The Press. — London, England, 1855-01-27 00:00:00

found in each to fill up the complement of six service companies? Is there spirit and patriotism enough in the regiments that have been longest em bodied to induce them to come forward ? There is no lack of spirit or patriotism in the militia regi ments. All of them have come forward to the utmost of their power, and beyond what could rea sonably be expected of them; but the fifteen service regiments cannot be raised out of the fifteen regi• ments that have been asked to volunteer. The regiments are too weak in numbers. In some only four companies can be raised; in others, only three. The cause is the ►mismanagement of Government. It must be evident to every one, on a moment's consideration, that no militia regiment can be ex pected to volunteer en masse. They were enrolled for home service, and without the smallest idea of serving abroad; many have families, a still larger number are married ; a considerable number are looking forward to returning to their trades, and a far higher rate of wages than their present pay ; a great many are physically unfit for much service, militia surgeons having been more lax in passing recruits than would be permitted in the line. There must be a certain per centage even in the most spirited regiments, who cannot be expected to volun teer. We believe that one-third will be about the proportion. A regiment that is asked to send 540 volunteers ought not to have less than 810 rank and file. If a regiment is below this strength, it ought not to be asked to send so many volunteers. It is not fair to the regiment to ask it. The militia regi ments that have been longest embodied have not nearly this strength. On the average they do not number more than 630. They have been reduced in the following manner :—When first embodied they were, on the average, from ti 50 to 90U strong ; but they found it necessary at once to discharge a great number of men whose families were in distress, or whose circumstances would not permit them to con tinue on permanent service. Others were invalided, and others deserted. The regiments suffered a constant diminetion. On the 20th of November they certainly did not average 750 strong. Why, then, did they not recruit? Applications were very early made to Government by their colonels to permit them to send out recruiting parties, but permission was not granted. It was not until November that any effectual recruiting began. Can anything be more absurd than this? These regiments were de ficient in strength to begin with, and were losing their men week by week; it was important to raise them to their full strength ; and yet months elapsed before Government would allow anything to be done. On the 20th of November the Horse Guards Cir cular came down, asking every embodied regiment to send twenty-five per cent of its strength as volun teers into the line. We believe that the demand was responded to. The regiments were reduced at the beginning of December to little more than 530. Recruiting went on, but the constant drain of dis charges went on also; and when the Duke of NEW CASTLE'S Circular came out the average strength was not more than about 830. It must be remembered, also, that the twenty-five percent. who volunteered into the line were the most effective and the most spirited men—the elite of the regiment. Their places were supplied by raw recruits, unacquainted with the sim • pleat drill, and very little likely to volunteer for foreign service. Some regiments, by a combination of favourable circumstances, or by their colonels refusing the twenty-five per cent., are nearly 800 strong. They have got their full number of 540 volunteers. Other regiments are much below 630, and have not been able to obtain them. The demand upon them is unreasonable; but their inability to comply with it causes them great annoyance. Government may refuse to take imperfect regiments. In that case a slur is cast on them, from which their zeal and services should have saved them. Or Government may join them to another regiment, to the total breaking up of the original regimental system, and loss of esprit de corps. The behaviour of Government has been the same towards the militia as towards the regular army. Delay in everything. Delay in passing the Militia Bill of May; delay in embodying; delay in re cruing ; delay in sending out. How long will it be borne by the nation ? THE ROUTINE OF RUIN. IT can no longer be doubted that the red-tape system of routine is ruining our army in the Crimea. Every account which is received from that quarter bears witness to the fact. It matters not upon what point, whether a man is to be sent to hospital or invalided, whether goods are to be landed, or stores to be served out, the lamentable complexities of official references to " the proper quarters for instructions," supervene upon the occasion, and delay either transport oz de livery, le the me may be. THE PRESS. There is a 'vulgar saying, that " we may have too " much of a good thing," and never was it more ap plicable than to the infinite system of routine and reference, which at present appears to flourish so luxuriantly in our Commissariat Department at Balaklava. Everyone appears unwilling