quarters, mending leaky roofs or windows, or laying down drainage systems that promote outbreaks of enteric fever? Of what advantage to accompany the expeditions of archæological professors engaged in excavating Babylonian or other ruins, or even to design and carry out the construction of permanent bridges and other public works in India or elsewhere? Every Engineer beyond the number required for the largest Army we can send forth is clearly redundant, and every Engineer who rises to high rank without having properly gone through the training mill, as a "fighting officer" is a source of very possible peril to the Empire. Tactics are not to be learned among the ruins of Babylon, nor even among the drains of Aldershot.

Take another example-the Army Service Corps Transport. Never since the Crimea, where the Military Train proved insufficient and inefficient, has our Regular Army Service Corps Transport been, as such, of the slightest use. For our "small wars we invariably use the transport of the country, and quite rightly. In the Boer War the A.S.C. furnished, very conveniently, a supply of drivers for the Pom Poms, and also a corps of socalled "Mounted Infantry"; but qua Transport there was nothing whatever for the men to do-except to draw their pay. The entire Army Service Corps, with the exception of a training depôt, at which recruits should have say three months' training, should be placed on a "Militia basis." Except in the event of a European war the A.S.C. can never be of any use; therefore it should be organised so as to become available in that event only. The work done by Army Transport at military stations could be done far more cheaply by contract.

The greatest of all absurdities in reference to the Army Service Corps is the examination of Supply and Transport officers in strategy, tactics and other combatant subjects, in order to ascertain their fitness for promotion! It is quite easy to understand the value to a "fighting officer" of being a reasonably good judge of supplies; but why a first-rate purveyor should be denied promotion because of ignorance in connection with the command of soldiers in action, passes all ordinary power of comprehension. Moreover, according to the Field Service Regulations "the senior Combatant Officer with a convoy will command both the convoy and its escort. He will consult the Senior

Transport Officer on all matters which affect the welfare and convenience of the Transport, will avoid all interference with his technical functions, and will give effect to his wishes unless, by so doing, the safety of the convoy would be endangered." An Army Service Corps officer is classed as a combatant," yet the meaning of the above paragraph clearly is that he shall not take executive command of troops in the only circumstances when he could possibly have an opportunity of so doing. If then, an Army Service Corps officer, although a "combatant " is not a "fighting officer," why compel him to learn tactics and why deny him promotion upon account of purely military inefficiency? Is it not chiefly important that he should understand mules, camels, oxen, bread, beef, potatoes, and such like? The word "logic" must surely have been erased, together with the meaning of it, from all English dictionaries in use at the War Office.

The anomalies of our educational system, in reference to the Army Service Corps, do not, however, stand alone. Universal as well as particular absurdity would seem to be apparent. Why should mere schoolboys be required to specialise immediately on their entry to Woolwich and Sandhurst? Would it not be wiser to begin by making military students in a general way, teaching the elements of soldiering which are of common necessity to all officers of the "Fighting Troops" or of the Staff, and afterwards allow each pupil to specialise for that branch of the Army for which he seems to be most suitable and most inclined? Why teach at Woolwich subjects for which "fighting officers" can never afterwards find any use? Why send middle-aged officers to the London School of Economics, to be crammed in subjects that have nothing to do with fighting, when young men who have enjoyed a "sound commercial education," and afterwards proved their business capacity in London counting-houses, or in other commercial establishments could easily be obtained, at a fair wage, to perform far more efficiently all the administrative work of the Army for which business knowledge is requisite ?

