The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-17 00:00:00

cry on the part of the Ministers to retain power. The
remedy, however, lay with the electors who in return-
ing Conservative members to represent them in the House
of Commons, returned the truest friends in the country.
At the conclusion of his address the hon. gentleman was
greeted with loud and continued cheers.

The Hon. Ralph Dutton, M.P., the Hon. T. Bruce, and
others afterward addressed the meeting, which broke up at
a late hour.

Earl de Grey and Ripon on our Military
Expenditure,

The annual dinner given by the Mayor of Ripon to the
Corporation, the principal inhabitants, and other invited
guests, took place on Friday night in the Town Hall. The
Mayor, Mr B. P, Ascough, presided, and was supported by
the Earl de Grey and Ripon, Mr J. Greenwood, M.P., the
Very Rev. the Dean of Ripon, &c.
Earl DE GREY and RIPON, in rising to respond to the
toast of "Her Majesty," was enthusiastically received. He
said that, as one of her Majesty's Ministers, he should not
wish for a better eulogy than that which had been passed
upon the conduct and policy of the Government in the
speech of their friend Mr Wood, who had been good enough
to propose that toast. He valued that eulogy the more be.
cause he knew that it had been spoken with perfect sin-
cerity, and without the slightest attempt at concealment of
those political d fferences which separated him (Mr Wood)
and the members of her Majesty's Government. But he
should be very wrong if he interpreted that expression of
feeling in any party sense, or made any attempt to wrest it
on an occasion like that for any party purpose. Having to
return thanks for that toast, edged round with such restric-
tions as that which struck off from it all party considera-
tion, he found himself standing in that room in a somewhat
difficult position, because it was not many days ago since in
that same room he had returned thanks for the same toast.
Now her Majesty's Ministers could not sing one song in the
beginning of October and another song in the middle ; there-
fore he found himself in this position,that in the same room,
and addressing, to some extent, the same audience, he was in
danger of making the same speech. Perhaps,therefore, leav-
ing those generalities of politics on which he then touched,
they would think he was not going beyond the just limits
of the occasion and of the toast if he said something in re-
gard to the course which had been taken by her Majesty's
Ministers, and the spirit in which he, as their representative,
had acted in the department over which he had been called
upon to preside. (Hear, hear.) That department had during
the last few years undergone very great improvements. He
might speak freely of them, because they had been the work
not of himself, who had been only a short time in the post
of Secretary of State for War, but of those listinguished and
eminent men who had preceded him in that office. (Hear,
hear.) He thought it was not a bad thing that from time
to time in every part of the country they should take stock,
as it were, of the action of our various departments, see
what they had been doing, and what progress they had
made. There was one description of progress which had
been made by the War Department, which nobody disputed
and nobody liked, and that was progress in the shape of
increased estimates. We had to pay at the present moment
for our militai y service much more than we paid a few years
ago. In the year 1853 the total cost of the army estimates was
a little over £10,000,000. The army estimates which it was
his duty to present to Parliament this year were £14,803,000 ;
the army estimates which were presented to Parliament in

1861-2 were a little over £16,000,000. £16,000,000 or nearly
£15,000,000, as it was now, was an enormous sum ; and when
they saw that in the short space of nine years the army
estimates had grown from £10,0J0,000 first to £16,000,000
and then nearly £15,000,000 in a time of peace—all the

three mentioned being years of peace—they had a right to
ask what had happened in the interval, what was the cause
of this very considerable and important increase. Now what
had happened in the interval ? Why, a great deal. Since
1853 they had had, in the first instance, a great war—the

Crimean war. What did that war show them ? Why, it
showed the imperfect and inadequate condition in which
their military establishments were previous to that war,
A. good deal of criticism was poured out at the time on those
who had the conduct of the war. He would not enter on
that ancient story, for the world passed so quickly that the
Crimean war was almost now an ancient story, but this he
would say, in justice to those in authority—and he believed
the more truly that story was written the better would be
the justice which posterity would do them—that when he
had to do with the fitting-out of a far inferior expedition,
when there was no war but only possibility of war, the fit-
ting out of the expedition that took place to British North
America at the time of the Trent affair, he was bound
to say that he stood aghast at what must have been the
duties of those who had to send out the Crimean expedition
with the means that were at their disposal. It was the duty
of the Government then, it was the duty of the Govern.
ment now, and would be the duty of every successive Go-
vernment to see we do not tall back into that condition, to
see that if we had an army—and we must have an army—
it was maintained in an efficient state—it was ready to do
the work which it professed to do—work which, as far as its

spirit, its courage, and its valour went, the British army
had ever been willing to perform. (Applause.) Well, then,
ono result of that was an increased expenditure. Before
1853 wo had no military train, no commissariat corps, no
army hospital corps. Our hospital arrangements, our medi-
cal arrangements for the army were greviously and sadly
imperfect, All these things had to be improved, and im-
provements of this description cost money. Everything had
been done, and done effectually, but it had to be paid fur,
The necessity of keeping a large force in India, in con-
sequence of the late mutiny, increased the cost of the army
and another source of expenditure was that we had been
gradually awakening, very rapidly of late years, to the
conviction that it was our duty as a Christian nation to do
everything in our power to maintain the health, alleviate
the condition, increase the morality, and improve the intel
lectual development "f the soldiers of our army. (Haar
hear.) After alluding to the steps that had been taken to
carry these improvements into effect, and mentioning the
cost of the militia and volunteers as an additional strain upon
the revenue of the department to which he belonged, his
lordship said that we lived in times of great mechanical
change. The days of Brown Bess and smooth bores were
over; we lived in the days of Sir Wm. Armstrong and Mr
Whitworth, and in the days of rifled muskets and breach-
loaders. Nothing was more certain than that all improve-
ments of warlike material tended, not to war, but to peace.
Nothing was more certain than this, that the more perfectly
nations maintain their armies, and the more perfectly they
maintain their means of warfare, the less likely were they
to go to war. Men were always fighting in the days of de-
fensive armour, and when battles ended in very little com-
parative loss on either side. (Hear.) As to the question of
reducing the expenditure, he could only say that while the
Government would be blameable, they would be criminal if
they maintained any expenditure which could not be justified,
and which was not needed ; they would be more blameable
and more criminal if they reduced the army and navy to a
condition such as existed when the Crimean war broke out.

(Hear.) For himself and his colleagues, he would say that
everything would be done that could be done to reduce the
expenditure of his department. (Applause.) His lordship
concluded by thanking the company for the honour they
had done him.