The Express.
London, England, 1849-03-21 00:00:00

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OUTGOING MAILS.

The mak Or MMUS Sena WrMa. and the Milted BMus,
will to mak y» the monis at the Urd Marsh.
if. mabake Mandits to the atedherrancan, rend. Ad.,
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lbe mak ter Idaddra, Me Inak end Buenos Ay r% will be made
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The mak Om Moiler, May 0 the Imlan bleak, ins,
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IRON WATER AT LONDON IRMO&
Tie D.T —Karam. 0 Ws. pot Menem. OW. 0 0
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LONDON WEDNESDAY MAR.2I
THERE is not one of the reasons assigned for the
maintenance of our existing army which, if admitted
to be just, and logically followed out, would not im-
peratively require the doubling of that army. If the
peac3 and security of our manufacturing cities at
home, and of our colonial ports and population abroad
-it the defence of oar country from invasion, of oar
commercial and political interests abroad from out-
rage, can only be effected by the size of army and of
navy, then what we had better do is not merely to
double, but to augment by five or six times, our
militery force.
If the middle classes of this country put small trust
in the government, and if the lower claws should
come to consider it hostile, the cannon and the
bayonets of that government are decidedly
too few. If we have to invade the con-
tinent, or the continent is to invade as, we are
ill and scantily prepared. If the ir tegrity of our
colonies depends on the British soldier, these soldiers
at present are but drops in the ocean, where they
should constitute waves and tides, to sway or over-
awe resistance.

Our army is in fact either insignificantly small, or
exorbitantly grea►. Small, if it alone is to do all this,
and absurdly great, if the army can by no risibility
perform thoee duties. Now it is quite evident that
the army does not in any way perform the task u-

signed it. It doss not intimidate Iliareps, it does notelet
down chatiam, and, as to the colonies, we do believe
that the parade, ostentation, and elPeam of military
establishments create more disaffection amongst
them than beget salutary awe.
On the continent, it fins become an axiom as well
known to foreigners as to ourselves, that England can-
not interfere. The public spirit of this country is irre-
sistibly opposed to any interfetenos on our part;
the state of our finances deprives the British govern-
ment of anything beyond moral weight. And that
moral weight the English government would exercise
with far more effect if it exercised it by word of
mouth, and not by menacing broadsides. We have a
fleet in the waters of Naples; what cares King
FERDINAND for that fleet? He knows our admiral
durat not use it. In Lisbon, in Cadiz, before Genoa,
~nd in the Adriatic, we hive vessels, whose presence
might in the olden time have awed or influenced
the governments of those countries. At present there
is not a Mediterranean power that does not know the
apparition of a British fleet to mean nothing, and its
grins to be vox et praterea nail. We give our Fo-
reign Secretary thunder at the cost of eighteen
millions a year, bat, like trusting a boy with a gun
and refusing him powder and shot, parliament and
the public both impress upon the Foreign Secretary
that he must not use this thunder and this force.
For what purpose, then, are they at all, if not for
expense and parade, diplomatic dialogues, and an
affectation of authority or philanthropy, in which
there is really nothing serious, except to the English
taxpayer,_ who is at the coat ?
We may admit Lord PALIIIIRSTON's or Lord GREY'S
good intentions, but the country supports neither of
them in coeming either foreign countries, or colonial
communities. The frank support of parliament and
of the public would give more weight to the
words and acts of those ministers in their
several departments than all the armies or
navies they can direct or despatch. This
support (they must themselves perceive) is with-
drawn. The public is lukewarm—more ready to
sympathise with a froward colony than with the
prodigal officials that misgovern it—and this state of
opinion breaks the sword of coercion in the hands of
the Colonial-office. With respect to our foreign
policy it is even worse. There are countries and
causes now struggling in Europe, for which
the English have the deepest sympathies, and
yet they crush and put down those sympa.
tens, and turn their becks altogether upon foreign
politics, liberal or illiberal, led they might give
countenance ti ministerial interference or to a renewal
of that active policy in foreign matters, which, how-
ever generous, has always turned out mean, barren,
and ingrate of result.
The fact is. that force, as an element of authority,
has fallen into discredit with us. And our gover-
nors are called upon to exercise influence and carry
on administration by other means. As to military
establishments, it is plain that in this empire they
will be waited just so far as they are necessary for
defence, the using them in a war of offence b.ing a
contingency too remote, unlikely, and extraordinary,
to warrant anything like unusual or Permanent

expense.
Hence, confining consideration to the question of
defence, we must say, that it is a most disgraceful result
of our boosted progress, that we must keep an army of
25,000 men in-England and of another 30,000 men in
Ireland, in addition to the police of both countries, to
keep down the population. Why, this mere fact
offers greater incentives to foreign machinations and
invasion, were there room or possibility for such, than
any amount of standing army could counteract. The
humor of 'oldie's in England is indeed eery re-
markable, and leads to the 0101 tifyir g conclusion that,
instead of Dtgland's reclaiming Ireland to the uses
of economy, industry, and peace, Leland is dragging
England, by ita example, contact, and misrule, into
a riyinte of carat rebellion, coercion, and extrava-
gance.
With respect to our colonies, there is one remark
that might have been made in the debate. And this
is, the altered estimate that politicians both in this
and foreign countries have come to make of the
value of colonies. During the last war, and indeed
during the wars which preceded it, colonial conquest
and possession were the greet prizes that nations
aimed at. The great wealth of • European country
17118 oonsideredto exist in its colonies. English prospe-
rity. was thought to flow altogether from that source ;
foreign countries envied us, and went to war with us,
and we armed and went to war with foreign countries,
with a view to a mutual robbery of each others' colo-
nies. But people are now wiser. They mu,t see that
colonies are not necessary to trade, and that, indepen-
dent t-ade, they are far more costly than profitable.
There is no one to whom the history of West
Indian elmmerce or of East Indian finance
does not lie open ; none from whom the inevi-
table conclusions of suoh a study can be hid.
The days are gone when France would go to
war with England in the hope of acquiring Jamaica,
or England engage in war with France to deprive
the latter of Algeria. Russia, some years back, might I
have envied us Hindostan, but as the Czar Ntenotts
has become an accountant and a dealer in golden
treasures, he has probably computed the debtor and
creditor sides of the great East Indian ledger. The
thirst of colonial acquisition, the great source of Euro-
pean wars in the last century, has, in fact, totally dis-
appeared from this, its absence forming, perhaps,
the greatest guarantee of naval and general peace.
Such a revolution as this we ought to take into ac-
count, especially in our system of defence for the
colonies, which no longer need comprise defence
against a foreign foe. Canada may form an excep-
tion, but then, again, it is not legions that will
avail, but good, cheap, and fair government. In
New Zealand, in Ceylon, and at the Cape,
we must have force to contend with !Halve
races. But had the governors the knowledge that
they had not unlimited resources and forces at hand,
they would be less prone to excite quarrel, and to
attempt to rule by intimidation. And for our own
part, we doubt it the Colonial-off.ce will ever wisely
and carefully set about the task of organising our far
dependencies] fur self-government, until parliament
flatly refines them the means of dominating them by
the brute force of bayonets.