The Express.
London, England, 1868-11-21 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENWO, NOVEMBER

movement. But neither the abolition of the lash,
nor the twopence a day, or the volunteer move-
meat, would suffice to draw into the army • supe-
rior class of recruits. Sir CHARLES TREVELYAI
has lent the weight of his authority as an anxious
and attentive student of the problems of military
economy, and of his own long administiatire ex-
perience, to another, and, as it seems to us, a more
conclusive mode of strengthening and refining the
military service, and raising it gradually to the
highest level of a model army, small in numbers
but highly instnteted,perfeetlyequipped, &polished
weapon of the finest temper. As Sir HENZE BUL-
MIR said at Tamworth the other day, " Do not
" let us have an army of one hundred thousand
" men and pay the same for it that other nations
" pay for an army of four hundred thousand
" tuen." What England wants is a small, oom-
pact army composed of mon who, after a
short term of garnet), will return to civil life, not
with military vices but with military virtues; and
with the prospect of obtaining civil employment
in posts where the military virtues of order,
method, discipline, trustworthiness, and activity
are sure to be rewarded. Sir CHARLES publishes a
letter he has received from Sir WILLIAM MANS-
FIELD, in which the Commander-in-Chief of the
Indian Army warmly supports the prinoiplo of
recruiting the subordinate branches of the civil ad-
ministration from the military services, and men-
tions award eases of the application of this prin-
ciple in India, where soldiers of the artilleryand of
line regiments in the Bengal Presidency have b.sm
selected for admission as students in the second
department of the Thomason College, anti have
passed in one or other of the examinations in the
native language. Sir W. MANSFIELD appeals to
several instances within his own command to show
" bow the improved education among the lower
" classes of late years inOrest Britain has come to
" tell on the ranks of the army." In Prussia,
nc-n-commissioned officers are rewarded, after a
limited period of Denim, by civil appointments ;
and in France, a certain number of elerkihips in
the public offices has lately been reserved for dn.-
&arced soldiers of good character. Since the
Crimean war, something similar, in principle at
least, has been established in England, in the
creation of the corps of commissionaires, and in
the employment of those useful and deserving men
as public messengers and as office porters.
There is nothing in all this that savours of what
our neighbours call militairiene, or the pre-
dominance of the military element in the State.
Nor is there the slightest fear of any such evil on
our side of the Channel. What we want hero is an
army whose superiority is not in the numbers on its
nuu,ter roll but in its intelligence and instruc-
tion, and soldiers whose character and conduct
under anus will qualify them for posts of honour
and confidence in civil life when their short term
of service is expired.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)

The Times and Daily News both remark upon
the fact that yesterday was a day of liberal triumphs,
marked by only one signal defeat, and that waa the rejec-
tion of Lord liartingten by the constituency of North
Lancashire. The Tones thinks the censers-Aires will
naturally rejoice over this victory. Were it for no
other reason it must be doubly gratifying to them,
coming as it dom., amid a succession of defeats. The
contest has, however, been invested throughout with
an adventitious importance. The Daily News, on the
other band, regards the defeat as a blow of which it
would be vain to underrate the importance. The place
which Lord Hartington holds in the counsels of
the liberal party is due, not merely to the fact that ho
represents the hereditary influence of the great whig
family of the Caveudishes, but that he represents also
their ability and devotion to liberal principles. The battl 3
was, however, fought against enormous odds. The per-
sonal popularity of Colonel Wilson Patten, backed by
the influence of Lord Derby on behalf of his younger
ron, Lave carried the day. The TeleyrapA says that the
contest has been a struggle between two of the "great
old houses ;" and hence the parliamentary .importance
of the tight is by no means so striking as its social
interest.

The Herald regrets to Fsy that the last accounts of the
Tri.h elections are not of so favourable a nature 10 might
have reasonably beta anticipated from those previously
received. The Standard is constrained to make the same
admission.

Referring to the close of the " little war" on the north.
we'd frontier of India. the Pont points with satis-
faction to the policy of Sir John Lawrence'. ad-
minkration, which, it says, has been most Important and
t•ignificant as contributing to the welfare and prosperity
of that portion of her Majesty's dominions.