The Press.
London, England, 1854-12-23 00:00:00

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1210

resource that can be suggested. This plea
will not bear the light. Even the vigour of a
Newcastle must know some limit. Should
there be a rush of foreign recruits to our
standard, the recruiting among our own
population must slaoken, for we are told that
already recruits come in faster than they can
be drilled, and if barrack-room cannot be
found for our Militia, how can it be provided
for these mercenaries? Whatever heir IN*?
ber, it will not, as represented, be an addition
to our total force, but a substitution of foreign
for British troops.
MONK LEWIS wrote his ballad of the " Cloud
King," to teach young ladies the value of
grammatical accuracy in expression. When
the fiend has the damsel in his power, he
swears to grant any two requests she may
make,—" Let me see here the truest of lovers,"
she cries, and her faithful page is at her feet.
" Now show me a truer than he," she exclaims,
and the baffled fiend flies off with a clap of
thunder. The War Office has more recruits
than it can drill, and the Ministers say, let us
enlist foreign recruits that wo may drill them
too.
The introduction of the bill has revealed
the full extent of Ministerial mismanagement.
The army, says the Secretary-at-War, is 20,000
men short of the complement voted by Parlia-
ment last session ! The admission is astound-
ing. We have now, while maintaining the
invasion of a mighty empire, twenty thou-
sand men less than Parliament last session,
when the war had hardly commenced, before
a blow had been struck, authorised the Go-
vernment to raise. As the result of the defi-
ciency, when Lord RAGLAN urgently demanded
reinforcements lads of eighteen were sent
him, unfit for the service they had to perform.
When pressed ou any point connected with
the war, the Ministers are compelled to admit
error or mistake. "We were wrong, I admit,"
Mr. HERBERT exclaims, as if absolution must,
ilffi a matter of course, follow confession,—" We
were wrong to send out these boys as rein-
forcements." If asked why he did not, by
fad.ucing the standard, advancing the age, and
ggereasiug the bounty, secure more serviceable
*pops, he replies—" We have reduced the
iiustandard, we have advanced the age, we
have increased the bounty ;" but he forgets
jp add that he has only done so quite recently,
and that, as a result, the number of recruits
'has increased sevenfold. The fact is beyond
dispute that, while our army was 20,000 men
or more below the number sanctioned by Par-
liament, and Lel° iv the number the country
supposed, the Ministry made no adequate
effort to recruit it. In the actual circum-
stances this neglect was more than an error,
it was a crime. By embodying the Militia
they might have obtained this number at once ;
and now, to cover their culpable neglect, they
bring in a Foreign Enlistment Bill, and make
out a case for its necessity by the appalling
mortality which has occurred among the lads
of eighteen, whom in their panic, when the cry
for reinforcements was raised, they hurried off
to Balaklava.
The country does not want men more than
it wants money, or arms, or stores, but it
wants a Government able to draw forth and
manage its resources. The effect of this bill
must, in any case, be mischievous. If it sue
ceeds, these foreign troops must, from the
necessity of the case—from their requirements
of lodging, of pay, of transport, of supplies of
every kind—be a subtraction from the British
force which could otherwise be maintained ;
and, if it fails, time and effort will be lost,
and we shall humiliate ourselves in the eyes
cf Europe by the express and public declare
tion, through our Government, that our power
of recruiting our army from our own popula-
tion is at an end, that we have more wealth
than courage, and that wo freely open our
coffers to purchase mercenary aid, but solicit
it in vain.

THE MILITIA.
ATTENTION has not yet been suff►ciently directed
to the extraordinary and unexplained delay
which has taken place in the organisation of
the Mlitia. With this force great things
*night have been done. England and Wales
have 80,000 militiamen, all more or less in-

THE

PRESS.

strueted in the use of arms. Scotland is
about to raise, and might long ago have
raised, 10,000, 4nd leelaud might have been
called on at 114 earlier period for her present
qttnta 4 30,0110 men. The whole of this forte
of MAO melt might have been embodied at
the present suoment had the Government
taken in tints the necessary steps, and we
should then KU. had a magnificent army of
reserve, sufficient to supply any number of
men for the exigencies of the war.
A reserve force ought to have been called
out when the Eastern expedition was being
organised in February last, and should on no
account have been delayed beyond the decla-
ration of war in March. Yet April was allowed
to pass without anything being done, and it
was not until the 3rd of May that the first
step was taken by the introduction of the
Uilitia Bill. The passing of that bill gave
Government the power of embodying the whole
of the English and Welsh regiments, but in-
stead of calling out a large force, they declared
their intention of embodying only 15,000.
Had these 15,000 been called on at once and
brought into a high state of discipline, some-
thing material would have been effected, and
it would have been easy in the autumn to call
out other regiments. But the embodiment
proceeded very slowly. Three or four corps
were embodied in May, a similar number in
June, a like number in July, and some more
in August; and it was not until the end of
August or the beginning of September that
eighteen regiments had been put on perma-
nent duty. The average strength of these
regiments was about 750 men, so that the
whole of the embodied force up to last month
was only 13,500 men.
The effect has been to prevent the enlist-
ment of a large body of trained soldiers into
the line. It is found by experience that the
regiments that have been longest embodied
volunteer the most freely, and it is evident
that their men are worth far more than those of
more recently raised regiments. All the corps
that were embodied in the spring have given
their full quota of one-fourth of their numbers
to regiments on active service. But one-
fourth of 13,500 is only 3,375, and this is the
utmost number of volunteers that have been
furnished at this crisis by the embodied
Militia. Had the whole Militia of England
and Wales been embodied we could have pro-
cured 20,000 volunteers, and had the whole
Militia of the United Kingdom been embodied
we might have obtained 30,000.
In recent debates the Government have
excused the smallness of the force sent to the
East, by alleging the difficulty of procuring
I men. 'the army, they say, was on a peace
establishment. Recruits came in slowly
during the summer months. We had not the
men to send, and we could not obtain them
more rapidly than we did. But these are idle
excuses. The machinery for obtaining the
best sort of recruits was in existence, but
they would not make use of it. They were
frightened by the expense. They thought a
few regiments sufficient to guard Portsmouth
and Dublin ; and forgot the necessity for a
large army of reserve, to supply soldiers for
the reduction of Sebastopol. Let no one say
that the embodiment of the Militia was a
thing of little importance. Its immediate im-
portance was small, but its ultimate importance
was very great. Its neglect during so many
months will exercise a material and most
pernicious influence over the present cam-
paign. The Government have at last acknow-
ledged their error, and called up a large
number of regiments, but scarcely so many
as the urgency of the case requires, and even
this tardy measure will for man, purposes be
too late.
In the forcible speech of Mr. WHITESIDE on
Wednesday, he addressed himself particularly
to the case of the Irish Militia. It was not
until the 11th of August (though war had then
been declared nearly rive months) that the
Ministry introduced the Militia Bill for Ire-
land. Then there ras a long period of delay
before the number of men to be raised by each
county was fixed; and now, though directions
have been issued to enrol, none have been
given to embody, and the peasantry are reluc•
taut to give in their names and incur the risk

N

SATURDAY,

of discharge by their employers until they
can be actually taken into the service and pay
of the Government, so that the measure is to
a great extent practically inoperative. It was
in Ireland, No pay—no Militia," said Mr.
WI ITSBIDIL Yot in the face of such incon-
testible evidences of neglect, the Ministers
virtually declare Out they can procure no
efficient recruits tit home, and that men are
not to be found in the country to sustain the
character of our arms.