The Sun.
London, England, 1852-09-06 00:00:00

SUN,

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS
TIMES.—The Usher of the Black Rod could not
have been many steps from the door of the House of
Commons when that essernbly, by a last act of ex-
piring life, accorded its imprimatur to a statistical
suggestion of Sir William Mulesworth's. In its ap-
parent purport the motion of the Hon. Baronet
scarcely exceeded the limits of commonplace form,
and its visible result is confined to five pages of very
plain-looking figures. But in actual substance these
figures import more than they express, and they con-
vey also incidentally several pieces of desirable in-
formation for which the public and its representatives
have often been a good deal to seek. The return in
question simply specifies the " number of her Majes-
ty's troops who have been employed in the colonies of
Great Britain in each of the years 1848, 1849, and
1850, and what cost for pay, as well as Commissariat
Expenses to Great Britain." The object of Sir
Molesworth in procuring these certificates
was, of course, to illustrate the direct pecuniary ex-
pense at which a vicious colonial system is currently
maintained, and this point is undoubtedly sell ex-
hibited in the returns before us. To put the results
in a coecise and comprehensive shape, we may state
that in the last year for which accounts are ren-
dered—that is to say, the financial year 1849-50—
the troops employed in the colonies cost, for pay, al-
lowences, and contingencies, the sum of 1,329,6501
In the official dialect of the IVer-office' however,
``her Majesty's troops" are not understood to include
artillerymen or engineers. This description of force
pertains to the " Office of Ordnance" in speciality,
and from the latter department, therefore, Sir Wil-
liam obtained a supplementary return of 122,670/.
expended upon the Royal Artillery, 19,6021. upon
the Sappers and Miners, and 51,9891. upon the En-
gineers employed in the British colonies during the
year in question. But this is still not the end of the
reckoning. The troops so employed must be main-
tained and supplied, and the duty of such mainte-
nance devolves on the "Commissariat" department.
So the disbursements of the " Commissariat chest"
were furnished by the Treasury, and completed the
information desired by Sir William Molesworth,
by showing 1,568,380/. as the cost of such ser-
vice during the three years referred to. Taking
half a million, therefore, as the yearly average of
this last outlay, and adding to this sum the items
mentioned above, we shall get a total exceeding
2,000,000/. sterling as the cost of our military
garrisons in 1850. Sir William, it will be perhaps
recollected, used to set the gross expenditure on this
head at a sum nearer three millions than two, and
there would be no great difficulty in justifying such
k'calculation ; but we are more concerned at present
with the records immediately before us and with the
curious details of information which these facts con-
vey. In the first place, it unfortunately requires to
be remembered that the returns under consideration
do not comprise any account of the Kafir War, so
that the heaviest exemplification of our colonial
responsibility is excluded from the schedule.
Omitting this formidable charge, we should find
some consolatory prospect in the gradual decrease
of demands, for whereas the chief item, that of
the troops' pay, stood at 1,404,854/. in 1848, it
had dropped to 1,390,7691. and 1,329,6561. in
1849 and 1850 respectively. From the same
collect that the general pro-
portionfigures, toofo,ouwre may
military force diverted to the colo-
nies from the puiposes of home defence had not
of late been increased, and that any augmenta-
tion, therefore, of our home resources must have
been suggested by other considerations. The troops
employed in the colonies were 39,591 in 1848 ;
30,400 in 1849, and 38,752 in 1850. On the
other hand, however, it appears from the re-
turns that the artillery force on these stations was
materially increased, the muster rolls showing a
strength of 3,330 in 1850, though there had been but
2,987 in 1849, and only 2,748 in 1848 ; so that the
colonies took at least their due share of the general
augmentation given to the Ordnance corps in the year
last mentioned. The next point of interest lies in the
proportionate rates of strength at which these garri-
sons are maintained. Our colonial possessions appear '
to be classified in the War-office as North American,
West Indian, Mediterranean, and African, Austra-
lian, Miscellaneous. The former of these military
divisions, though so considerable in extent, popula-
tion, and importance, requires a smaller amount of
force than is absorbed in our insular dependencies in
the Mediterranean. In 1850 there were 5,209 men
in Canada, 1,565 in Nova Scotia, 1,124 in Bermuda
(which is attached to this division), 528 in New
Brunswick, 326 in Newfoundland, and 82 in Prince
Edward's Island. Altogether this Transatlantic
army would muster 1,804 bayonets. The West
Indies take 5,622, of which 1,673 are quartered in
Jamaica and 1,216 in Barbadoes, but these numbers
include three black regiments employed on this sta-
ti m only. In the Mediterranean we have, or at
teast we had in 1850, 9,007 troops, divided
almost equally between Gibraltar, Malta, and the
lonian Islands—a force which it would be interesting
to contrast with the garrisons of Lille or Strasburg.
