The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-02 00:00:00

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.

And now for some of the fruits of experience. It is
found out that in war it is necessary to have a good
' basis of operations, and, having one, to inake the best
of it. At last we are sending a man to Constantinople
to look to our hospitals, transports, supplies for the
army, and so forth, as they ought to be looked to.
General Jones—he of Domarsund—is going out there
with full powers. Again, the sad incompetency of the
staff, which has formed the subject of so many com-
plaints, public and private; and to which the mis-
management of the expedition has been mainly as.
cribed, is at last recognised. Our authorities have
slowly opened their eyes to the fact that the French
understand the practice of war rather better than
we do, and that one reason of their greater success
is the rank and position they assign to those who
have learnt their profession over those who have
not learnt it. We are about to take a leaf--a very
little leaf, out of their book. Engineer officers,
who have, at least, had some professional education,
are to bt. attached to the Quartermatcr-Gcneral's
Whether they are to have rank enough to give them
authority remains to be seen. This is something to
have gained by the terrible sacrifices of the year. The
gain, indeed, does not seem much in itself, but it is
ieiuch when compared with the absence of it. We
have hitherto officered our army, wid in fact conducted
this arduous undertaking, as if there was no such thing
as special talent, experience, skill, or education in mili-
tary affairs ; or, at least, as if half-a-dozen men with
these recommendations were sufficient for the purpose,
and all the rest of the officers might be left to the order
of seniority and purchase. Great gain, indeed, it is to
have discovered that this is not enough, and that,
besides the halldozen chiefs, we must have at least a
few other officers who have learnt more than can be
picked up on parade or at mess.

But more must be done, much more, in the improve-
ment of our military organisation before the nation will
cheerfully see its best blood drained towards the Crimea
—perhaps never to return—in the profusion perempto-
rily demanded. The cry is " More men ; more men."
Lord Raglan, we are assured, has not half enough for
his work. To do it with security would require at least
35,000 ; to do it efficiently 60,010. Had we the proper
numbers, then our men would only pass one night in five
in the trenches, instead of every othernight—nay, some-
times every night. We should have enough to spare for
the protection of our flank, fir the better safety of
Balaklava, for the making of roads, for the pre-
servation of order, and the assistance of all the
departments. All this is true. But, even if we
had the men to send at once, the British people
would not see more men and more men for
ever embarked for the East without some better assur-
ance than it now possesses that the life of a British sub-
ject is as precious in the Crimea as it is at home. Possi-
bly the common soldier has not quite the respect that he
ought to have among us, but we have not got yet into
the way of regarding him as mere food for powder,
food for the cholera, food for famine—ia fact, to be
thrown away as fast as he can be landed on the scene of
action. But that is the inevitable working of the
present system in our army. The common soldiers are
deliberately and systematically exposed to trials that
cost as much life and strength as the deadliest colli-
sions with the foe. They are so exposed simply and
solely because it is thought better to leave the manage-
ment of these things, and the disposal of thousands of
lives trembling in the balance, to gentlemen wholly ig-
norant of their profession, than to men of experience,
but without money, rank, or Ministerial 'favour. As
deliberate is the waste of life, or at least the peril of life,
when many hundreds are committed to the mercies of
the Euxine in unseaworthy vessel, distnasted, rudderless,
leaky, and with difficulty reaching their destination in
twice the proper time, and at twice the unavoidable cost
of suffering—all because it is not thought worth while
to have a single steamer regularly fitted up as an hospital-
transport, and employed in conveying the sick and
wounded, not by thousands, but by a hundred or two
at a time. It is mere and sheer waste of life, too, to
leave the sick and wounded at Scutari in the wretched
hands which, but for the " nurses," and but for
us, would have been their only guardians. From
the fund confided to our care 3,000/. worth of
comforts for the sick and wounded have been
distributed that would otherwise have been "done with-
out"—at the cost of how much life and permanent
strength we forbear to guess. What are we to think of
a system under which the " Purveyor" satisfies his ideas
of official duty by piling up medical stores and comforts
of all kinds, and refusing to give them out, even when
for months together there is urgent demand for them ?
Here for two months all Europe was crying slam() on the
want of lint to dress the wounds of thousands of British
soldiers lying at Scutari, and scarce a household in this
country but was busily employed in supplying the want.
It now appears that the lint was there all the time, only
some brutal official thought it less trouble to say nothing
about it than to give it out to the hospitals. What the
fellow meant to do with his lint and other stores
at the end of the war, should it ever arrive, it
passes us to say. We cannot think better of the medi-
_

Cal officer at Scutari, who does all he can to thwart and
neutralise the assistance not only of the nurses, and of
the gentleman acting in our behalf, but of the British
Ambassador and his lady. It is simply the case of a
man who thinks his own dignity a great matter, and
the lives and comfort of some thousand British soldiers
a small one. But the simple contrast of the British
and French hospitals, the British and French harbours
in the Crimea, the British and French roads, the
British and French camps, the British and French
horses, the British and French men, is enough to show
that a new organisation is wanted, and, till the British
Government will grant it, we are persuaded that the
British people will behold with great sorrow and grow-
ing reluctance the continual and increasing drain of its
thousands to the seat of war.--Times.