Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/83

 in South Africa by November, when he received and accepted Lord Salisbury's offer of the office of secretary of the ad- miralty. After drafting the report of the South African land commission he entered on his new duties. His chief, Lord Selborne, who had just succeeded George Joachim (afterwards Lord) Goschen [q. v. Suppl. II] as first lord of the admiralty, sat in the House of Lords. Arnold-Forster consequently represented the admiralty in the House of Commons, and exercised there more authority than usually belongs to a subordinate minister. At the admiralty he actively helped to carry out the drastic reforms which Lord Selborne initiated, mainly on the inspiration of Sir John (afterwards Lord) Fisher. He was prominent in formulating the administrative measures required by the new scheme of naval training ; he directed much administrative energy to the standardisation of dimensions and material in the navy, and to the higher organisation of defence with a view to the needful correlation of naval and military preparations of the kingdom and empire; he helped in the reconstruction of the committee of imperial defence.

In the autumn of 1903 secessions from the cabinet owing to Mr. Chamberlain's promulgation of the policy of tariff reform led to a reconstruction of Mr. Balfour's ministry [see, eighth , Suppl. II;, first ; Suppl. II]. Arnold-Forster, an ardent supporter of tariff reform, now entered the cabinet as secretary of state for war in succession to Mr. St. John Brodrick, now Viscount Midleton, who became secretary of state for India. He was thereupon admitted to the privy council. During his recent holidays a severe strain had permanently affected Arnold-Forster's heart, and he was thenceforth hampered by increasing debility, but he threw himself into the task of reorganising the war office and the military forces of the crown with indefatigable energy. The royal commission on the South African war had lately reported, and schemes of reform were rife. The government had already decided to appoint a small committee to advise on the reconstruction of the machinery of the war office. One of Arnold- Forster's first administrative acts was to appoint Viscount Esher, Sir John Fisher, and Sir George Sydenham Clarke as the sole members of this committee, whose report resulted in the constitution, on a new and established footing, of the committee of imperial defence, and in the reconstruction of the hierarchy of the war office more or less on the model of the board of admiralty. Other reforms were initiated by Arnold-Forster, but his definite views on problems of military organisation did not always find acceptance with colleagues, who were distracted by other political issues, and by the growing weakness of the government. Stiff in opinion, clear and incisive in expression, he was perhaps a little intolerant of the views of others equally entitled to be heard ; nevertheless he secured the acceptance of the lines on which in his judgment the general staff of the army ought to be organised. But many of his general schemes were frustrated by Mr. Balfour's resignation on 4 December 1905, and his measures were not adopted by his successor.

In 1906, owing to the distance of the constituency and his decline of physical strength, he retired from the representation of West Belfast, and was returned for Croydon. In the same year he published 'The Army in 1906: a Policy and a Vindication,' his own estimate of the needs of the army and an account of his administration. In opposition he was energetic in his criticism of the military policy of Viscount Haldane, his successor at the war office. His last literary effort was 'Military Needs and Military Policy' (1908), with an introduction by Field-marshal Earl Roberts, an attempt to expose the defects which he saw in the liberal war minister's schemes.

In 1907, after recovering from a grave attack of illness, he went with his wife and a son to Jamaica on the invitation of Sir Alfred Jones [q. v. Suppl. II] in order to attend a conference of the Imperial Cotton-Growing Association. During his stay there a terrible earthquake devastated Kingston, and destroyed Port Royal. Thenceforth his health steadily failed, although he continued his political work with exemplary fortitude. He died suddenly at his London residence in South Kensington on 12 March 1909, and was buried at Wroughton, Wiltshire, the parish in which his father-in-law lived. In 1884 Arnold-Forster married Mary, eldest daughter of Mervyn Herbert Nevil Story-Maskelyne [q. v. Suppl. II]. She survived him with four sons.

With the shadow of death long hanging over him, no man, as Mr. Balfour remarked after his death, was 'more absolutely absorbed in a great and unselfish desire to carry out his own public duty.' His