CHAPTER IV

[61:2]As in the case of Mr. Birrell in the present ministry, a man who is not in Parliament may, of course, be included in a new cabinet in the expectation that he will win a seat at the impending dissolution.

[61:3]Eng. Const., 1 Ed., 228-30.

[63:1]Cf.Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," II., 405, notew.

[63:2]This happened, for example, in 1825, when Palmerston, Goulburn and Copley (all three in the ministry) were three out of the six candidates for the two seats for Cambridge University. Bulwer, "Life of Palmerston," I., 153et seq.

[64:1]One cannot read Mr. Morley's "Life of Gladstone" without being struck by the frequency of such differences. One feels that in his twenty-five years of life in the cabinet Gladstone must have expended almost as much effort in making his views prevail with his colleagues as in forcing them through Parliament.

[64:2]In Gladstone's cabinet of 1880-1885 the practice of counting votes was complained of, as an innovation. Morley, "Life of Gladstone," III., 5.

[65:1]This obligation has been said to rest upon the cabinet minister's oath of secrecy as a privy councillor (Todd, 2 Ed., II., 83-84, 240). But this would seem to be another case of confusion between the law and the conventions of the constitution. Although the permission of the sovereign must be obtained before proceedings in the cabinet can be made public (cf.Hans., 3 Ser. CCCIV., 1182, 1186, 1189), yet in fact the duty of secrecy is not merely a legal obligation towards the sovereign which he can waive under the advice, for example, of a ministry of the other party. It is a moral duty towards one's colleagues, which ceases when by lapse of time, or otherwise, the reason for it has been removed; and the secrets must be kept from other privy councillors, the leaders of the Opposition for example, as well as from the rest of the world. Sometimes sharp discussions have occurred on the limits of the permission given to reveal what has taken place at cabinet meetings. This occurred after Mr. Chamberlain's resignation in 1886. Churchill, "Life of Lord Randolph Churchill," II., 85-86.

[66:1]E.g.Hans. (1886), 3 Ser. CCCIV., 1181et seq., 1811et seq., and (1904), 4 Ser. CXXIX., 878, 880; CXXX., 349et seq.; CXXXI., 403et seq., 709et seq.

[66:2]E.g.Rep. Com. on Civil List, Com. Papers, 1901, V., 607.

[66:3]There is some interesting gossip about instances of this kind in MacDonagh, "Book of Parliament," 337-49.

[67:1]Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," III., 496-99.

[67:2]Morley, "Life of Walpole," 151. Cabinet dinners have occasionally taken place of late years, but it is safe to say that they have not been held with that object.

[67:3]Mr. Gladstone "was emphatic and decided in his opinion that if the Premier mentioned to the Queen any of his colleagues who had opposed him in the cabinet, he was guilty of great baseness and perfidy." Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 575. But this seems to have applied only to giving their names.Ibid., III., 132.

[68:1]In 1906 the position was recognized by being accorded a place in the order of precedence.Cf.Hans., 4 Ser. CLVI., 742.

[68:2]Walpole repudiated the title of First or Prime Minister, although he was, in fact, the first man to occupy such a position.

[68:3]See Ashley, "Life of Palmerston," II., 329-30; Gladstone, "Gleanings of Past Years," I., 242. See also the description in Morley, "Life of Walpole," 150-65, which, as already pointed out, represents Mr. Gladstone's views.

[69:1]Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 383.

[69:2]Morley, "Life of Walpole," 159-60.

[70:1]"Sir Robert Peel, from his Private Correspondence";cf.Parker, "Sir Robert Peel"; Morley, "Life of Gladstone," I., 248, 298.

[70:2]Ashley, "Life of Palmerston," II., 257;cf.Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 35.

[70:3]In his review of Parker's "Sir Robert Peel," in the first number of theAnglo-Saxon Review.

[70:4]Hans., 4 Ser. LXXVIII., 27.

[70:5]At the end of his first ministry, and at the beginning of his second, Mr. Gladstone held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. With this exception, and with that of Lord Salisbury, no Prime Minister has been at the head of a department since 1835.

[72:1]"Gleanings of Past Years," I., 242.

[72:2]Morley, "Life of Walpole," 164-65. This would hardly be stated in such broad terms to-day.

[73:1]During the late war in South Africa, there was a special Cabinet Committee on National Defence, which was afterwards enlarged and made permanent, as explained in the following chapter.