to incur the slightest responsibility, no matter upon how serious or how trifling a subject; it is all the same to these gentlemen at Balaklava ; and each respective office gets rid of a troublesome necessity by declining inter ference, or referring to higher authorities. If a ship arrives with a cargo of sheepskin coats for the army— of which fact the authorities at home have neglected to inform the gentlemen of the commissariat at Balaklava—the coats cannot be landed, because there have been no instructions received ; and by the last accounts a steamer is about to sail to Corfu with invalids, and with sheepskin coats still in her hold, because, forsooth, instructions have not been received for their landing ! Under such extraordinary circumstances as the present times educe, would not a little wholesome relaxation of such stringent regulations be advisable ? To the same cause may we trace nearly every evil which has befallen our army ; for to what other can their mis fortunes be attributed but this extreme of system, this refinement of order, which, like all other ex tremes, meets its opposite half way, and ends in thorough disorganisation. Every department has something to do with the business that happens to be going on . one supplies the order for the landing, ano ther the order for the boats to be used in the landing, another superintends the care of the goods when landed.; another finds storeroom, another finds mules to move them to the store-rooms outside the town, while another yet has to transport them to the camp, and another again to issue them to the troops. The result of such a system is to be seen in Balaklava, that " Slough of Despond," as it has been well called. What is everybody's duty proves to be nobody's busi ness : it is every man for himself—in Balaklava, and devil take the foremost—in the camp. Our goods and stores rot by tons, and our soldiers die by the thousand for the want of them. Huts and planking have been sent out, but they are either floating about the harbour, or lying on the beach, or being stolen and burnt by the poor shivering wretches on the spot. Will our army ever be hutted ?We think not. These huts and planks will lie so long at Balaklava, or reach the camp by ones or twos at a time, that most pro bably they will be broken up and burnt for fuel. Will they ever get their sheepskin coats? We think not, as long as the bales of these goods are left to rot in the rain, uncovered and unthought of, upon the beach at Balaklava. This is the fate of these bales at present, and will probably continue to be for some time to come. For excuse of all this error and mismanagement, the War Ministers declare that they have " issued " the necessary orders," and done their best, which which appears to extend to noticing the errors and failures of their subordinates, and inviting Lord RAGLAN to inquire into particulars and punish the offenders. As if Lord RAGLAN had not quite enough to do to maintain his position and carry on the siege, without having to reform the civil departments of his army and seek out for offenders in a system that is so ingeniously constructed as to preclude the pos sibility of fixing responsibility upon any individual officer. We should have thought that the War Ministers possessed summary power sufficient to correct the negligence and abuses so plainly apparent in the system, without shuffling the responsibility on LORD RAGLAN'S shonlders ; but it appears that responsibility is no more liked at Whitehall than at Balaklava. Both Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT and the Duke of NEW CASTLE are fond of quoting passages from the Duke of WELLINGTON'S despatches in support of their wisdom and foresight. It is a pity that they cannot remember a favourite aphorism of the venerable Duke : " If you " want a thing well done you must do it yourself," which withoutbeing taken in its purely literal sense implies a little more looking after business than simply issuing your orders, and then lolling back upon your red leather chair, before a good fire, satisfied that you have done your duty, and that everything will go well. Is it possible that no more capable men are to be found to manage the Commissariat Department of the army than those who mismanage it so sadly at present' Can the authorities at home find no one who could carry ont the execution of their orders, which they say have been issued to insure promptitude and re gularity in this harbour of Balaklava, in a manner a trifle more businesslike? Is it positively necessary to the morale of the army, and to the general dis cipl Me of its several departments, that such a cross belted, stiff-stock system of commissariat arrange ments, no doubt neat and pleasant enough in its working in England, should be persisted in the field ? Campaigning in the Crimea and home quarters in England require a system somewhat different in detail, though perhaps essentially the same in principle ; but as long as the Minister of War simply " issues his orders," and does not SATURDAY, look after their proper execution, so long will the present wretched confusion last; and so long will our stores be wasted and our army starved. PATRIOTIC FUND. AMONG the most liberal contributions