The Express.
London, England, 1848-11-20 00:00:00

ne epnee
Loodiana to the Indus, there is at lea nter
which engages the complicity or the good wishes I
every surviving member of that fierce and militeq
nation of fanatics who became formidable under thi
crafty rule of R NJ Err SINGH —atd that enterpei4
is the ejection of the British to the eastern bank of tte
Butlej.
In this formidable attempt it is quite certain thg
the @Wars of the Sikh soldiery will, in the end, be
fasted. But it would be an inference totally at vee;
ante with every ascertained fact of the evidence to fir,
tertain an expectation that the supremacy of our sete,
will be a second time established upon this most,
nerable point of out frontier, without the colt 124
anxiety and bloodshed of an extensive, and perhaps
tedious, campaign. We shell fall into a serious tine
if we suppose that we have to cope with &die*
ganised rabble,possessing tio advantage of discipliteszd
destitute of every resource which gives strength ski
effect to the valour of an army. It is very true tht
we dragged an array of some two or three Yuba*
I pieces of cannon over the two thousar,d miles which
intervene between Sobreon and Fort William, but we
must cot suppose that even by the capture of sod
• prize, the Sikhs have been denuded of artillery. The
• hated episode of the present crisis at Govitieher,
where we dug up fifty or sixty guns of heavy ethics
and in a perfectly effective condition, may suegeett,
, native force with the mcst terrible implement cif
• us some suspicion of the sources which will furnish g
• modern warfare.

If the war becomes general there is also snot*
difficulty which will have to be considered. We hue
not this time in India a military governor-pane
The army nominally commanded by Lord GotcE
has not the advantage of the superior councils at az
officer trained in the presence of NkPOLEON'S mee,
shahs, and instructed by all the campaig. a of the pel.

We are fully sensible of the many and seism
faults fairly chargeable upon Sir C. NAPIER. Ilia tq
lent temper is as notorious se his great abilities sa
general officer. His imperiousness is not always
nified ; his interferenoes are petty ; and his addle%
to personalities ludicrous and lamentable. lie I*
moreover, indulged himself in a furious quarrel with
the East India directors. All these things, but en.
daily the last, stand in the way of his renewed sr„.
ployment in the East. And yet this irascible sod b.
putatious man is the very person whom, above
others, the people of India would entrust with the
deliverance of the Company's posaessiuns from the
new peril.

MR. A. C. STEWART, in his speech before the
Financial Reform Association of Liverpool, drew up
with the most terrible truth of words and figures the
hard case of the Erglish tax-paver against the peeled
system t,nd expenditure of the E .glish military font
Fourteen shillings and tl.reepence a head do Enelik.
men pay to keep that portion of the population clad k
uniform. And when the father of a family OT the
owner of an establishment calculates how many of
these sums of 14s. 3d. he pays in behalf of people
dependent upon him in his family, his employ, and it
his parish poor-house, with the children and the agei
of the classes that do not pay, the sacrifice is per•
fectly awfal, and imperatively demands to be inquire!
into, abated, and distributed with some regard to

efficiency and economy.
We need not repeat the items or the arguments of
Mr. STEWART'S speech. They ere se pointed, omit
and conclusive, as the most adroit Journalist meld
render them. There is, perhaps, but one thing mit
to which we would demur, and this is, t`at he is to

hard upon the class of officers, and the military pro.
fession in general. For our part we do not know of
any who have so much rea'on to complain of the cu.
pidity, ingratitude, undircernment, and prodigality (11
our military system, as the great majority of offiten
themselves.
According to the Times, indeed, the doughty clan.
pion of this system, the ceficers are the greatest%
martyrs. They purchase their commissions, get is
pay an annual sum little above the annual rile of is-
Wrest on what they have paid, and forfeit all elaimci
recovery or remuneration for their investment on say
casualty affecting their lives.
The self-same story is to be told of the (lurch To
enter this profession, a young man isobliged %expend,
not merely the sum requisite for procuring a snit.
able education, but all infinitely larger sum, suchus
university, holding the monopoly of degree and prefer,
mint, and aiming at confining both to the wealthy
and aristocratic class, thinks fit to charge. For the
one thousand or fifteen hundred pounds expended%
his academic education the poor curate gets fifty
seventy pounds a year.
Why then do young men devote themselves to
either church or army? In general, for ti .a Baked
the prizes, the high commando, and lucrative poste%
be enjoyed when at the summit of the protean*
These summits, however, are only to be attain' edby
members of the aristocratic :lass, of wealth
and connexion. Church and army orm their lotteries—
lotteries in which they alone can gain, the humbler few
who creep into the two professions for the sake of
vegetating in the lower berths, being really n%
competitors for military or clerical prizes.
Now it would be something fair if these nation
lotteries of army and of church, established for the
illustration and endowment of the younger NMI of ails.
' tocratic families were to pay themselves. They would
still continue to be gross and preposterous above
as national institutions. But as lotteries in which
the aristocracy paid the tickets, as well as drew the
prizes, there would be some consistency in them.
But this is not the case. The aristocracy, indeed,
draw all the prizes of mitre and epaulette, but the •
same which they pay for them, instead of being far
nished by the candidates, are levied on the humble,
democratic tax-payers of England.
If a foreigner, or one of our posterity, were to *
gage in the study of our institutions, he would find
that of our army most perplexing. Looking into
the Times, he would be told that our officers
purchased their commissions, and received little
more than the interest of their money.
But, on turning to the military estimates, ho wet&
find four, five, or seven millions sterling of those eni•
mates, taken out of the produce of taxation, to pq
these same six thousand officers. What is it to the
tax-paying Englishman to be told that officerspay foe
their commissions? He knows not where the money
goes, but knows that it does not prevent his being car
pelted to pay every captain his half-guinea and every
colonel his guinea a day. What a system is this, that
robs the officer and the public at the
same time, requires double payment for the
same services, and makes military and non.military
hate each other wrongfully, when the true enemy of
both is the thimble-rig lottery system, which entraps
the wealthy youth to put down his stake in the hope of
winning a prize, that is secretly and inevitably dee
tined to the more knowing and assured gamester of
connexion and birth.
The Times is shocked to find such a system so
tacked. That high priest of the aristocracy, stupified
at Mr. STEWART'S temerity, kneels to bless the OM
that in these revolutionary days all the
officers of her MAJESTY'S army are gentlemen.
By gentlemen the Times does not mean merely mss
of education and honour, but persons able to par.
chase their commissions, and to have interest to be
allowed to purchase. 'fhe officers of the British army
will, we treat, be ever gentlemen in the true sense et
the term, although we would select them neither by
their power to purchase, nor by their titles of nobility.
The military profession is a calling, for which ceo
taro men have decided talents and props
nelli*
Those we would select, and demand of
them the fit character, quality, and instruct:*
We would, however, not have too many of the%
nothing like the number of them that would rell'ire
a tax of 14i3d. per head to nourish in the idleness
even of an honourable profession. We would hairdo
officers, merely on the grounds that they were fora
or that they were gentlemen—for we have howl
many of both that would have made most execrable
'millers. Above all, we would not do our filtas
and constitution the injustice, or, we might say, the
impertinence, to suppose that steady and chivalrous
attachment to both was only to be found in tie
classes, that frequent the court and are taxed for
armorial bearings.