The Express.
London, England, 1853-05-19 00:00:00

LONDON, 27117:NDA1; MAY IS.

the work of the vessel ; or sailing quietly
974 d statelily about in the Channel or in
the Mediterranean with twice or thrice as many men
as are adequate to do all the work of the ship ? Why,
even in war time the crews of the royal ships are set
to unless work to prevent them from rusting and
souring in idleness. We affirm, therefore, that the
mere training of a standing navy in a time of peace
and making that navy wholly independent of the
I mercantile marine, will not provide us with a navy
superior to that which can be provided by France,
and will expose the country to danger.
While the seamen on board men-of-war are more
than half idle, and are subjected only to an insincere
and imperfect training, the seamen of the mercantile
marine are continually brought up, whether there
be peace or war, in a real strife and struggle
with work and with the elements, in a short
handed ship, and aro continually acquiring tha
nautical skill, and that firm and hardy and daring
character, which distinguish our seamen. The beat
of the training in men•of-war is in half-idleness and
gunnery ; the training in the mercantile marine—
particularly in the ships that ply on our own coasts—
is in actual and hard work; and that kind of training
producing a great multitude of energetic seamen is
much more efficacious in providing for the national
security than the little, feeble, insincere, unreal
training of a Standing Navy. In striving to make
our Royal Navy a profession wholly apart from our
maritime population we commit a mistake. It
is perfectly clear that we arc mainly indebted for our
naval superiority to the great number of our mari-
time population, trained in the hardy school
of the mercantile marine. It is perfectly clear,
also, that a measure, like the proposed one of en-
tering men for ten years and establishing a Standing
Navy, will really effect, as it is intended, a more
complete separation than ever between the two ser-
vices—reduce the navy to a mere creation of the Go-
vernment, like our wretched dockyards, which are
kept from being worse than they are by importing
into them energy and skill from private yards—and
cut it off from the chief source of its life, its vigour,
and its greatness.

To-Nieler the House of Commons meets again for
business, and amongst the new topics likely to come
before it fur early discussion is one relating to the
most popular, and most valuable, of our national
cetabl:shments —our Wooden Walls.
A Committee of Naval Officers has inquired into
the subject of Manning the Navy, and has come
unanimou.ly to a conclusion that it is expedient to
place her MAJESTY'S Navy on a more permanent
basis, upon a similar principle to that established in
the army and the marines." The Admiralty propose to
give efket to this by requiring bins who may here-
after enter the navy to engai,e for a period of ten
years after they reach the age of IS; and they—with
men, who are ,to be encouraged to enter for ten
years—arc to have additional pay, from Id. to 3d.
per day, in proportion to their merits and their ser-
vices. New ranks arc to be established, and greater
rewards given to the men. Nobody can object to
paying the seamen a little better than they are now
paid, hut it may be reasonably supposed, when wages
generally are rising, and more likely to
rise than to fall, particularly the wages o'
seamen, that the little increase proposed will
be wholly insufficient to counterbalance the attrac-
tion of other services, and will cot lessen the diffi-
culty experienced at present of procuring men for
the navy. That difficulty has suggested to the in-
quiring officers the pre priety of engaging the services
of men willing to enter for the long period of ten
years. At any rate, under present circumstances, we
consider the proposed increase in the pay and altera-
tions in the ratings too trivial to require much
notice; but the plan of establishing the navy on a
mere permanent basis, similar to the army, by enter-
ing seamen for ten years, is of great importance.
We have a permanent standing army, with a very
permanent national debt, and now we are to have a
standing navy and a permanent system of finance.
There is evidently a disposition in statesmen—some-
thing like that of the drunken sailor who held fast by
the iingbolts to prevent the ship running away from
under him,—to keep society, which is running away
with them, from going too last, by establishing what
they arc pleased to call " permanent systems.' But
one obvious effect of a standing army, to which we
must now confine our attention, is to separate the mili-
tary more completely from civil life, and constitute it
an exclusive profession. The tendency has been for
some time to separate tho Royal Navy, in like
manner, from the Mercantile Marine—to make the
former wholly independent of the latter; to consti-
tute it more and more an exclusive profession ; and
the proposition to extend the period of service is a
step in the same direction. We do not intend to
question the advantages of a peculiar professional
knowledge. Wo readily admit that the duties of sea-
men are different in the Royal and in the Mercantile
Navy, and that the discipline and rules of conduct in
the two services must be different. There is • '
necessity for having men-of-war prepared,—a staff of
officers ready—with a nucleus of men acquainted with
the management of guns and trained to arms, for no
knowledge of gunnery is acquired in the merchant
service. Still it seems very unadvisablc to reparate
the two services more and more by training a large
body of men exclusively for the Royal Navy, and re-
taining them permanently in tho service. In our
insular position lies a strong reason for not having a
standing navy, which does not apply to a stand-
ing army.
Oar maritime population is in proportion much
larger than the maritime population of any. state
In the world. Our mercantile main is estimated
at more than four-tenths of the total mercan-
tile marine of the world. That of the•Cnited States
is 3i-tenths of the total, but no inconsiderable pro-
Srtion of the men who navigate the ships of the
ates

