Army Reform and Other Addresses (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Army Reform and Other Addresses

Whether I have done that the House will judge after it has heard me; but in the survey I have applied this test and this only. I have rejected - and I should suggest that they ought to be rejected as unnecessary allthe things that do not make for fighting efficiency. Fighting efficiency is the one test to which we should submit propositions which arise at a time when we have none too much money. If we had Army Estimates of a year to play with I could suggest many things Which would be delightful and interesting; but if this Parliament has been returned pledged to any thing, it is to cutting down unnecessary expenditure. I have therefore felt it my duty to scan the Estimates and our military policy with a View to seeing how much could be eliminated which did not make for fighting efficiency and fighting efficiency only. When we have to look into our household affairs we find often that we have to put down our carriages and horses and our champagne, and perhaps our cigars; and I am not sure that we are always the worse for the process.

Now, Sir, I shall come at once to what I have to put before the House of Commons, and in coming to it I wish to say this - I approach the problem with a sense of the enormous difficulties which my predecessors had to contend with and I have to contend with. The work of keeping down the cost of the Army cannot be the work of one Secretary of State or one Party only. It must be a continuous process. If you try to reduce the bulk of a patient by cutting off his leg, you may get down his weight, but you will not do him any good.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.