THE WAR OFFICE AND ITS SHAM ARMY
RATHER more than a quarter of a century ago, the public opinion of the day-so far as it could be interpreted by newspaper articles and speeches-asked, as it is again asking now, that something definite and effectual should be done to improve the Army; and the Government then in power, perceiving that this demand might be brought into harmony, not only with their party policy, but with their national duty also, at once made themselves responsible for a more or less revolutionary change in the military system of the country. Less, rather than more; for although the reforms of 1870-71 which affected the officers of the Army were undertaken with infinite zeal and heartiness, and with a sincere belief that in the destruction of certain class privileges greater efficiency also would incidentally be secured, still, that portion of the task which dealt with the rank and file, and which would and should have dealt with the civilian element at the War Office, seemed to bring the reformers into conflict with certain elements they were loth to offend, and it was consequently only dealt with in a half-hearted incomplete fashion. It is generally believed that Mr. Cardwell himself was ready to rise superior to such considerations as these, and that left to himself he would have completed the structure of which, as it was, he was only able to lay a part of the foundations. There is very little doubt, for instance, that he was quite ready to have established some moderate, form of universal service-at all events for the Militia; and if, in short, VOL. XLIII-No. 251