. -
aro British born, and may, under ceitain cir-
cumstances. be relied on to contribute to the national
defence. We shall not be far wrong, therefare, if
we assert that half the seamen of the world are
British born and bled, and willing in the main to
perform all the duties required of British subjects.
That fact is the true foundation of our maritime
greatness. Other states can build and equip, and
hare built and equipped, men of war ; and can man
and send them to sea by forced conscriptions. Ent
they have not had so large a maritime population at
their command as England, and have been, in con-
sequence, inferior to England, and when opposed to
her have been beaten.

It is well known that to a recent period, if it bo
not now the case, French ships of war were in some
respects superior to our ships of war. They
were more svmmetrically shaped, sailed better, and
were altogether such superior vessels, that a great
many, and, indeed, the best of our ships—the famous
Victory herself—were modelled from these French
ships. The want of skill in the shipbuilders in the
royal dockyards, of which we have of late heard so
much, is nothing new. It has been noticed for up-
wards of a century. Nor were the skill and
of our naval officers superior to those of the Fc°ruenict
The true source of our naval superiority was the
great number of fine bold and skilful seamen, bred
up in the mercantile marine, who were always seized
on the breaking out of a war and sent on board the
royal ships, and who never forgot (however vilely
they were treated) couiagcously to perform their
duties to their country. Our freo maritime popula-
tion must continue to be the source of our naval
superiority. Its place cannot bo supplied by
any art. The French Government can train
fighting seamen as well as our Government can.
Probably from having a more despotic power it can
more readily command their services and train them
better. The possession of such a power creates
alarm here, and hence the proposition to place our
navy on a more permanent basis. Bat whether
we look at our administration of justice, the forma-
tion of our army, the management of our dockyards,
the collection of our revenue, or our system of
education and church government, wo find no
reason whatever to believe that our Government, as

