Note 68 — THE BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW. OCTOBER, 1871. (continued 7)

Mr. Göschen is certainly much to be pitied. If a first class man-of-war is driven at midday on a well-known rock he is held responsible for the disaster, and if he inflicts condign punishment on the culpable officers, he is accused of unjust and arbitrary conduct. Indeed, some of our Conservative friends have not hesitated to say that Mr. Göschen exceeded his power in superseding the peccant admirals in the Mediterranean. Such an opinion is in the teeth of legal authorities. Let us quote one of the latest and best known:—'It is essential to the constitution of a military body,' says Mr. Todd ('Parliamentary Government in England,' vol. i. p. 326) 'that the Crown should have the power of reducing to a lower grade, or of altogether dismissing, any of its officers from service in the army or navy at its own discretion, and, if need be, without assigning any reason; such power being always exercised through a responsible minister, who is answerable for the same, if it should appear to have been exercised unwarrantably and upon an insufficient ground.' So well established is this rule that it was decided by the Court of Queen's Bench, in the case of Dickson v. Viscount Combermere, that the discretionary power of the Crown to remove officers is so absolute that even if an officer had been tried by a court of inquiry and acquitted, the Crown was justified in removing him from office upon the advice of a minister responsible to Parliament.