The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1819-05-11 00:00:00

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the large military force winch the Government
►eemed, if possible, deter mi i sed to maintain, in a
tone of geoeral pece. There were, rfolll the It--
1".0. 29.000 turn for Great Wallin; 211,05 m for
; a.,41 AVM fur the Colonies. The Nolle
I.••rd onnuatte (Lisid Castlereagh) Itad as yet made
ant no case whatever to justify the maintersauce of
such is force. lie had out *hewn that the
Was able to support sn, li a burden, or now tar it
to be upheld, coisaistriitly with the public
hherty. The. Report did out state 1101. or here
tit. large force war to be applied. It merely
iiiiiiii,stril that a reduction of fifty thousand mess
hail takes, place since the year 1817. He cosp-
t.•nJrd for the necessity of strewing some adequate
iiisidication fur the enormous expense which so
large a shooting army must entail upon the coun-
try. It was not enough to say that the present
grain was smaller thou a preceding one, it must be
also blirwii that it was just, and absolutely sprees-
Nary. In looking at the Report of the Committee
of Funnier, the estimate of the income and ex-
pesidoilre, for the year 1819, would be fully seen.
It appeared that the expenditure fur this year
would am tto 68,000,000/. and the income only
to 54.000 090/. leaving is deficit of 14.000,000/.
Agatirst this deficit was to be set off 16,000,e00/.
the amount of the Sinking Fund, which would
leave a balance of about 1,900,000/. available only.
F.veis in this calculation, the Committee of Founice
ailinst that they cannot reckon with precision upon
Ilse produce of a certain portion of the taxes
upon exciseible irtitles, ouless the illicit trader
shall be Mole eff.a.ctually put down ; neither wits
there Noy ground to expect ally immediate improve-
ment in the sate a the finances of the country.—
He repeated that he was at a loss to see the necessity
iif such a standing army. England was in peace
with her foreign relations—domestic tranquillity
may be said to reign. Besides, in the discussion
that had taken place upon this subject, no allusion
had hero made to the degree of protection the
country had from the naval force which was kept
up. It had been said that Ireland required ■ large
army for internal purposes iii aid of the Civil Power.
Why not rather reform the state of the Civil Power
111 that country, evil put it ou a footing more resem-
bling the same PrhEr in Fogland Why not diffuse
inure generally the blessings of a good Government,
and give the people an interest in the maintenance
of the Laws ? The Ilo•s. Baronet then reviewed the
expenses of the vanou• offices in the Irish Govern-
ment. The Chief Secretary, for instance, had an
establishment kept up for him in the Castle of
Du hliii, and another in the Phoenix Park. Why was
such en office placed oil a more extensive scale
in Ireland than in England ? There was also the
office i.f Secretary at War in Ireland, the office of i
Army Accounts, the Staff, and other departments,
which he thought ought to be considerably eCOIIO-
- Staff in Ireland cost the country
19,000/. moil in Scotland it cost only 1,900/. Sure-
ly such an expeliditure ought to be inquired into,
with m view to a suitable reduction to meet the
exigencies of the country. lie said, that if the
system of government its Ireland was changed,
if obnoxious lows were repealed. in short, if
pains were taken to gain the confidence mot the
off chops or the priple, there would be no or-
cessity lin a 'biotin% army in that country, and
a great saving in dila branch of the public expen-
diture might bromide. FF.. next adverted to the dif•
fereist public military offices, many of which he
Cllliritleretl as unnecessary, and each of which had
a number of hoards, clerks, and officers—the
expenses of these offices, lie said, amounted to
one hundred and fifty thousand pounds per year.
There was the War Office, the Army Account
Office, cod another. These simple and obvious
moiler of reductom had, however, e►caped the ob-
sersabou of Ministers. It was In be lamented that
any fair subject of retrenclimeut should escape
them at a time like the present; lie trusted, how-
ever, that every Member of the House would make
every effort to diminish the public expenditure.—
It was with 'hat feeling, he said, that he trespassed
Upon their attention. Fle should now only express
a hope, that the Gentlemen who saw the thing in
the same light that he did, will firmly persevere io
a constitutional opposition to the increase of the
public burdens, and to the support of a standing
army..

eolonel DAVIES said, that even if he were to
agree in all he had heard on this subject from IWO-
Hostels—that even if he were to take fur granted
the case made out fur Ministers, in order to justify
the ',resent extent of the military establishment—
grinding all this, he yet would prove, that without
diminishing that force, there could be effected a
saving in the army for England and the Colonies
of 1.20,000 f. a-year. To prove this it would, he
said, he necessary to go somewhat into a dry de.
Lill. In the course of last autumn it was pretty
currently reported among the military circles, that
it was in the contemplation of Government to
reduce three regiments of cavalry ; but now from
the statement of the Noble Lard, he had to cou-
clmle such was not—at least that such is
nut the intention of Ministers. He would now
only Pay that that Report gave great satisfac-
tion to the public. lie would now proceed to *hew
who saving might be effected in the cavalry depart.
:nem of the army, without impairing its strength.
(lure the Hon. Gentleman went into a minute cal.
culation, to 'hew that if three regiments of cavalry
were reduced un the one hand, and on the other,
if the different cavalry cutir., eunsisting now of 380
men, were increased to ClO—which he contender,
nigh. 1•01 ttttt landed by precisely the same num.
ber cifleers, commissioned and -coinist'ssou-
“ os a corp. of only 38J—thstt, with the reduction
of Allowance, men, horses, forage, itc. there would
111 the cavalry deparinient be effected a saviti4 of
J9,9t10/. a-yeari The saving on the infantry, he
said, would proceed on the same principle.—
The present state of the infantry is seven bat-
talions of foot guards, 99 battalions of infan-
try. Of the-e he would confine himself to the
number in Great Britain and her Colonies, be-
ing 84 battalions, amounting to 54.600 rank Rood
rile. Now if fifteen of these battalions were re-
sixty-einie would remain; and if these sixty.
mot batialionis had each 800 men, instead of 4360
men, which wis the present force, they would
;mount to more than 54.600 men ; and he would
appeal to 0•11N•ty military man in the (louse whether
Ole 4.1:11e number of officers and non-commissioned
Olive's which now command the battalions of 650
sawn eadt, would not b. fully sufficient to regulate