Tux inhabitants of South America take our
manufactures at the rate of Ss. Bd. per head annually.
This average includes the n at ives,civ ilised and barbaric,
and the negroes in the slave countries. We do not
consider ourselves remarkably familiar with South
America, but there are some odd, long names in the
interior which slip over the tongue of British mer-
chants as easily as any in the next county, while the
Indian towns which are our own dependencies sound
wholly foreign to them ; and well may it be so; for
in India the purchasing power averages only Is. a
head. If India purchased from us only at the South
American rate, the amount of our total exports
would be doubled. We should have the same export
trade that would exist if half the population of the
British islands were to migrate, with their present
means, to a foreign country, and thence became our
customers. The Bengal ryot lives on coarse rice,
thinking vegetables and fish far too great a luxury
for him ; and his clothing is in proportion. He ties a
bit of cotton cloth about him and is dressed as well
as he expects ever to be. He lays a roof of broad leaves
on the top of some poles, and he is as well housed as
he imagines will ever be possible. For his bed he has
a coarse mat ; and this is all his furniture. He has a
plough and bullocks, without which ho would simply
lie down and die of hunger; whereas that one
bit of property would give him a comfortable
home, and make a good customer of him, if he
were not now practically as far separated from
Manchester and Sheffield as if he were living in the
moon. If by chance any travelling merchant should
open his wares somewhere near, either the specula-
tion is a bad one, from the people not having means
to purchase, or, if it succeeds, others follow, and there
is a glut; for the chance bit of road ends there—the
goods cannot travel further, and they must go for
what they will fetch ; and the losing merchant is not
likely to come that way again after his fit of disgust.
All over India there are isolated swarms of people
full of wants. They produce a few things from the
ground, and by hand. They have too much of these
articles, and can get no others ; so, in this condition of
want and glut, they sit down idle to talk over their
discontents, or they go to blows. A little work, much
idleness and much fighting, make up the history of
their days. If there is, anywhere near, the site of
some old seat of Indian government, the people go
and sit among the ruins—ruins of palaces, ruins of
tanks, ruins of barracks, very rarely of bridges, and
with scarce traces of something like a road made for
the convenience of government. If there are, any-
where near, public works of British origin, they are
barracks, or some other kiln of military under-
taking. But only a forty-second part of the net
revenue has been spent on even such works as these,
together with roads and bridges; and out of that
forty-second part 70 per cent. has often been spent
in mere superintendence. If there is a tank, it
is useful, of course; but if there is no road to or
from it, its use is small. If there are irriga-
tion works, they make the fields fertile; hit where is
the use of a double crop if there is no increase of
buyers? All this was said many years ago; and
first there was talk of railroads ; and then there was
the beginning of a railroad ; and there is talk of the
same railroad still : but, while it has been reaching
its present extent, the Americans have been making
ten miles of new road per day; and California has
risen up like a golden exhalation, and hardened into
the most wonderful golden structure that was ever
seen ; and the Australian gold fields have been laid
bare; and now, there is every chance that the
Isthmus of Darien will be opened before the ghlts.
This gold crop is a very serious matter to India
in more ways than ore; and it would be well that
our merchants should give a little thought to the
matter, in order to compel the Government to do so.
One view of the matter is, that the plenitude of gold
would remarkably stimulate commerce in India if
isommerce were rendered possible: but another view
is that every annual accession of gold will make pub-
lic works in India more expensive. If industry and
senceerce are not quickened in proportion to the in-
crease of gold, of course prices must rise. If the
Winn Whorities were to set about managing their
efildri wisely, using the plenitude of gold for improv-
e the means of transit all over India, and thus
Ilawring the new stimulus to spread and penetrate
erbinever there are inhabitants to work and enjoy,
they would at once retard the depreciation of their
moneyed property, and transform a great propor-
tion of it into a property which would
not deteriorate, but the contrary. But they
will not do this ; and if they will not,
and whether they will or no, British capitalists
should do it, for their own sakes, and for the sake of
the whole world. By setting to work now to make
railways and other means of transit the authorities
may do it more cheaply than hereafter, and be
receiving ever-increasing profits on such works ; and,
if they will not do it, private enterprise should.
If any body, public or private, will do it, that
change will take place to the most advantage which
must take place, sooner or later, if we aro to retain
India. If not done now it will be infinitely more
expensive and difficult hereafter. If not done at all,
the consequences will one day be most startling.
India has always been a wonderful example of
debt. In old times her own princes were always in
debt; and, when pressed very hard, they went forth
to pillage somebody. The age is too late for that
remedy. Our Government in India gets deeper and
deeper into debt every year. The age is too late for
that to be borne, considering that the means of re-
trieving its affairs is now opened, in a most singular
manner, to all the world. If the Indian Govern-
ment will not retrieve its affairs, British capitalists
must retrieve the country that that Govern-
ment professes to rule and guard; and those
British capitalists will, fairly enough, pocket
the profits. They will make railroads, and
bring some part of the interior into connexion
with some favourable spot on the coast. The
inhabitants will first sell anything they can grow or
make, azd then buy; and, for this, money will be
elated. As the commerce increases, and the process
et communication extends, more coinage will be
wanted; and when we consider that even now an
increase of purchasing power to equal that of the
mixed population of half-barbarous South America
would make our exports to India amount to sixty
millions (60,000,0001.), it will be evident how the fall
in the value) of gold would be mitigated by the re-
quirements of such a commerce as this.
' This is the lowest possible estimate of what would
foil .w upon an opening of means of communication
in India. Nothing has been said of the saving of
waste, damage, and delay. Nothing has been said