Is it not passing wonderful that we have not yet realised how unreliable a guide to the fighting efficiency of an officer is the number and variety of the letters printed after his name? Actually all soldiers know that it is quite possible for an officer

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to have passed successfully through the School of Musketry, the School of Military Engineering, the Signalling School, the Supply and Transport Course, and the School of Economics, as well as obtaining Distinguished" certificates in examinations for promotion and even commanding victoriously in some petty expedition against savages, and yet to be an utterly incompetent soldier owing to lack of imagination and of moral courage! Promotions given for success in "small wars" have much to answer for; they render needlessly difficult the task of the Selection Board when claims for promotion to the rank of General Officer are being considered; for the rejection of the much-decorated and specially promoted Colonel Atkins is almost certain to provoke an outburst of violently hostile criticism from the supporters of that gallant and learned, but nevertheless useless officer. In this connection the Selection Board will after a few years have a very difficult nut to crack, in the case of an officer who cannot be rejected without completely stultifying the authorities by whom he has thus far been advanced, undeservingly as well as inordinately.

The question of promotion is one that it seems quite impossible to answer in an entirely satisfactory manner. To depend only upon seniority would be ridiculous, whereas to resort otherwise than exceptionally to selection must inevitably involve unfairness. The system we actually employ provides, probably, the most suitable compromise, and that system may be described as seniority tempered by selection and rejection. Theoretically no officer is selected for "accelerated promotion accelerated promotion" unless he is manifestly a man of great promise, generally, or of special aptitude particularly; and rejection is applied only to the undeniably incompetent. There have been cases in which selections, and more rarely rejections, have been made inadvisedly, but bearing in mind the fact the responsible authorities are but human the Army has, generally speaking, very little reason for complaint. Upon the other hand, however, it is difficult to defend the practice of reserving "accelerated promotion" almost exclusively for the benefit of the Staff, more especially as the opportunities afforded to keen soldiers desirous of obtaining the benefits of the Staff College course, are so very limited.

The officer has never been born who, being naturally fit for

Staff Service, or for important command, would not have become yet more efficient by reason of having graduated at the Staff College. Some few, who although educationally qualified are nevertheless bad soldiers, leave the Staff College worse officers than when they entered it; but such exceptional cases scarcely affect the argument that the larger the number of officers trained at the Staff College the more efficient will be the body of officers as a whole. Even those who are compelled to leave the College without completing the course, owing to failure in terminal examinations, gain no little benefit. In the circumstances, why are not these great advantages more generally distributed? Why not allow much larger numbers of officers to study war under such favourable conditions? Why, even in the straitened circumstances that now prevail, base the selection for entry upon an examination which gives no security against the passing of inferior soldiers, and often results in the plucking of very good ones? Surely the men we want are the best soldiers, and the educational qualifications chiefly requisite are those which are essential to efficient soldiering. Why not, then, enlarge the Staff College very much, making it an Army University, easy to get into for all who are considered worthy of trial, easy to be rejected from in the case of those who are found wanting, and hard to graduate from? What sense is there in a system which excludes Captain A, a really brilliant soldier, while it admits Captain B, a man of mediocre military ability, merely because the latter has made ten more marks in mathematics or in languages-or because there is no further vacancy for an officer of such and such a corps? This is a conundrum in reference to which the only possible answer is "I give it up."

Many more questions might be asked, but space will not permit. Meanwhile, a general explanation of all the minor enigmas of the British Army appears to be furnished by the fact that a complete answer is still wanting to the great fundamental interrogation: "What is the Army maintained for?" Not knowing what our Army is for, it is not wonderful that we are far to seek for the means of making it most fit for the performance of its yet undefined task.

A. W. A. POLLOCK.

THE "DARK LADY" TO MR. WILLIAM

SHAKESPEARE

ABOUT 1605

I

You sent me twenty sonnets, and I'll try
To write a few, in answer, as a friend;

Poor Will! you avow the crime, your hope that I
Might to a player playwright condescend.

How dared you, Sir, one moment to aspire ?

You knew me sprung of high adventurous blood;
Rightly you guessed the
game of my desire;
For glorious stakes I played my maidenhood.

O, but you are Imagination's fool!

It is the poet's way, I understand;
That mounting frenzy left no atom cool,
Did but I let you touch my charming hand.

As to my cheek-laid you your lips upon it,
At once you'd write the most astounding sonnet.