[73:2]See a collection of instances in Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," 2 Ed., II., 471et seq., and I., 444-49, 668-87. The vote in 1887 to adjourn in order to draw attention to the conduct of the police in the case of Miss Cass might very well have been regarded as a censure upon the Home Secretary, Mr. Matthews; but he did not think it necessary to resign. Hans., 3 Ser. CCCXVI., 1796-1830.

[74:1]The vote to reduce the salary of the Secretary of State for War in 1895 was anomalous. It was a trick which will be explained in a later chapter.

[75:1]Com. on Nat. Expenditure, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, App. 1 and 3.

[76:1]Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 140.

[76:2]Hans., 4 Ser. CXXIII., 348-49.

[76:3]Morley, "Life of Gladstone," III., 506-09.

[77:1]It may be noted that the Chief Secretary of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland is not a parliamentary under-secretary, but the real head of the Irish Office, unless the Viceroy is in the cabinet; also that until the creation of the recent Board of Education the relations between the President and Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education were not clearly defined.

[78:1]In the Liberal cabinet of 1905, however, both representatives of India are in the Commons.

[78:2]The Board of Works and the Post-Office have at times been represented in the Commons by the Treasury.

[78:3]Some member of the government is always ready to answer questions for them, and if need be to defend a department not directly represented.

[79:1]Morley, "Life of Walpole," 165.

[80:1]The Duke of Argyle found fault with this practice as early as the cabinet of 1880-1885. Morley, "Life of Gladstone," III., 4. Mr. Gladstone thought that liberty of speech should be used by a cabinet minister "sparingly, reluctantly, and with much modesty and reserve" (Ibid., 113), although his own incautious remark about the American Civil War had at an earlier time caused the cabinet of which he was a member no little embarrassment.Ibid., II., 75-86.

The departments of state are very different from one another, both in historical origin and in legal organisation; and they have gone through transformations of all kinds, until the nomenclature has in some cases almost ceased to bear any relation to the facts. The title of an officer often gives no clear idea of his functions. The most striking case is that of the Treasury, whose regular chief, from the time of Henry VIII. to the death of Anne, was the Lord High Treasurer. Since 1714 the office has always been in commission; that is, its duties have been intrusted to a board composed of a number of Lords of the Treasury. But while the board is still regularly constituted by Letters Patent whenever a new ministry is formed, and still retains its legal authority, all political power has, in fact, passed from its hands. The board never meets, most of its members have little or no connection with the Treasury, and its functions are really performed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is not now a chancellor, and does not control the work of what is more properly called the Exchequer. Thus, by a strange process of evolution the powers of the Lord High Treasurer have, by law, become vested in a board; and by a still later custom they are actually wielded by quite a different officer, whose title indicates neither his succession to the Treasurer nor the nature of his present duties.

Although in origin and legal organisation the departments of state are very unlike, yet the growth of custom, and the exigencies of parliamentary life, have, for practical purposes, forced almost all of them into something very near onecommon type. Whatever the legal form of the authority at their head, the actual control is now in nearly every case in the hands of a single responsible minister, usually assisted by one or more parliamentary subordinates, and supported by a corps of permanent non-political officials, who carry on the work of the office.

Origin of the Departments.

The Former Great Offices.

The historical origin of most of the departments may be traced to one of three sources: the great offices of an earlier time; the secretariat of state; and the more recent boards and commissions. Many of the former offices of state survive as honorary posts, or with duties connected solely with the royal household.[82:1]The only ones that are still in touch with public administration are those of the Lord High Chancellor, who has retained the greater part of his ancient authority; of the Lord High Treasurer, the transformations of whose office have already been mentioned; and of the Lord High Admiral, whose powers have also gone into commission, and are vested in the Admiralty Board.

The Secretariat of State.

The secretariat is an old institution, although the standing of its members has varied much at different times. There are now five secretaries of state, but their position is peculiar in this, that they all share, from a legal point of view, the same office; and except so far as statutes have conferred special authority upon one or another, each of them can perform the duties of all the rest. During the greater part of the eighteenth century there were two secretaries, one for the northern and the other for the southern department, the former having charge of the relations with the northern powers, the latter of those with the southern powers together with home and colonial affairs. A series of changes made at the end of the century resulted in an increase of the number of secretaries to three, and a redistribution of their work, so that one had charge of foreignrelations, another of home affairs, and the third of war and the colonies. The Crimean War brought about in 1854 the separation of the colonial and war departments, with the creation of a fourth secretary of state; and, finally, the mutiny in India, and the consequent transfer of the direct government of that country to the Crown, caused the appointment of a fifth secretary of state to take charge of Indian affairs.