contradistinguished from the people, does anything,
or can do anything, superior to the French Govern-
ment. English national superiority, in all respects,
resides in the English peopt', not in the English
officials. What our Government does, or can do
—except as the nation is more maritime or more
wealthy than the French—the French Government
can do equally well. If we rely, therefore, on a
standing navy—the offspring of the Government—
exclusively for the national security, we may tremble
for our future safety, for the French Government
may be able to prepare, at some additional expense,
a standing Government Navy equal to any mere
Government force of our own.
Those who propose to place our Navy on a perma-
nent basis, similar to that of the army, must be re-
minded that it is only in actual and active service an
efficient army can be formed. In India, at the Cape
of Good Hope, and other places, some of our troops
arc almost continually engaged in warfare—as some
of our ships are engaged—and there both officers and
men are formed into efficiency. Mere drilling and
mere parade service will not accomplish it. The
I)ukc of WELLINGTON had first to make his army.
The efficiency of the French army is more kept up
by the possesaon of Algeria and by the conflicts
continua ly carrying on there than by. skir-
mishes with the Parisians or reviews in the
Champ de Mars. Although we have yet amongst us
Peninsular veterans, and men trained in active ser-

vice in India and Our colonies,, were we called on
to wage a European war tommirrow, our standing
army would require manyi
modifications, and would
commit many faults and blunders. All this s quite
5 spplicablc to a Navy as to an Army. Artificial
training is not equivalent to actual service. There
is a want of heart in it. It is an unreal thing. It
is never done with uniform spirit and energy. What
kind of preparation for active warfare is to be found
on board • three or two-decker lying quietly in
or Lisbon, the men practised now and then
in airing Binh or ',inning in and out the guns,
and being actually four or five times as
numerous as are required to perform all

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 19, 1853.

of the margin left for increase of population and
improvement in the variety and modes of agricultural
and mechanical production. Nothing has been said
of the material improvements which arise out of the
abolition of idleness, of warfare, and of political dis.
content, and from the introduction of civilisation-
These are further results which would put the finish
to the work of interesting the English people in the
condition of India. At present, about 1,500 Euro-
peans, besides clerks, are employed in the civil
government of India. Each of these has been made
on purpose—trained for that scene of life in which
he must stay, whether he succeeds or fails—whether
he spreads good or evil around him. The friends of
each of these arc nearly all, in this island, who care
at all about India. Each of these officers is the cen-
tre, on an average, of 100,000 natives, to whom he
may do some good or an infinite deal of harm.
If the country were completely laid open, there
would scarcely be an individual of our mer-
cantile and manufacturing classes who would not
have an immediate interest in the natives of India,
and the officials who were not equal to their business
might turn to some other, and free the Government
from their damaging presence. The natives would
speak, and we should hear. They would say a hat
they want, and we should supply it. They would
grow comfortable, and we should grow rich. They
would grow strong; and there would be no objection
to that, if we had taken care that they should become
enlightened in proportion. And if the time should
arrive when they should choose to govern themselves,
they and we should have become too necessary to
each other to quarrel about it ; and our children will
remember, reverting to the history of former depen-
dencies, how much better this is than the only alter-
native in such a case—severance by a desolating
explosion. If we neglect those fellow-subjects of
ours now, all the passions of all their idols will some
day or other blow up our eastern empire about our
ears. We may obviate thi; shock, and inaugurate
all manner of welfare, there and at home, by the very
simple process of making roads as the first great step
towards Indian improvement.