168 PEACE ESTABLISHMENTS 



ferrecl to endeavour to master their subject and do their duty, 

 as every right-minded man another definition for gentleman 

 will endeavour to master the principles of an occupation 

 imposed upon him and do his duty, one next comes to in- 

 quire what duration of time is presumptively necessary to 

 acquire a sufficient mastery of technical principles. Probably 

 they who are most conversant with the difficulties which per- 

 sons in quest of technical knowledge have to encounter, will 

 not consider ten years of apprenticeship to be an over-liberal 

 allocation of time to this end. It follows then that accord- 

 ing to the existing system of appointing soldiers to the control 

 of technical operations of grave importance the latter may be 

 considered as made to devolve, at uncertain and irregularly- 

 recurring periods, upon the supervision of apprentices. 



Referring to the detailed list already given of the govern- 

 ment manufactories presided over by military men, it would 

 not be easy for the warmest advocate of the system repro- 

 bated to place his finger on one instance, and from conscience 

 say that reasons could be urged favourable to the pretensions 

 of military men. In contemplating some departments now sub- 

 ject to military chiefdom, the incongruity between a soldier's 

 education and the civil function he is called on to assume 

 rises to the ridiculous : for example, to the chiefdom of the 

 clothing department. When it becomes a case of the chief- 

 dom of an establishment for the manufacture of arms or am- 

 munition, then the war-association of these things does away 

 with the first suggestion of ridicule, but in the end is found 

 to lend 110 sufficient countenance to the appointment. Lest 

 here the circumstance may be thought inconsequential, ap- 

 proving of the existence of government factories, not trusting 

 to public tender and competition altogether for acquiring the 

 material and appliances of war, an explanation shall follow. 



Government technical establishments on however small 

 a scale are perhaps necessary, for the purpose of affording a 

 check to the possible extortion that might arise, were the 



