case. What Lord Cardwell had principally to encounter was "the fierce
hatred" of the old school of soldiers, and Lord Wolseley tells us
clearly enough what would have happened to the small band of army
reformers within the army, if they had been unable to rely on civilian
support.

"Had it not been," he says, "for Mr. Cardwell's and Lord
Northbrook's constant support and encouragement, those of us who
were bold enough to advocate a thorough reorganisation of our
military system, would have been 'provided for' in distant quarters
of the British world, 'where no mention of us more should be
heard.'"

There can be no such thing as finality in army reform. There will be
reformers in the future, as there have been in the past. There will,
without doubt, be vested interests and conservative instincts to be
overcome in the future, as there were at the time when Lord Wolseley so
gallantly fought the battle of army reform. What guarantee can Lord
Wolseley afford that a soldier at the head of the army will always be a
reformer, and that he will not "provide for" those of his subordinates
who have the courage to raise their voices in favour of reform, even as
Lord Wolseley thinks he would himself have been "provided for" had it
not been for the sturdy support he received from his civilian superiors?
I greatly doubt the possibility of giving any such guarantee.

But I go further than this. It is now more than thirty years since I
served under the War Office. I am, therefore, less intimately acquainted
with the present than with the past. But, during those thirty years, I
have been constantly brought in contact with the War Office, and I have
seen no reason whatever to change the opinion I formed in Lord