THE ARMY CORPS SYSTEM.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 11872, 20 April 1904, Page 6

THE ARMY CORPS SYSTEM.

The British Army is, we are now convinced, being reorganised in earnestness, and -with laudable disregard for the vested interests which -were disturbed toy the. recommendations of Lord Eeher's Committee. It was satisfactory to note in a recent cable message that the Secretary of State for War has announced the abolition of Mr Brodrick's effete Army Corps system— a system which never existed except on paper. Mr Brodrick, when detailing his scheme of army reform in. 1901, spoke of the "cadres" of hia Army Corps. Those were, indeed, the sum total of all that ever .existed of six army corps, to complete two of which sufficient men were not forthcoming. Lord Esher'e Committee, in the section of their exhaustive report dealing -with decentralisation, condemned the Army Corps system as unsuited to British requirements, and, with the exception of the Aldershot corps, the completion of ■which, by a division on Salisbury Plain, was advised, they recommended their abolition. The training and disciplinary command of the Army is to be under the' officers commanding divisions and brigades. 'For the old regimental districts are substituted brigade districts, commanded by colonels, and for general administrative purposes the United .Kingdom is divided into eight administrative districts, of which London is one, controlled by majorgenerals. Such an arrangement provides administrative districts, "serving, but to a " great extent, independent of, the group- " ing of the forces for training purposes." Thia is tie only effectual way to obviate the confusion and chaos resulting from the destruction of the administrative machine which mobilisation for foreign service, under Mr Brodrick's Army Corps system, would inevitably have produced. Mr Arnold Forster is to be congratulated on having committed that system to ''the dust heap in favour of one which is calculated to serve, instead of hinder, the object in view. '. ~•"■*-• ' '