The Sun.
London, England, 1855-02-20 00:00:00

Pe eirieee.,(o-the combust and perseverance of the hon.
merener for Montrose:- Now, ho should like the hon. and
gallant member to look over the votes of past years and
point out to him any ono where the hon. member for Mon-
trose had peopOsed a reduction of men. He had been in
the house fora good number of years, and he had never
seen a Government copse forward and ask for a certain
number of men without receiving a grant of that number.
So far, therefore, the charge was unjust ; but it, was unjust
on other grounds also. He had served for three years con-
secutively on committees on estimates for the army, the
navy, the ordnance, along with tho hon. member for
Montrose, and he had never found that hon. member pro-
pose any vote which tended to reduce the efficiency of
the service.' He always insisted, however, on the right
of the house to see how the money was spent. (Hear,
hear.) It was a very difficult thing, and a vary disagree.
able thing indeed, to be always objecting to payments
offered be officers and men of distinction. The fa-
vourite estimates of the hon. member for Montrose were
the Conservative estimates of the year 1834-5 ; and when-
ever he wanted to taunt a Government with their esti-
matcs,ehe referred back to those model estimates of the
Conservative party. (Hear, hear.) The present was a
time when no one wished to reduce estimates. We wanted
especially at this time to maintain an effective cavalry
force. Our present cavalry amounted to no more than 9,000.
"What a miserable force with which to go to war with Rus-
sia. (Hear, hear.) And then of those 9,000, three regi-
ments were household troops, who were little more than
beef-eaters. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) It seemed to him
that it might be right for the sake of the splendour of the
court to keep up one magnificent regiment, in which the
horses were so great and the men so heavy as to be quite
unserviceable iu the position in which they were wanted
—(hear, and laughter)--but it was surely unnecessary to
keep up three regiments on that scale.
Mr. H. J. BAILLIE had understood that the proposed
land ttansport service was to consist of 8,000 men. The
number of horses attached to such a corps could not be less
than 12,000. It would be necessary to calculate some such
number, for the food of those animals would have to be
sent from this country. They had the authority of no less
a person than the Earl of Cardigan that the horses corn-
posing our cavalry force in the Crimea had been literally
starved to death. It was generally understood that the
cavalry in the Crimea was to be increased by at least 1,200
men, now on their way from India, and by at least a simi-
lar number to be sent from this country. There had never
been any explauation why the horses in the Crimea had
been starved to death. Barley, it was known, could be
procured in any quantity at a distance of only two days'
sail. The head of the commissariat department, however,
still retained his place, and therefore it could not be sup-
posed that the Government had any serious cause of com-
plaint against him. It had been stated that recruits were
now to be engaged between the ages of twenty-two and
twenty-six, and for periods of one, two, or three years.
He had never before heard of engaging troops for one year.
That would scarcely give time for the recruits to be
drilled and brought into a condition to be of service.
He therefore supposed no man would be engaged for less
than three years, and he wished to know whether men en-
gaged for that period were to be allowed the same bounty-
money.as those engaged for the ordinary term of years?
He also wished to know whether any steps had been taken
to enlist the foreign corps ?
Sir E. PERRY should like to know what was the real
expense of the British army. The army expenses were so
much scattered over different estimates that. no man out of
the Government could come even to an approximation of
the aggregate expenditure. The country had lately heard
with delight that no fewer than sixty sergeants of the line
had been endowed with commissions for gallant conduct in
the field. He wished to know whether, at the time those
commissions were presented, there was given to those ser-
geants any allowance to enable them to take up their posi-
tions as gentlemen? Such allowances were absolutely ne-
cessary, and documents in the library of the house showed
that they were made in France. There had been brought
forward in the house that night a question which deeply
occupied the public attention—the question of aristocratic
influence in the English army. This question mast be
dealt with by some statesman who was able to read the
signs of the times. It was no vulgar demagogue who an-
nounced to the people of England that the cold shade of
aristocracy was withering their army. On the contrary, it
was a man of the highest rank both in the army and among
the proudest aristocratic families of which we could boast.
