Mr. Balfour's objection to this arrangement is, however, not that it sins against the principles of good organization, but that it practically abolishes the Secretary of State. It leaves the decision of questions which arise within the War Office and the army in the hands of a person who is outside the Cabinet. In this way it diminishes the power of the Cabinet, which rests partly upon the solidarity of that body, and partly upon the practice by which every branch of Government business is under the control of one or other of its members. Both these objections appear to me to rest upon false premises. I shall show presently that the duties of the Secretary of State must necessarily include matters which do not properly come within the scope of a Commander-in-Chief, and I cannot see how the authority of the Cabinet to manage the army rationally would be impaired by a War Office with a military head, the subordinate of the Secretary of State. But both objections, supposing them to be valid, would be overcome by making the Commander-in-Chief Secretary of State--that is, by abolishing the office of Secretary of State for War, and entrusting his duties to the Commander-in-Chief as a member of the Cabinet. Why, then, does not the Government adopt this plan, which at first sight appears so simple? There is a good reason. The Cabinet is a committee of peers and members of Parliament selected by the leader of a party from among his followers. The bond between its members is a party bond, and their necessary main purpose is to retain their majority in the House of Commons. A military Commander-in-Chief means an officer selected as the representative, not of a party, but of a subject. He is the embodiment of strategical wisdom, and to secure that strategical knowledge and judgment receive due attention in the councils of government is the purpose of his official existence. To make him a member of the Cabinet would be to disturb the harmony of that body by introducing into it a principle other than that of party allegiance, and the harmony could not be restored except either by subordinating strategy to party, which would be a perversion of the Commander-in-Chief, or by subordinating party to strategy, a sacrifice which the leaders of a party will not make except under the supreme pressure of actual or visibly impending war.