the Government and private firms. All history warns against such a course. But it does believe that "joint, and at the same time independent, action between them, can be made to work harmoniously towards the common national purpose."
The Commissioners show clearly that the only mode by which adequate remuneration can be offered to private firms is that of granting them remunerative contracts on the condition of fulfilling specified terms.
They again and again warn Congress against certain risks. They dread the danger which was disclosed by the experience of France at a time
"when the Government foundries were the sole source of supply of the armament of the country; the officers charged with the work formed a close corporation; their action was never exposed to the public; their ideas were never subjected to criticism; the ingenuity and inventive talent of the country were ignored and resisted, and no precaution was thought necessary to provide a supply in case of need of rearmament." "The result," they continue, "is well known: a great crisis came; the Government works were inadequate to meet the additional demands made on them; and the patriotic efforts of private establishments were inadequate to produce all the material that was needed."
Whereupon France absolutely altered that system, which we retain exactly as it is there described to this hour. We are bound to say that never had a nation better justification for adopting that system at the time she did so than France had. A French artillery officer – then Lieut.-Colonel Treuille de Beaulieu – had, after years of contempt and neglect, introduced an improvement into the whole manufacture of artillery, which had proved its efficiency most brilliantly in the campaign of 1859. For the moment nothing could have been better than to leave to a man of originality and genius the complete working out of his own ideas. It was only when the dull routine of office settled down over the arsenals of France that the obscurantist régime began, and led up to those fatal evils which the Commissioners have so faithfully chronicled.
Twenty years ago, an article in the 'Edinburgh Review' on "The Rifled Ordnance of France and England," contained the following passage: –
"We must say, from the evidence and minutes before us, that the professional Ordnance Committee appears to have contributed nothing whatever to the progress of the science, and to have confined its operations to giving a ready assent to the propositions of Sir W. Armstrong (who indeed was at one time a member of the Board), and a very scant hearing to everybody else."[1]
It is much more difficult now than it was then to trace the responsibility of the various bodies which contribute to the ultimate decision of that which appears before the public in the person of Mr Brand, as "Surveyor-General of the Ordnance," and is called "the Department of the Director-General of Artillery." What was obscure twenty years ago is darkness now, yet sufficient evidence is before us to show that the same characteristics have continued throughout the whole interval. The general representatives of the "ingenuity and inventive talent of the country" have received "a very scant hearing" indeed. "The
- ↑ Edinburgh Review, vol. cxix. p. 480.