The Recent Boards and Commissions.

Sham Boards.

The third great source of public departments has been the creation in comparatively recent times of a number of administrative boards or commissions, whose duties (except in the case of the Board of Works) are not primarily executive; that is, they are not concerned mainly with direct administration, but rather with the supervision and control of local authorities and of bodies exercising functions of a public or a quasi-public nature. There are now five boards of this kind, the Board of Trade, the Local Government Board, the Board of Works, the Board of Agriculture, and the Board of Education. Some of them, the first and last named, for example, have developed from committees of the Privy Council; while others have grown out of administrative commissions which were not originally regarded as political, and had no representatives of their own in Parliament. Except in the case of the Board of Trade,[83:1]both their organisation and their functions now rest upon statutes,[83:2]and in general character they are all very much alike. Each of them consists of a president,[83:3]of the five secretaries of state, and of other high dignitaries, such as the Lord President of the Privy Council, the First Lord of the Treasury,or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and sometimes, in the case of the older boards, even of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Speaker of the House of Commons. But the board never meets; the president alone constitutes a quorum, and he conducts the business of the department, with the assistance, in the case of the Board of Trade, of the Local Government Board and the Board of Education, of a secretary who is not himself a member of the board, but is, like the president, capable of sitting in the House of Commons, and occupies, in short, the position of a parliamentary under-secretary. In practice, therefore, these boards are legal phantoms that provide imaginary colleagues for a single responsible minister; and, indeed, the only department in the English government conducted by a board that really meets for the transaction of business is the Admiralty.[84:1]

A satirical observer has remarked that the English Constitution is a bundle of shams; and this is inevitable where law fails to keep pace with custom—where the legal organisation has ceased to express the real working of the system. But it is difficult to penetrate the motive for deliberately constructing a sham; and yet that was done in the creation of the Board of Agriculture in 1889, and the Board of Education ten years later. In the last case the measure was criticised upon this ground;[84:2]and Sir John Gorst in reply said that, as there were other boards, the general desire of the House was thought to be in favour of a Board of Education, and that, although these boards did not often meet, they were potential.[84:3]He denied that the Committee of Council on Education had never met, and referred to an occasion, about twenty years earlier, when it had been called together, and actually transacted business.[84:4]A betterstatement of the reason, or rather the absence of any reason, for the creation of a sham board, was made with characteristic frankness by the Duke of Devonshire, who said, "as far as I remember, the point was mooted when the bill was first prepared, but I quite admit that I am unable, at the present moment, to recollect the reasons which weighed in favour of a board rather than a secretariat. It has the advantage, at all events, of numerous precedents, and it is perfectly well understood that there will be no board at all."[85:1]

In giving in this chapter a sketch of the executive departments nothing will be said of those offices to which no substantial administrative duties, or none outside of the royal household, are attached. There are about a dozen such posts, which are regarded as so far political that their holders retire upon a change of ministry; but they are omitted here, because the object is to describe not the offices of state, but the different branches of the public service and the distribution of business among them. Most of the departments require for our purpose only a few words, to point out the general nature of their duties and anything unusual in their structure or method of working. The functions of some others, such as the Colonial Office, the Local Government Board and the Board of Education, can be passed over rapidly, because they will be treated more fully in the chapters devoted to the subjects under their control; while the Army, the Navy and the Treasury are described at greater length on account of the peculiarities in their organisation, and the fact that their work is not dealt with in any other part of the book.

The Foreign Office.

The Foreign Office has at its head a secretary of state, who, like the chief of every normal department, is supported by aparliamentary under-secretary and also by a permanent staff consisting of an under-secretary, several assistant under-secretaries—in this instance three—besides clerks and other permanent officials. For convenience of administration there are in the Foreign Office a number of departments, the business being distributed among them partly on a geographical basis, and partly according to the nature of the subject.[86:1]The office has, of course, charge of foreign relations, controlling for that purpose the diplomatic representatives and the consuls. The only odd thing about its duties is the fact that in addition to the ordinary functions of a foreign office it governs certain dependencies of the Crown. The expansion of European influence over the less favoured portions of the globe has produced among other new things the "protectorate," which involves, by a political fiction, an international as well as a philanthropic relation between the ruler and the ruled. The result is that protectorates not closely connected with existing colonies are administered by the Foreign Office. This has been true of a number of protectorates in Africa, and notably of Egypt, which is still nominally ruled by the Khedive under the suzerainty of the Turkish Sultan, but is practically governed by a British agent.

