SUBALTERN OFFICERS. 
611 
time and of labour), and of uniform success, is to use machines for the 
making of each of the different parts, especially adapted for the work. 
The parts are then collected and put together by skilled workmen 
under the eye of the master. Our machines for forming the details 
of the soldier are the specialists, and we officers are the foremen of 
shops and the skilled workmen who see that the parts are properly 
turned out, and form them into tactical units. A battery organised 
on the proposed system of separate divisions can only be likened to a 
watch composed of three small ones made in all their details by 
three inexperienced workmen. The master watchmaker would find 
much trouble in fitting the parts together, and if he succeeded, a 
watch with three mainsprings and three sets of wheels within wheels 
would very soon be out of order. 
After all, it would seem that the objections to “ specialists ” are more 
theoretical than practical. If the riding master fitted the saddlery and 
harness, arranged the teams and the horses for riding drills, &c., he 
would be decidedly in the way, but at present he only ensures uniformity 
by generally superintending the instruction by the rough-riders of 
batteries, when they happen to be stationed at the head quarters of a 
brigade. If these officers did not exist, subaltern officers would have 
to go through the schools of instruction themselves, and whatever might 
be their instructional duties afterwards, by natural selection some 
would become riding masters, some gunnery instructors, some theoretical 
artillerists, in fact all “ specialists.” And who would perform their 
duties, and what would become of their divisions while they were away ? 
Again, with regard to rough-riders and the lower ranks of 
“ specialists; ” if the subalterns are not to become drill sergeants, the 
non-commissioned officers must be the immediate instructors of the 
men, and are all of them admirable Crichtons, capable of imparting 
instruction in all branches of drills equally well ? There can surely be 
no doubt that a man of moderate education will instruct better in the 
particular subject he has been trained to, and thoroughly understands, 
than in many of which he can only have a fair smattering. 
One gladly admits ff as a general rule that the lower the decentralisa- 
tion is carried, the better the work is done; ” but in the work of 
instruction with the aid of moderate brain power, the decentralisation 
should be that of the subjects and instructors rather than of the 
classes and instructed. 
I regret that, in his wish to advocate what he considers a better 
system than the one in vogue, Lieut. Murray should have depicted the 
possible results of the latter on his brother subalterns in such sombre 
colours ; but in the same number of Proceedings*, a brighter picture, 
* On the rank, post, and duty of an 0. C., R. A., in the field, by Col. W. J. Williams, R.H.A ,,c,b. 
