The Sun.
London, England, 1852-03-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE MILITIA BILL.
TIMES.—Mr. Walpole's Militia Bill is studiously designed
to escape the conflict of opinions that proved fatal to its
predecessor, and it bears evident marks of the discussion
which that casualty has provoked. It is altogether another
measure. The odiousness and unfairness of the ballot, and
the uncertain operation of the system of substitutes, are to
be avoided, if it be possible, by enlistment, with the stimulus
of a sufficient bounty. We need not take any credit to our-
selves for having pointed out this only practicable alterna-
tive, for really there was no longer any doubt in the matter,
and Lord John Russell had all but given up the, plan of con-
scription. If the militia are really to be placed at the ser-
vice of the State, and to be made " worth their salt:: it
would be a great hardship to impose such troublesome duties
on any one against his consent, and to compel one man 'to
be at the beck and call of the State, to wear a uniform, and
to be drilled with chance companions, in order that 'fly other
men might engage in the ordinary business of life with
greater security, and sleep a little sounder in their beds.
They who suffer the inconvenience and possible danger
ought to have some adequate compensation ; and they who
receive protection should not object to pay for it. As it is
proposed to raise no more than 80,000 men, 50,000 this year
and 30,000 next, and as a bounty of about 41. is offered to
each recruit, we are encouraged to hope that it will not be
found necessary to resort to the ballot, which the Govern-.
t still contemplates as a poisible necessity. For the two
,000 men ere only about one in a hundred male
adults, and that proportion it is expected will be forthcoming
for a three weeks' training once a year, with the possibility
of a little real service in case of invasion. In that event,
while all the male population will have to turn out to fight,
however unprepared, the militia will at least have had some
• preissksasss fish. dire emergency. The measure was re-
ceived with a marvellous amount of civility. Lord
merston gave it his decided approbation, and Lord John
Russell, with a tender recollection of the usage
his own Bill had received, felt it would be most
unjustifiable to offer any obstacle to the introduc-
tion of the Bill. The only decided opponents who
announced themselves were Mr. Hume and the
Manchester party, who, from an equal horror of war and
expense, refused to acknowledge the necessity of any such
measure. Whether the shores of this country are likely to
be invaded in the lifetime of the present generation is a ques-
tion on which men must differ, but there really cannot be
any difference of opinion as to the fact that whether we shall
be invaded or not depends at this moment on the will of one
man. It is not agreeable to Englishmen, nor is it their
habit, to depend on the will of one man, to tremble when he
frowns, to breathe freely when he smiles, and to trust his
assurances. The French dictator has only to give the word,
and an army is let slip against us that wants neither the
skill, the courage, the numbers, nor the will to do us the
most serious mischief. It is true that military authorities
are not agreed as to the possibility of an actual invasion, and
are only agreed, all but unanimously, that no invasion would
ever b© successful; but if there be the barest chance in
the world of 100,000 men being thrown on our shores, it
would not be comfortable to have against those men, armed
and trained as they are, no more than 25,000 soldiers whom
we might perhaps with plenty of warning be able to
scrape together. To train one man in a hundred at the ex-
pense of 250,000/. a year for five years does not seem a very
troublesome or costly precaution to adopt against a danger
that certainly is within the range of possibility. When Mr.
Cobden has no better security to offer than his private opinion
that French officers are too much of gentlemen to obey their
President if he commands them to invade this country
without a good reason, we certainly feel that so slender and
ridiculous a ground of confidence only betrays the very grave
nature of the possibilities that we are bound to provide
against. As to the merits of the new measure, after the fate
of Lord John Russell's, and the very strong difference of
opinion it has elicited, it would be premature to speak with
confidence. The truth is a Militia Bill must be an experi-
ment. It is the gauge of many conditions that cannot be
otherwise easily estimated. How far have our insular
position, our peaceful state, and our industrious habits
eradicated the taste for war, or even inspired a positive
horror of it? What proportion of men is there in the
country to whom a bounty of 41. or 5/.,: or half-a-crown a
month for five years, besides payment of expenses, is likely
to have much attraction ? Does employment abound to such
an extent as to leave none at leisure even for three weeks
soldiering? The ordinary computation is, we believe, that
there are at least eight weeks in the year during which
farmers can easily dispense with the services of their
labourers; but whether agricultural labourers are the class
to which we are to look chiefly for our national defenders, is
one of the questions for which we must abide the experiment
of the measure before us. When the whole ground has yet
to be explored, the best course is to try a measure that
shall offer the least violence to feelings and that
may admit most easily of amendment. These con-
ditions are fulfilled in a scheme which proposes
to raise by bounty no more than 80,000 men, to
train them no more than twenty-one days, and to leave a
longer training, and an appeal to the conscription. to the
discretion of the Government. In farther protof of the mo-
aest character or this .15111, we may mention that is
very slightly, we believe, from one drawn up by Sir James
Graham and Mr. Sidney Herbert in 1845. As often hap-
pens, however, the most moderate and diffident course
seems to have cut the knot of a real difficulty. That difficulty
consists in the facts that we have increased our regular army
to the utmost limit of British forbearance—that we are too
free a people to submit to conscription—and that our labour-
ing claws are not of a military turn. The solution of
these difficulties rests on the hope that the posi-
tion of the volunteer militiaman in Mr. Wal-
pole's Bill will not seem so onerous, so dangerous, so
thankless, so insulated from the rest of" the community, as
that of the regular soldier. But, as we have said, the
ground being to a great extent unknown, the measure must
needs be experimental. Lord John Russell has no great
opinion of it. He thinks that the bounty will prove no
great inducement, and that the ballot will be found neces-
sary. He expects that the measure will be tedious in its
operation, at all events not prompt enough for the possible
emergency. Yet, as an experiment there must be, and as
almost any description of militia is preferable to a large in-
crease in the regular army, he is disposed to give a candid
consideration to this plan, particularly as he recognizes in it
some of the features which led to the defeat of his own mea-
sure at the hands of Lord Palmerston. To all appearances,
the Bill will be discussed with all convenient dispatch, so as
not to protract the session, its more serious defects being left
for trial to show, and for the next session to correct.