Position of the Foreign Secretary.

The conduct of the relations with foreign powers requires from its very nature a peculiar method of procedure. Much of the work of the Foreign Office consists, no doubt, in examining and pushing the private legal claims of British subjects, and to some extent work of that kind has a routine character. But apart from this there is comparatively littleof the detailed administration—so common in other departments—which, involving merely the application of settled principles to particular cases, can be conducted by subordinates without consulting the political chief. Much of the correspondence with foreign powers may entail serious consequences, and hence must ordinarily be laid before the Secretary of State. The permanent officials play, therefore, a smaller part in the management of affairs than in most branches of the public service, a matter that will be discussed more fully in a subsequent chapter.[87:1]Moreover, the representatives at foreign courts are kept, by means of the telegraph, under more constant instructions than formerly, and it has become the habit in all countries to retain diplomatic negotiations very closely in the hands of the home government. Even the functions of foreign envoys as the eyes and ears of the state have declined in importance; and it has been observed that as gatherers of political information they have been largely superseded by the correspondents of the press.

All this has the effect of concentrating the direction of foreign relations in the hands of the Secretary of State. At the same time he is singularly free from immediate parliamentary control. Diplomatic correspondence is ordinarily confidential, and it is usually a sufficient answer to any question in Parliament, touching foreign relations, to say that the information sought cannot be given without detriment to the public service. It follows that the presence of the minister in the House of Commons is less necessary than in the case of other departments; while his arduous duties make it hard for him to find the time required for attendance at the long sittings. These facts, coupled with the strange provision of law which permits only four of the five secretaries of state to sit there, resulted in placing peers at the head of the Foreign Office continuously from 1868 to 1905, the under-secretary alone representing the department in thepopular chamber. But if the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is less under the direct control of Parliament than other ministers, he is more under the control of his colleagues. We have already seen that every important despatch ought to be submitted, before it is sent off, both to the Prime Minister and to the sovereign; and, as a rule, the telegrams, together with correspondence of peculiar interest, are also circulated among all the members of the cabinet.[88:1]In fact there is probably no department where the executive action of the minister is so constantly brought to the notice of his colleagues.

The Colonial Office.

Ever since England began to extend her dominion beyond the seas her foreign relations have been complicated by her distant possessions, and it is therefore natural to pass from the offices of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on one side of the doorway in Downing Street to those of the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the other. But it is needless to speak of the Colonial Office at length here, because the government of the dependencies will form the subject of later chapters. The Secretary of State for the Colonies is assisted by his parliamentary and permanent under-secretaries, and by a staff of subordinate officials. There are in this office four permanent assistant under-secretaries; one of whom has charge of questions of law, and also at present of business connected with Canada, Australasia and a number of islands; another of South Africa; a third of the East and West Indies, emigration, prisons and hospitals, with a mass of miscellaneous matters; and the fourth of East and West Africa.[88:2]But the division of the colonies among these officers is not fixed, and varies to some extent with their personal experience. There are, in close connection with the office, agents for each of the dependencies, those for the self-governing colonies being real representatives appointed by the colonial governments,while the three who act on behalf of the crown colonies are selected by the Colonial Office itself.

It may be observed that the Colonial Office has by no means charge of all the outlying dependencies of the British Crown. Besides the protectorates governed by the Foreign Office, there are a number of smaller places under the care of other departments. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, for example, are under the Home Secretary; some small islets are used only for lighthouses by the Board of Trade; while by an official fiction the Island of Ascension is considered a vessel of war, and as such is commanded by the Admiralty. But larger by far than any of these, more populous than all the other parts of the British Empire put together, is India. It is not classed among the colonies, for that term is confined to the places under the Colonial Office, and does not extend to a country ruled by a distinct administrative system of its own.

The India Office.

