The Sun.
London, England, 1854-03-03 00:00:00

THE MILITIA.

The Earl of ELLENBOROUGH said that in the last
session of Parliament an account was presented to their
lordships showing the expense of the militia in 1852.53,
the number of men enrolled, and the number not pre-
sent when the militia were called out in 1853. He pro-
posed to move for a continuation of that return, and he
thought there should be a supplemental column, show-
ing the complement of each regiment. It might be ne-
cessary to state the result of the return, as it now stood,
up to the 14th August last year. Unless some material
change had taken place in the number enrolled since
that period his noble friend at the head of the Govern-
ment was wrong in stating that 80,000 men had been
raised, for it appeared that 63,000 only had been enrolled
and but 60,000 had been raised. The great deficiency
occurred in the counties of York and Lancaster, and
especially in West York. In each of those counties
there appeared to be a deficiency of from three to four
thousand men. And it was remarkrble that the district
upon which it was proposed to confer additional politi-
cal power by the Reform Bill, was precisely that which
had not found anything towards the national defences.
He had taken a great interest in the success of this mea-
sure, and had done everything in his own county, in his
humble way, to carry it into effect. One regiment in that
county (Gloucester) had its full complement, and the
other nearly its complement. If gentlemen who had
some interest in their neighbourhood would speak
to farmers and others and induce them to take the
trouble to obtain volunteers, a full complement might
easily be obtained in all the other counties. There was
a greater facility for carrying out the provisions of the
bill where there was a large police force, for the mem-
bers of that body made good recruiting officers, and
were stimulated to exert themselves bytthe reward which
they received of ss. for each man they obtained. Some
effect was also to be attributed to the apprehension of 1
the ballot. He had no doubt that if all parties exerted
themselves, 170,000 men would have been raised instead
of 60,000. If the militia were permanently established,
it would enable Government to obtain the services of
officers of a better class, and more experienced, than
those at present acting. If during the approaching war
Government were permanently to establish the militia,
he should think they were laying a foundation for public
security—(beat) —and doing that which would go in
some slight way to compensate for the war itself. This
would enable the Government to turn their attention
profitably to the necessity of sending a proper quantity
of troops to the Baltic. He could not help observing
that he thought the Government ought to have sent
some troops to the Baltic before they despatched so
large a body to the East. He admitted that if the avail-
able portion of our fleet were to be joined to the squa-
dron which had lately been formed by the Emperor of
the French, the combined naval force in the Baltic would
be amply sufficient to guard against any hostilities in
that quarter. But without that French reinforcement
he was not aware that there was sufficient naval force
ready 'or that service. However gratified he might
be to see a French fleet acting in conjunction with
our own, it was not satisfactory to think that Eng-
land must depend upon the assistance of France to
produce a fleet superior to that of Russia in the Baltic ;
that was, in fact, to defend our own shores—for without
a fleet in the Baltic any of our ports were liable to dims.