At the Cape of Good Hope we had an army of 4,384'
tnen, which may now be multiplied by three, and in
the rest of Africa something less than 1,000. Our
vast Australian Empire, with all its then undisco-
vered treasures, bad a garrison of 3,985 soldiers, of
which 1,976 were occupied in bush fighting with the
iavages of New Zealand. One regiment, and one
)nly, we believe, has since been dispatched to the gold
mines, and as this was embarked on a Government
steamer, our Australian force will still probably re-
main for some time what it was at the period of Sir
William Molesworth's returns. The " Miscellane-
ous"
possessions,whichere somonighdtispaolmseodstofa.s well be
Ceylon,
‘‘ E asteo
~,
termed
which the reader will recollect is not included in the
dominions of the East India Company, finds em-
ployment for 3,268 men (incuding a
admirable Malay riflemen), Mauritius for corps of
and Hong Kong, cur latest " annexation,l'''7f'
947. In turning to the figures furnished by the
Ordnance-office, our attention is first attracted to the
supplement thus given to the ordinary estimates of the
year. These annual documents do not specify the
numbers of the Ordnance corps employed at home and
-abroad respectively, but we now see that the latter
constitute little more than onc-fourth of the entire
strength, so that the artillery force at home must be
of a respectable amount. The 3,330 gunners em-
ployed abroad in 1850 were distributed pretty evenly
wer 17 stations, Canada with 635, and Gibraltar with
480, being the large exceptions. Ceylon, however,
had only 103; while the Cape had 205. Malta, the
lonian Islands, and Jamaica, bad each between 200 and
300; Bermuda, Nova Scotia, and the Mauritius, be-
tween 150 and2oo. As to the Engineers, their pecu-
'iar destinies are curiously illustrated by the figures be-
fore us. The reader is doubtless aware that by this title
are designated the officers of a corps whose privates
are the Sappers and Miners, but so stragely do their
luties distribute them over the face of the
globe, that more, perhaps, were congregated toge-
ther in the Great Exhibition than in any other
European or Asiatic quarters. In 1850, 13 of these
meritorious soldiers were assigned to New Zealand,
14 to South Australia, and 39 to China, while, as
lately as 1848, eight of them, without an officer, were
left on the Falkland Islands to take care of that happy,
settlement and themselves. Their officers are scat-
tered still more extensively. In the two provinces of
Canada there are, it is true, actually 30 of them, and
there are 10 at Gibraltar, and 11 at the Cape ; but
with these exceptions the members of this distin-
guished corps rarely come within sight of each other.
The stations of the Bahamas, St. Vincent, Granada,
Tobago, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Kitt's, Dominica,
Bahia, Demerara, Trinidad, St. Helena, and New
South Wales, have one each ; there are two in
Newfoundland, three in Barbadoes, and four in
China. Such are the several arrangements of our
colonial garrisons—costly, no doubt, to this country,
and yet but imperfectly proportioned to the duties
abroad. Whether any better system can be devised
some future session of Parliament will probably show.
HERALD.—There is a witty saying attributed to
Lord Palmerston with reference to the proverbial prone-
ness of our countrymen to embroil themselves with the
local authorities of the countries which they visit—" It
seems to be recognised," said he, " that it is the privi-
lege of a travelling Englishman to get into scrapes
wherever he goes, and the duty of his Foreign Secretary
to get him out of them again immediately." If our
kinsmen of the Union always had a Daniel Webster for
their Minister of Foreign Affairs, it would, we fear, soon
pass into a proverb, that the most conspicuous part of
their Foreign Secretary's duties was to utter extrava-
gances not warranted by facts, merely in order that the
President and Cabinet might explain them away, and
contradict and check their colleague in as deeorous a
manner as possible. Hardly has the excitement sub-
sided which Mr. Webster so needlessly and so wantonly,
blew into a flame on the subject of oar colonial fishe-
ries when ho again compromises his dignity as a states-
man, and even his reputation as a man of the most
common historical knowledge, by the astounding
ignorance and rashness which he betrays respecting the
Peruvian isles of Lobos. Macaulay remarks of Burke
that his early productions are marked by precocious
seriousness of thought and gravity of style, whereas the
compositions of his latter years display all the fire and
imaginativeness of youth. If we substitute folly and
temerity for the qualities last mentioned, there will be a
parallel between the revolution noticed in the style of
Burke', eloquence and that now observable in the cha-
racter of Mr. Webstei's conduct and statesmanship. He
was weighty and well-corMdered in his youth, distin-
guished for a logical manner, and an imposing air of re-
flection. He has now sudden) burst forth, and broken
loose into a hair brained olitiycian reckless in his state-
meets and dangerous ' hisP unquestionably
in counsels; and
in this business of the Lobos Islads, we have every
reason to be
. proud, es Englishmen, of the
contrast existing between the".
positions respectively
assumed by the Foreign a; •the two
len aecretaries of
1 countries. When -
application was made to Lord
Nlalme,bury to induce him 'claims
Of proprietorship, or rather of
00 to
n l
rn:necoF
right,se
tothose
islands, which claims, if well-founded, would have
t secured certain benefits, he very properly eliminated the