The Secretary of State for India has the usual parliamentary and permanent staff; but he has in addition a Council of India, composed of not less than ten or more than fifteen members, appointed for a term of ten years. In order to insure a familiarity with Indian conditions, it is provided that nine of the members must have lived in India within ten years of their appointment.[89:1]The Council is a consultative body. It has no power of initiative, but except for matters requiring secrecy or urgency (such as war and peace, or the relations of India with foreign powers or with the native states), all questions must be brought before it for consideration. The Secretary of State is not, however, bound by its decision, save in a few cases, of which the most important are the expenditure of the Indian revenues, and the issue of Indian loans.[89:2]

Legally, the government of India is directed by theSecretary of State and his Council. Even the laws made in India can be disallowed by the Crown on their advice; but in spite of the ease of communication furnished by the telegraph, the internal affairs of the country are still in the main managed by the authorities in India, happily without much interference from England. Parliament, moreover, exercises little control over Indian administration. Some matters—the use of the Indian revenues, for example, to pay for expeditions beyond the frontier—require its consent; and in other cases notice of action taken must be laid before it within a certain time. But the ordinary opportunities for bringing pressure to bear do not exist, because the salary of the Secretary of State for India, being paid out of the Indian revenues, does not furnish an occasion for a debate in Parliament; and although the Indian budget is regularly submitted, it does not need to be approved. On one of the last days of the session, when the work of the year is almost done, and the members are weary of attending, this budget, which is merely a financial statement, is introduced, and in order to give an opportunity for debate a formal motion is made that the Indian accounts show such and such totals of receipts and expenses. A discussion follows on the part of members who deem themselves qualified to express opinions on the government of India, and then the vote is passed. An illustration of the small authority of Parliament in Indian matters may be found in the fact that in 1891 (April 10) the House of Commons carried against the ministers a motion condemning the opium revenue; and in 1893 (June 2) a resolution that the examinations for the Indian Civil Service ought to be held in India, as well as in England, was carried in the same way; yet, on each occasion, the government after studying the subject came to the conclusion that the opinion of the House had been wrong, and did not carry it into effect. Such a condition of things is highly fortunate, for there is probably no body of men less fitted to rule a people than a representative assembly elected in another land by a different race.

If the vast colonial empire has complicated foreign relations it has also caused England to become the greatest of maritime powers, with an enormous navy to protect her dependencies, her merchant ships, and not least important, the routes of her food supply. The effective organisation of a naval force is, therefore, of more importance in her case than in that of any other nation.

The Admiralty.

It has already been observed that the Admiralty is the only department of state conducted by a board that really meets for the transaction of business, yet even in this case the statement may convey a false impression of the character of the body. The board as created by Letters Patent under the Great Seal consists of a First Lord, four Naval Lords and a Civil Lord; but by a series of Orders in Council, and by the practice of the department, the parliamentary and permanent secretaries also sit as members of the board.[91:1]The First Lord, the Civil Lord and the parliamentary secretary are capable of sitting in the House of Commons, and are, in fact, always members of one or other House of Parliament. The permanent secretary is, as his name implies, a permanent official, and hence excluded from the House of Commons altogether. The Naval Lords, on the other hand, although eligible to Parliament,[91:2]are very rarely members,[91:3]and yet they are not permanent officials. They occupy the anomalous position of non-political officials, who nevertheless retire upon the fall of the ministry. This does not mean that they belong necessarily to the party in power, or that they may not be reappointed under the commission issued when a new ministry comes into office. In order to preserve a continuity of administration, and a knowledge of the work, the new patent usually includes one, and sometimes more, of the Naval Lords who served under the preceding cabinet, and commonly another who held theplace under some earlier ministry of the party that has taken office.

Position of the First Lord.

According to the language of the patent all of the members of the Board of Admiralty are equal in authority; but in fact the First Lord, who is always in the cabinet, is held by Parliament responsible for the conduct of the department, and as the other members of the board can be changed if necessary on his recommendation, they must adopt the course which he can justify in Parliament. With the evolution of the cabinet system, therefore, the power of the First Lord has increased until he has become practically a minister of marine assisted by an advisory council. The relation was sanctioned, not created, by Orders in Council of Jan. 14, 1869, and March 19, 1872, which declared the First Lord responsible for all business of the Admiralty,[92:1]and thus "the department now possesses more the character of a council with a supreme responsible head than that of an administrative board."[92:2]

The Other Lords.

