Office; and the mere fact that these demands passed through my hands,
and that I declined to forward any request unless, besides being in
accordance with existing regulations--a point to which I attached but
slight importance--it had been authorised by the Sirdar, probably tended
to check wastefulness in that quarter where it was most to be feared.
Beyond this I did nothing, and I found--somewhat to my own
astonishment--that, with my ordinary staff of four diplomatic
secretaries, the general direction of a war of no inconsiderable
dimensions added but little to my ordinary labours.

I do not say that this system would always work as successfully as was
the case during the Khartoum campaign. The facts, as I have already
said, were peculiar. The commander, on whom everything practically
depended, was a man of marked military and administrative ability.
Nevertheless, I feel certain that Lord Kitchener would bear me out in
saying that here was a case in which general civilian control, far from
exercising any detrimental effect, was on the whole beneficial.

To return to the main thread of my argument. The passage which I have
quoted from Lord Wolseley's book would certainly appear to point to the
conclusion that, in his opinion, the Secretary of State for War should
be a soldier unconnected with politics. Even although Lord Wolseley does
not state this conclusion in so many words, it is notorious to any one
who is familiar with the views current in army circles that the adoption
of this plan is considered by many to be the best, if it be not the
only, solution of all our military difficulties.

I am not concerned with the constitutional objections which may be urged
against the change of system now under discussion. Neither need I dwell
on the difficulty of making it harmonise with our system of party