When he (Sir E. Perry) contrasted the moral condition of
the soldiers in the Crimea with the moral condition of the
soldiers who fought our battles in the revolutionary war,
the last of whom were said to be the outpourings of the
streets of London, he felt that the tithe was come when
that great question must be dealt with, and the same
plain career afforded in the army as was to be found in
other ranks in this country. It was from no insolent sen-
timent of ill will to the aristocracy that his hon. friend
had brought forward this question. For himself, his own
sympathies and interests were all bound up with the insti-
tutions of the country ; but the statesmen who guided
their counsels must. now adapt the institutions of the
country, to what they saw around them on every side, and
it was because the noble lord at the head of the Govern-
ment was capable of effecting such an adaptation that he
(Sir E. Perry) was willing to give a strenuous support to
the noble lord's Government ; but he wished particularly
to express the dissatisfaction with which he had heard the
taunts and ill-deserved sneers which had been levelled at
his honourable friend who pointed out where the blot lay.
This question was so much connected with the committee
to be moved for on Thursday next, that he must make a
few observations with reference to it. He had come clown
.to the Meuse the other day with au earnest desire to be
able to retract the vote he had given on a former occasion.
He had expected that the noble lord at the head of the
Government would have put forward such a vigorous pro-
gramme of the conduct of the war that he should have
been able to reconcile to his conscience and his constitu-
ents the change in his conduct ; but on hearing the plans
which had been adopted, he only felt, in common, he be-
lieved, with the greater portion of the house, a blank fee' ing
of chill and dissatisfaction. (Cheers.) The hon. member
fur Aylesbury had pointed out the extraordinary fetters
placed upon the executive in the field, and the noble lord
had given no answer to any one of those objections. If
the Government wee not satisfied with their Commander-
iu-Chief their course was obvious, the whole country
being with them ; but their new mode of shackling a gene-
ral in the field with commissioners tied round his neck,
and with power almost to diselace him, would paralyse
the efforteeof any man, however gifted ho might be in the
conduct of war. His lieu. friend had been taunted with
citing the commissioners de l a surctj publique as an ex-
ample to be followed ; but, on the contrary, the honour-
able member had pointed to tint as the only instance on
record in which such an extraordinary procedure was re-
sorted to ; and, in fact,• to make that commission succeed,
the commissioners were armed with an arbitrary guil-
Mine. (Laughter.) As an independent member of the
house, and as a supporter of the Gove: nment —(a
laugh)—he had ventured to make these observations.
He obterved that his calling himself a supporter
of the Government called up some smiles on the
opposite side of the house. Ho could assure the honour-
able gentlemen who sat opposite that he had uo desire at
all to see them sitting in the places of the present Govern-
-Ment; isor shonldhe•ever -wish to live under such a rule as
theirs. (Laughter and cheers.) Their Chancellor of the
Exchequer, wpulde under Lord Derby, probably have been
the right honourable gentleman tho leader of the Opposi-
' tiod ; and: tlieer War Minister would have been a noble-
men nnderevhose rule he (Sir E. Perry) had lived during
a most eventful period ' • and if any ono wanted to see what
sort of a War Minister that noble lord would have made,
let them turn td the last chapter of " Thornton's History
of India!' He (Sir E. Perry) believed that the noble lord
at the head of the. Government would do anything his ge-
, nine suggested for the conduct of the war • and, as an in-
"dependent member, and a supporter of the Government,
'he had thus ventured to express an opinion as to what he
should like to see done. He, as well as those who shared
his. opinions, looked to the noblel lord to mould the policy
of the Government with vigour according to the spirit of
the nation and the exigencies of the crisis.
