis-Schwabe, Major-Gen., 88, 
 92-3, 204 
 
 Salisbury, Marquess of, 84, 
 231 ; and Sir H. Campbell- 
 Bannerman, 131 ; speech 
 quoted, 228, 229 
 
 ' Sam Slick. ' ( See under Halibur- 
 ton, Thomas Chandler) 
 
 Schuster, Leo, 46 
 
 Mariana Emily. (See under 
 Haliburton, Lady) 
 
 Selborne, Lord, 87 
 
 Short Service. (See under Army) 
 
 Short Service Act of 1867, 155 
 
 Shuttleworth, Col. A. J., 88 
 
 Singapore, 77-80 
 
 Smith, Sir Cecil Clementi, 80 
 Rt. Hon. W. H., 84, 107, 
 127 ; offers Haliburton 
 Commissionership of Cus- 
 toms, 82 
 
 Soudan Campaign, 48 ; official 
 History of, 51-53% ; build- 
 ing the Railway, 56-61
 
 INDEX 
 
 295 
 
 South African War, 35, 42 ; 
 Report of Royal Commis- 
 sion on, 150w, 266-8, 278 
 
 Stacpole, Major J., 88, 92 
 
 Stanhope, Rt. Hon. Edward, 
 42, 73, 109, 126, 135, 206n ; 
 quoted, 74-76 ; letter 
 quoted, 83 ; and the Wan- 
 tage Committee, 86-89, 102, 
 111 ; defends Haliburton, 
 89, 103 ; illness, 104 
 
 Stanley, Colonel. (See under 
 Derby, Fifteenth Earl of) 
 
 Storks, Sir Henry, 11, 12, 32, 269 
 
 Straits Settlements, 77-81 
 Association, 80 
 
 Strathnairn, Lord, 11 
 
 Committee, 32, 43, 45 
 
 Suakin, 60 
 
 Suakin -Berber Railway, 56-61 
 
 TALANA, battle of, 227 
 
 Tangiers, 236w. 
 
 Temple, Sir Richard, 127 
 
 Thompson, Sir Ralph, 80, 83, 
 114, 117 
 
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 Forster's letters to, 146- 
 152, 186-8, 208, 209 ; Hali- 
 burton's letters to, 152-180, 
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 leaders quoted, 179, 180, 
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 of the Army,' 184 ; Lord 
 Wantage's letter to, 215n. 
 
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 (See also under South African 
 War) 
 
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 of the Duke of Cambridge ' 
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 161, 174, 213w; Report, 
 92 seq, 164%, 204 ; debate 
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 214, 215 
 
 War Office, Royal Commission 
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 DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL 
 BIOGRAPHY INDEX and EPITOME 
 
 Edited by SIDNEY LEE. 
 
 This volume is intended to form a summary guide 
 to the vast and varied contents of the Dictionary and 
 its Supplement. Every name, about which substantive 
 biographic information is given in the sixty-three 
 volumes in the Dictionary or in the three Supple- 
 mentary Volumes, finds mention here in due alpha- 
 betical order. An Epitome is given of the leading 
 facts and dates that have been already recorded at 
 length in the pages of the original work, and there is 
 added a precise reference to the volume and page 
 where the full article appears. 
 
 ATHENSEUM. ' The appearance of this supplement to the "Dictionary of 
 National Biography" puts the coping-stone upon a work which is justly regarded as 
 a national possession. . . . We can, indeed, conceive no volume of reference more 
 indispensable to the scholar, literary man, the historian, and the journalist.' 
 
 O UTLOOK. ' A complete biographical dictionary, containing names and references, 
 to be counted literally by the thousand, altogether inaccessible inside the covers of any 
 other single volume. . . . The EPITOME is worthy of the DICTIONARY. Could 
 greater praise be given ?' 
 
 TIMES. 'This newly-published INDEX AND EPITOME may seem a mere 
 trifle compared to the rest, but is, in fact, a remarkable piece of work. . . . As far as we 
 have been able to test it, this design has been so admirably carried out as to give the 
 work a real value and importance of its own.' 
 
 WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.' A volume of the highest practical utility. . . . 
 We have tested the work by several consultations, and have found it answer exactly to 
 the excellent plan outlined in its preface.' 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE. 'This final volume will convince every one of the 
 Dictionary's wonderful utility, and indeed introduce the work to many who may not 
 be able to afford the original volumes.' 
 
 SCOTSMAN. 'This volume of the Dictionary will soon be the best-thumbed of 
 them all. Only long and frequent use upon particular occasions fully tests a book 
 of this kind : but it needs no very exhaustive scrutiny to reveal that the EPITOME 
 is a work well organised, of exact learning, and of a careful compilation. Useful in 
 itself, it must largely enhance the usefulness of the Dictionary which it serves.' 
 
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