CHRONICLE.—The Government plan for the embodi-
ment of the militia, as explained last night by Mr. Walpole,
has for its object to raise a force of 80,01:0 men, between the
ages of eighteen and thirty-five-50,000 the first year, and
30,000 the next—the term of service being live years. The
enlistment is to be voluntary, encouraged by a bounty of 31.
or 41. penman, or by a monthly retaining fee of 2s. or 2s, 6d. ;
and the period of training will be twenty-one days, with a
power of extension or diminution if necessary. The existing
law is to regulate the embodiment of the force for actual ser-
vice; and if any district fails to make up its quota of vo-
lunteers, recourse is to be had to the system of ballot. The
expense of the new armament is estimated at an ag re-
gate sum of about 1,200,0001. for the entire five
years. In the general outline of the scheme, so far as it
has yet been developed, there is much that entitles it to
support. The great desideratum is the formation
of an
efficient army of reserve ; and, provided object
be accomplished, it appears to us that the question
of voluntary or compulsory enlistment is entirely
secondary. So far as it goes, compulsory service is no doubt
an evil, though, as compared with the safety of the country,
its inconveniences are as nothing. If voluntary enlistment
can be made to supply its place, it clearly ought to bepre-
ferred ; and notwithstanding Lord John Russell's doubts
if
upon the subject, we are very much mistakena long peace
has so far damped the warlike spirit of the country as to
have rendered the volunteer system impracticable.
It
may
serve to facilitate the discussion of the subject if we briefly
state what we consider to be the true end in view in forming.
such a force. Its objects appear to us to be quite intdeeer-
pendent of, and different from. those of the, vend
companies proposed by Sir Charles Napier, and we
do not see why the two systems should not sub-
sist together. Sir Charle's rifle corps would be en-
rolled, not for the ordinary purposes of warfare
but with the special object of harassing an
hedges,
invading'
army in its passage through the labyrinth of
ditches, and woods which covers our southern counties.
What we more immediately want is a reserve force capable
of largely increasing our regular army in time of war, on twhee
shortest notice. Let objectors say what they_ please, t
could not, at this moment, with our utmost. efforts, collect
an army of 50,000 regular troops at one point, except. at the
cost of leaving Portsmouth, Plymouth and Woolwich un-
defended, and committing to the police irhee whole charge oa
the peace and safety of Ireland. V who
a
body of men capable of undertaking the ordinary dnties of
the army, and of reinforcing it in case of need—. a body fitted
to occupy entrenched posts, to defend garrisons, to form
patrols, and, above all, to supply by degrees the waste of war
amongst our regular troops. Such a force as this cannot be
extemporised. It is' said, indeed, that we can at any
time guard, ourselves against a razzia, whilst we could
organise an overwhelming resistance to. a deliberate
invasion. It may be so, but both of these. .objects might be
attained far more certainly by our providing ourselves be-
We should
forehand with an organization for the purpose.
most gladly witness the formation of volunteer corps, who
might makean excellent irregular force ; but nothing short
1311 liter
s as
-
of the discipline which arises from the habit of
of Tt b
ordination could give us a body of men capable serving
regular troops. "It was neither the volunteers nor the
con-
scripts that saved the country in 1793," said Npoleon—" it
was the 180,000 old soldiers of the monarchy." We have
already a limited number of excellent regular troops ; tnd
he
Government have but to speak, and they may comma
almost any amount of irregulars, in the shape of volunteer
riftemen ; and the proposed measure will, if carried, give us
an army of reserve which would possess, at any rate, such a
rudimentary knowledge of military discipline as would soon
enable it to acquire, in actual service, a very formidable de-
gree of efficiency.
HERALD,_-Ministers have not much to dread from their
opponents, if we are to judge from the kind of opposition
offered to the motion proposed last night by Mr. Walpole, for
consolidating and amending the laws in regard to the militia.
First and nsost formidable of these antagonists was Mw
Cob-
den, the sinewy Ajax of the Manchester school. who was
manifestly put forward by his party, in the hopes of ham-
pering the Government, or gaining a little popularity for the
Opposition. The attempt signally failed. Air. Cobden was
weak and illogical ; his topics of debate badly chosen and ill-
arranged ; no extraordinary censure, perhaps in the judg-
ment of some, and none at all in that of his Manchester sup-
porters, with whom plain home-spun, however coarse, is as
web of the finest texture, and rude strength has more charms
than athletic elegance. Mr. Cobden's arguments,
how
carried with them their own refutation—the bane bad its
own antidote. The Member for the West Riding does
not deny the vast preparations of our continental
neighbour; he does not deny that vast sums of money
ever,
Dave been expended by that native upon vesosla of wax and