Charles W. Dilke.
George Chesney.
H. O. Arnold-Foster.
Spenser Wilkenson.
In December, 1893, Dilke had communicated to Mr. Balfour the draft of this letter and his plan for sending it to the leaders of both parties. Mr. Balfour thought the best plan for co-ordinating the two services would be by a Defence Committee of the Cabinet, of which Dilke put his finger on the weak point, that it gave no guarantee of meeting the requirements of war. [Footnote: The letters printed in Appendix I., p. 451, embody the substance of previous conversations between Dilke and Mr. Balfour. In Appendix II., p. 456, are given the replies of Mr. Gladstone and the other leaders to the joint letter, which was afterwards published in the newspapers.—Ed.] It was after these communications that Mr. Balfour made his speech at Manchester on January 22nd, 1894, in which he said:
"It is responsibility which is chiefly lacking in our present system. If anything goes wrong with the navy, you attack the First Lord of the Admiralty. If anything goes wrong in the army, you attack the Secretary for War. If anything goes wrong in the Home Department, you attack the Secretary to the Home Department. But if the general scheme of national and imperial defence is not properly managed, there is nobody to attack but the whole Cabinet; and the Cabinet as a whole is not, in my opinion, a very good body to carry on the detailed work of that, any more than of any other, department of the State."
These private discussions between Dilke and Mr. Balfour foreshadowed the actual course which reform was to take. It began in 1895 with the adoption of Mr. Balfour's plan of a Committee of the Cabinet; it ended in 1904 by Mr. Balfour as Prime Minister adopting Dilke's plan, and undertaking himself, as chairman of that Committee, the co-ordination of the two services. Then and not till then the fundamental principle of the primacy of the navy in the defence of the Empire was formally recognized.
The next step of the signatories to the joint letter was action in
Parliament. Dilke gave notice that, on the introduction of the Army
Estimates, he would move the following resolution:
"That this House, before voting supplies for the maintenance of military establishments in the United Kingdom, seeks an assurance from Her Majesty's Government that the estimates for that purpose submitted to it are framed upon consideration of possible war by sea and land, and upon a consideration of advice tendered in that behalf by such officer of either service as is fitted to command in war Her Majesty's forces of that service."
The debate took place on March 16th, 1894. In the course of his speech
Dilke said: