to obtain a technical officer who has made a study of its conditions. The Army Department, with a Secretary, will have the Commander-in-Chief as its head, while the Military Supply Department, also with a Secretary, will have a Member of Council There are elements of great difficulty in this arrangement, and the position of the latter officer will be peculiarly invidious. Other disadvantages are that a vast deal more work will be thrown upon the Viceroy and his Council that any difference of opinion must bring the Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief into direct conflict, and that the functions of administration and command will be hopelessly mixed up. The system which had lasted so long, and had on the whole worked well, might have been improved without radical change. It had yielded a thoroughly efficient army, whose striking power was increased year by year in pursuance of a definite policy. That policy has now been abandoned for one which leads to the amalgamation and centralization of military forces and powers. The old safeguards have been swept away.
In the Indian Army, rightly governed and organized, Britain has a most powerful weapon of offence, the most potent means of defence, and a guarantee for peace. But its constitution as an Oriental force requires to be incessantly watched, and guarded from rash experiments. The greater the knowledge of that force and of the elements of its composition, the greater will be the security against sudden and dangerous innovations, and, possibly, a revulsion of feeling may take place in the direction of the administrative system which has been destroyed without due inquiry, and from merely personal reasons, and has not been replaced by any workable arrangement. By studying the conditions of India, the more convinced will the people of this country become, that our military system at home must be framed in such a way, that in the hour of peril to the Empire it may be able, not only to reinforce the Indian Army, but to meet all other demands which may be suddenly made upon it.