to this fund, may be mentioned that of the County Fire and Provident Life Office--15001. in amount, in addition to which the agents of the office subscribed 4281., making a total of nearly 1,0001. Mr. J. A. Beaumont, the managing director, in returning thanks to the agents for the liberality with which they responded to his appeal, made some severe remarks upon the mis management of the war. After remarking that there is no advocate of peace more sincere than "the brave British soldier, whose undaunted courage in the field of battle strikes terror into the foe, and fills with ad miration the whole world," he proceeds to say:— When I appealed to your generosity in November last, and called attention to the sufferings of our poor soldiers in the Crimea, I little thought that within one month those sufferings, severe, but inseparable from war, would prove to have been comparatively light, and, in fact, lost in the accumulation of horrors which have become known within the last few weeks. Where are now our glorious High- landers who, shoulder to shoulder, led the way to the cannon's mouth upon the heights of Alma, and stemmed the torrent of barbarian hosts at Balaklava ? where our splendid Guards, the picked men of England and her sister island? where our chivalrous cavalry, whose heroic devotion electrified the wide world? They are dead or dying, the victims of starvation or its consequent diseases. Lastly, where are the poor animals whose sufferings turn the heart sick ? What agonies have been endured,—how many thousands of noble lives, how many millions of money wasted during the last six months ? How large portion of England's prestige frittered away, sacrificed to a mistaken system ? . . Let us hope that the age of fallacies is passing away, and that the warning we have received may not have been offered in vain; that if war is to be carried on it may be managed—as is every other successful business—by those who have passed their lives in the study and practice of its several departments, each being upon the spot where his services are required, free to act, and responsible for his actions. May we look forward to a strict investigation into our lamentable mistakes? Will the country rouse itself, and each constituency insist upon its members demanding a knowledge of the past and security for the future; or will ministerial irresponsibility continue, and the sufferings of the dead be passed over, while the lustre of their prowess shed a halo round the country which their valour alone has saved from degradation ? May the eight thousand stout hearts of Inkermann never be forgotten ! What would now have been the condition of this country, what the posi tion of our lethargic masters, had this handful of heroes — attacked without notice from the enemy and without orders from their chiefs—quailed for one instant under the blows of their fifty thousand assailants ?—And what has been their reward ! The whole circular is a spirited remonstrance against the sacrifice of our army to official incom• petence. THE public will learn with pleasure that the Di rector-General of the Army and Ordnance Medical Department has been requested to report to the Duke of Newcastle the practicability of furnishing periodical returns of the sick and wounded at Scutari, showing the progress made towards convalescence. The Duke of Newcastle has also instructed Lord William Paulet, Commandant of the British Military Establishment in the Bosphorus, to appoint a competent person to ascertain from every officer, and, if possible, from every private soldier, the name and address of his nearest relative or friend, in order that, in the event of his death, the tact may be communicated to such person.—Morning Chronicle. THE STAFF AT THE WAR -OFFICE, and those of the Admiralty at Whitehall and at Somerset house, are much engaged in preparing the estimates of those departments for the ensuing year, which will be laid in due time before Parliament by the Right Hon. Sidney Herbert and Mr. Bernal Osborne, or Sir James Graham. It is finally settled that an augmen. tation of the land forces shall take place. THE contractors for Minii rifles and rifled carbines sent in on Wednesday a large quantity of this de scription of firearms to the Tower. This supply has become necessary in consequence of the insufficiency of rifles to furnish to the troops about to proceed to the seat of war. A large contract has also been en tered into for revolvers, it being the intention of Go• vernment not only to supply light infantry and rifle regiments with them, but also sail-trimmers and boarders in the fleet when in action. LAST season on the estate of Lord Bandon there were upwards of four hundred acres of land sown with flax, and a great number of the tenants sold their crop standing, at rates varying from 51. 10s. to Si. per acre, the buyers saving the crop themselves. Amongst those who did not sell their crops were two who bad a most extraordinary return. One of them, who saved three bushels of seed, has 67 stones of scutched flax, each stone wei g hing 16}1b., and twenty bushels of seed, the value o f w hi c h i s u p w ards of :40/. after including the expense of scutching, being pay ment at the rate of 201. per acre.