[A close parallel with the suggestion set forth above may be found in the position on the Council of the Indian Viceroy of the Indian Commander-in-Chief.]
For the purpose of bringing these Ministers into immediate contact with Parliament and at the same time of keeping them free from being involved in daily party debates and divisions, I advocate that they should be created members of the House of Lords.
[The feasibility of this suggestion is, I think, to a large extent illustrated by the positions now held in the House of Lords by his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Wolseley. Possibly also in former days similar positions were to some extent maintained, without inconvenience, by the Duke of Wellington and Lord Hardinge.]
These two Ministers would each of them be assisted by (among other officers) (1) a chief of the staff whose duties will be sketched below, and (2) a financial secretary, with a seat in the House of Commons, whose duty it would be to explain and, if necessary, to defend in that assembly naval or military administration in detail.
III. For the purpose of (1) preserving and insuring the financial control of Parliament and of the Government, of (2) supplying the much-needed link between the two services, so that one great object—viz., Imperial defence—should be more completely attained, I propose that there should be created the office of Secretary of State and Treasurer for the Sea and Land Forces of the Crown.
This Minister would, according to my view, settle with the responsible heads of the services the amount of annual expenditure to be submitted to the Cabinet; he would be charged with the duty of auditing the accounts of the Admiralty and the War Office, with presenting to and defending in Parliament those estimates and that expenditure. He would be charged, further, with a third great duty—viz., with the control, management of, and responsibility for, the Ordnance Department, and with the making of the great contracts for the Army and the Navy. He would, as it were, set up and carry on a great shop from which the military and naval heads would procure most of the supplies which they needed.
The main outlines of expenditure having been agreed upon by the two professional Ministers in conjunction with the proposed Secretary of State, this latter would not interfere nor necessarily be held responsible for the administration of the services, excepting in so far as he might have undertaken to provide those services with ordnance and other supplies and in so far as his duty lay in auditing the accounts and in testing the stores in hand.
The Secretary of State as proposed would be assisted by (1) a Permanent Under-Secretary of State, (2) a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, (3) an Accountant and Auditor-General, (4) a Controller of Ordnance and Supplies, under whom would be (a) the Head of the Ordnance Factories, (b) the Director of Contracts.
The control and interference now exercised by the Treasury over Army and Navy expenditure would, under the proposed scheme, cease and determine. So also would the audit of the Controller or Auditor-General. I suggest that the Secretary of State, or his Accountant and Auditor-General would personally explain to Parliament and to the Committee of Public Account, Army and Navy Expenditure.
The relations between the proposed Ministers for the Army and Navy on one hand, and the Government on the other, would be closely analogous to the well-understood relations which now exist between the Home Government and the Viceroy of India or the Ambassador at a Foreign Court or a Colonial Governor. The Ministers for the Army and Navy might be dismissed by a new Government coming into office, but such a dismissal would be a grave Ministerial action requiring defence and explanation in Parliament.