PALACE AND CABINET.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12732, 15 April 1904, Page 3

PALACE AND CABINET.

A rather sensational statement hearing on the army reform scheme is made by the London correspondent of the “Birmingham Gazette and Express.” “There is,” he says, “a constitutional objection to dragging the King into a public controversy, hut His Majesty is quite ready to father responsibility for the clean sweep at the War Office and of the army corps scheme. The recommendations of Lord Esher’s committee were in accordance with the King’s well-known wishes in regard to army organisation. No one that I have met. unless it be Mr Brodrick, and the officers who benefited by the system, regret the King’s intervention. “Unfortunately, the Cabinet has not assisted the Esher committee. It is disposed, with the exception of Mr Arnold-Forster, to stand by Mr Brodrick’s system because it is Mr Brodrick’s. The result is that the transition is blocked by Cabinet preference, and contusion is greater than ever. “But the King means to have his own way, which is the more worthy of attention because of a feeling that the King’s way is the best. My information on this point is precise and indisputable, both as to the muddle which has arisen through the passive opposition to the policy of the dean sweep, and as to the popularity of the fundamental changes underlying the committee’s recommendation.

“There is great tension between the Palace and the Cabinet, as well as between the War Office and both alike. It might, indeed, be better called a struggle on the one side for the ascendency of Mr Brodrick over Mr Arnold-Forster, which, of course, should end in only one way. But the issue stands really on a higher plane, which, in the event of the opposition to the projected changes at the War Office, may end in Kina Edward himself dismissing the Cabinet.’