The Civil Lord and the financial or parliamentary secretary are subordinate ministers, who occupy substantially the position of parliamentary under-secretaries. They are civilians, as is the permanent secretary also; while the four Naval Lords are naval officers, usually of high rank, who bring an expert knowledge to bear upon the administration of the department. But the members of the board, like the cabinet ministers, have individual as well as collective duties. By the Orders in Council of March 19, 1872, and March 10, 1882, and the regulations made in pursuance thereof, the work of the office is distributed among the members of the board, each of whom is at the head of a branch of the service, and responsible for it to the First Lord. By virtue of this arrangement the First Lord retains in his own hands the general direction of political questions, and the appointment of flag officers and the commanders of ships. The FirstNaval Lord, who is also the principal adviser of his chief, has charge of strategical questions, the distribution of the fleet, discipline, and the selection of the higher officers not commanding ships. The Second Naval Lord has charge of the recruiting and education of officers and men, and the selection of the lower officers. The Third Naval Lord, who is the "Controller," attends to the dockyards, and to construction, repairs and ordnance; while the Junior Naval Lord has charge of the transport and medical service, and the victualling and coaling of the fleet. The Civil Lord attends to the civil establishments, and the contracts relating to stores and to land. The parliamentary secretary is responsible for finance; and the permanent secretary for the personnel in the Admiralty Office, for routine papers and correspondence and for the continuity of business on the advent of a new board.[93:1]

Thus the actual administration of the Navy devolves upon the members of the board charged with the superintendence of the different branches of the service, while the full board meets frequently for the consideration of such questions as the First Lord wishes to refer to it.[93:2]There have been at times complaints about the working of the board, and the existing organisation is the result of gradual adaptations,[93:3]but at the present day the system appears to be highly satisfactory, and in fact it is constantly held up as a model to the less fortunate chiefs of the Army.

The War Office.

Effect of the Crimean War.

The organisation of the War Office has undergone far more changes than that of the Admiralty, and has been the subject of a great deal more criticism both in and out of Parliament.[93:4]Like other countries with a popular form ofgovernment, England has found it hard to reconcile military command and civil control. In the War Office, as in the Admiralty, there has been a tendency to transfer supreme power gradually to the hands of the parliamentary chief; but owing to a number of causes—one of which was the tenacity with which the Queen clung to the idea of a peculiar personal connection between the Crown and the Army—the process of change in the War Office has been slow and halting. Up to the time of the Crimean War the Army was controlled by several different authorities, whose relations to one another were not very clearly defined, and who were subordinate to no single administrative head. This naturally produced friction and lack of efficiency, which was forcibly brought to public attention by the sufferings of the troops during the war. The result was the creation of a distinct Secretary of State for War, and the concentration in his hands of most of the business relating to the Army; but the change was made without a thorough reorganisation of the War Office, and without defining the relative authority of the Secretary of State and the Commander-in-Chief.[94:1]This last office was held at that time by the Queen's cousin, the Duke of Cambridge; and the fact that he was a royal duke, coupled with the Queen's feelings about the Army, threw an obstacle in the way of bringing the office fully under the control of the Secretary. In 1870, however, theQueen was prevailed upon to issue an Order in Council providing that the Commander-in-Chief should be completely subordinate to the Secretary of State.[95:1]Unfortunately, this order by no means settled either the organisation of the War Office, or the relation between the Secretary and the Commander-in-Chief.

Lord Hartington's Commission.

A number of commissions have examined the subject, one of the most important of late years being Lord Hartington's Commission, which reported in 1890.[95:2]At that time[95:3]the Adjutant General, who was charged with the general supervision of the military department, was the first staff officer of the Commander-in-Chief, and as such was responsible to him for the efficiency of the forces; while the other principal military officers—the Quartermaster General, Military Secretary, Director of Artillery, Inspector of Fortifications, and Director of Military Intelligence—were also immediately responsible not to the Secretary of State, but to the Commander-in-Chief, and approached the latter through the Adjutant General. Thus, while all the officers in the department were nominally subordinate to the Secretary of State, practically between him and them stood the Commander-in-Chief, who had the privilege of approaching the Crown directly and without the intervention of the Secretary. The commission thought that such a system failed to make the heads of the different branches of the service effectively responsible to the Secretary, or to provide any satisfactory system for giving him expert advice. They recommended, therefore, the virtual abolition of the office of Commander-in-Chief, and a division of the duties among a number of officers, who should be individually responsible for their administrative work to the Secretary, and should collectively advise him as a War Office Council. They recommended, in short, a system not unlike that of the Admiralty.

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