The Express.
London, England, 1852-12-07 00:00:00

artillery corps on fort ign service ;—thus spreading
them all over the world, instead of keeping them
at home. The min aro voted under the plea of
national defence, and for national defence they
must be kept.
Our present sea and land forces may now—on the
authority of Parliamentary Papers—be mustered up
and stated as follows:
Cavalry and infantry of the Regular Army,
(exclusive of those in East India Com-
pany's service)
Ordnance corps—artillery, engineers, sap-
pers and miners
Additional artillerymen (voted last night) 2,000
Marines on shore (parliamentary paper
1862)
Additional marines (voted last night)
Enrolled pensioners
Yeomanry cavalry
Dockyard battalion
Coast guard
Militia (parliamentary paper 1852) 56,740
Irish constabulary (drilled and armed)

Total land forces 212,680
Of this total furor there were in the colo-

nice at the date of the last Parliamentary
repots on the subject

Leaving 196,008
To this add sailors and marines afloat
(18.12)
Making together
Add addition to seamen (voted last night) 5,000
It will be seen by this statement that, exclusive
of the 46,678 men scattered—many of them unneces-
sarily—through our colonies, we have now a total land
furor of 196,008 men, and a force of sailors and marines
afloat of 33,295 men: total, 229,303 men of all arms
available for national security. To these last eight
was added 5.000 more seamen. Any prime minister
having control of so vast a power, and who yet
permitted it to be so scattered as to allow the land-
ing of an invader in England, ought to be sent at
once, and without mercy, to Tower Hill.
Our correspondent, A Soldier on Duty," has
pointed out how we might have our national
power of defence greatly increased without the cost
of a single guinea. He shows—as has often been
demonstrated before—that this very Oidnacce-
office which last night asked Parliament to grant
them an additional sum of 92,648,. from the public
purse persists in continuing a pernicious system of
keeping ttto two ufficers;to do the work of one. Lord
RAGLAN, for whom a testimonial is now being raised,
might erect for himself a far more noble memorial if
ho would go honestly and boldly into this matter and
get for the nation a modicum of practical army
reform which he—of all of men—is so Pell able
to appreciate and secure. He has gained the
highest military rank; he has obtained a place
in the peerage; he has recently inherited con-
siderable wealth—let him crown his long, gallant,
and useful career by an act of great publicyustiee.
Both Ise and Lord HAanixoE—old brethren in arms
—must have closely at heart the efficiency of the
service in which both their lives have been spent.
Both know how greatly that service would be im-
proved by the adoption of the recommendations of
that parliamentary committee whose report has becu
so long a dead letter. Let them secure an amalga-
mation of the Ordnance with the Horse Guards, let
them concentrate our forces; let them weed out all
the inefficient officers—and they will by so doing
have taken steps towards making our defensive
power more complete than could be done by the voting
of treble or quadruple the extra force last night
sanctioned by the House of Commons.