• Mr. PERCY must complain of the deductions made in
the soldier's pay for the expense of his clothing and other
comforts, in time *of war, and thought that if this system
went on between the noble lord and the Secretary for War
the firm would soon be known by the appellation of Moses
and Son. (Laughter.) At Scutari he had been told, by
the medical men connected with the hospital there, that
there prevailed a deplorable want of proper clothing for
sick and wounded, and men were sent thence as convales-
cents who, on arriving at their destination, wore found to
be so ill that they were obliged to be sent back again. He
urged on the Government to provide proper clothing in
the different hospitals for convalescents going out to the
Crimea, and also for those returning to England, because
he heard that a convalescent returing to England had
only the clothing which the sailors and marines wore. He
must also allude to the stoppages made from the soldier's
pay for hospital • allowances. He knew an instance in
which several hundred sick and wounded were landed
from the Acorn at Scutari, who arrived at the hos-
pital in such a state as to be incapable of taking care of
themselves, having lost their kits. The authorities refused
to supply them with 'knives and forks, because, by the re-
gulations, a soldier was obliged to find these articles, but
fortunately there were other parties who supplied them.
He thought great blame must be attributable to some of
the subordinate officers, as he was ready to express his
belief that no one could be more zealous or active in the
cause of the soldier than the late Secretary at War (Mr. S.
Herbert). He wished to ask :shy it was that there were
so many ships at Beycos Bey lying idle and doing nothing ?
Why could they not drop down to Scutari, where they
might 'anchor in perfect security, and their crews might
be employed in landing the sick and wounded, and assist-
ing to carry them to the hospital, instead of leaving them
to the tender mercies of the Turks? (Hear, hear.) If the
house had seen, as he himself had, 450 sick landed in one
day, they would acknowledge that there was much cause
for this question. (Hear, hear.) He believed that on that
n
occasion a request was actually made that, a ship should
drop a .to -
:Scutari, but was refused ; some days elapsed
before the" Poor wretches were landed, and during that
tHitne°w-touberawieredying on the deck in their miserable rags..
alik's6all the attention of the right hon. gentle-
man to the state of where they weeerm the staff surgeons in the hospitals,
to be dischaigeo bytiv!,pon to perform duties that ought
roll. One staff °soar thane, such as drawing up the diet
, attend to 69 Ogle ruen,:nrn to him that his doctor had to
regulation with respect to'lreineedlacerswhereas the French
should be one doctor to every't men was that there
maimezunded, and one to
otordinaires.
every 50 men labouring toader
Mr. LAYARD begged to be Showed
callt attention to
etnotst.heHe one point of great consequence--that of the
were
be-
lieved a large number of the tents famished
for use during the present campaign tr
old tent‘oops
Lad been used in the Peninsular war, and that
it had been
11
truly remarked of them that one might as well sit uncles'
r a
sieve. In fact, a great part of the misery endured by our
Anon was owing to the insufficient protection they had against
the weather. For this purpose the arrangements a loptea
in the French service were admirable, the troops being
provided with small tents, which the men could carry
about with them. He had received a letter from Colonel
Elters Napier, who. t ,ok a great interest in these matter`,
which acquainted him that a tent hat been transmitted to
- hint, divi led into six parts or more, of se light a nature
as to be carried by a man on foot, which was capable of
holding six persons, and was the invention of a ptivato
soldier—as he had been informed by Getiorel Bas ;list sees
also the case with the tent ustal by the French. If Wo
entered upoh a summer campaign, we might expect greet
suffering again to be experienced by our army; and ho
must again urge the adoption of a better mode of covering
the troops, especially that a better description of hospital
• marquees should be chosen. It was remarkable that,
during the gale of the 14th November, when every one of
• our tets wasblown down, not a single Turkish tent had
been. Another point he wished to allude to was the en-
listment of the new proposed corps of cavalry. • Govern-
- • went always appeared to do the right thing at, the wrong
time, and in the wrong place. (A. laugh.) They were
nee?nY about to send
English officers to raise t
• ...easel brkt cavalry
they might as well send them to Iceland, or
a other rter. If they wanted an excellent and effi-
cieut Goer irregular
. . cavalry, they ought to send to Asia