The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-31 00:00:00

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES FOR TILE

ARMY.

(From Ike Daily News.)
th,' Secretary at War is to ask the
House of Commons to vote the Supplementary
Estimates for the Army. In a house where the
people have so few real representatives of their
views it is not at all likely that any very serious ob-
j,-ction could be maintained against any vote the
Ministry chose to ask for. The temper of the pre-
sent House of Commons is so easy that the Cabinet
have but to ask and to have, the only thing
" Honourable Members" really object to, being a
speedy return to the hustings. But even an as-
sembly so affected may very well take into con-
sideration, one or two facts about the war and its
cost, on a night when more money is to be voted
for an army that up to the present time has done
literally nothing against the enemy. We have in
Turkey at this hour about thirty thousand
English troops. To carry them there, a sum of
uo less than two and a half millions sterling was
some time ago voted. Beyond this large amount
votes have been taken for the cost of raising
additional soldiers above the total of 100,000
that used to satisfy us, and we are now asked
for money for the militia besides. Is all this
required by the needs of the case, or by the
improvidence of Government ? No popular criti-
cism has hitherto been, or is likely to be, turned
against the really needful cost of the war. It is
known that an invader and a despot cannot be
checked without expense—it is known that the
innocent must pay a part of the penalty of the sins
of the Czar—and men's minds are made up ac-
cordingly. Our enormous trade and ever-active
nationalindustry enable us to meet the fair de-
mands of the contest without serious difficulty,
and we meet them cheerfully. But whilst doing
this, the very cheerfulness that marks the public
temper is iu itself a reason why resources yielded
so generously should not be improvideutially spent.
Can the Government who ask for these supplemen-
tary army estimates say they are innocent of
waste ? Let the circumstances of the case tell.
Taking the number of our troops in Turkey at
30,000 men, we see at once that our army sent
affainst the Czar is about as strong as the force
thought requisite for keeping Ireland in subjection
before the famine and the exodus brought that
country into a state of quietude. The force under
Lord Raglan is also just as numerous as that
usually maintained in our colonies. Indeed we
should not be very far wrong if we said that in
round numbers the 100,000 men who used to form
our regular standing army were usually one-third in
the colonies, nearly one-third in Ireland, and the
remainder in England and India. But Ireland
now wants nothing like 30,000 men. She is quiet
and prosperous. Again, the colonies need nothing
like 30,000 men, as we have shown over and over
again. The application of steam to navigation has
rendered the keeping of soldiers in all the spots
where in old days—before steam was known—bar-
racks happened to be built, a military blunder as
well as sheer financial waste. These points esta-
blished, it follows that some 20,000 men could very
well be spared from the West Indies, from Canada,
and from our other colonial stations, and that
10,000 at the very least could be struck from the
figure at which the needful army for Ireland has
often heretofore been fixed. Here, without having
raised a single extra regimenr, we find a force
equal in numbers to the army sent with Lord
Raglan to Turkey. Either the colonies, or Ireland,
or both could have spared such a force for active
service against Russia, and been none the worse.
Then as to maintenance. The real cost of feeding
30,000 men is not greater in Turkey than in Ireland,
or the West Indies, or New Zealand. A sheep or an
ox is to be bought near Varna for about one-third of
the money that it will fetch in Ulster, whilst corn
must be cheaper in Bulgaria than in Belfast or
Dublin. Thus we need not have spent money for
fresh troops : we need not spend more for main
taming a force in Turkey than in Ireland. Next
we come to transport. If our navy had been
efficient—if the 573 ships in our Royal Navy had
not been half shams—and if the Horse Guards had
been effective—the 30,000 men would have been
mustered from the proper points—the royal navy
ships would have been ready to take them on board,
and the whole body would have been landed at
Varna, literally without any special or supple-
mentary cost whatever. The whole operation
would have gone on as a part of the customary
movements of our land and sea forces, with this
simple difference, that in place of moving 30,00 u
men from one portion of the British dominious to
another in small detachments, iu the ordinary way,
the men would have been gathered in smaller bodies
in different colonial and other quarters, to be con-
centrated as one army on the shores of the Black
Sea. Such an arrangement would have shown
business-like capacity on the part of our Govern-
ment—would have proved that the national re-
sources were properly husbanded that our
rulers were ready to economise the forces in our
pay—and that the 573 ships of war in our Navy
List were an efficient reality ready at need to do
the nation's work.
Instead of this, what do we find ? The 573 ships
of the royal navy are not able to move the troops,
and 21, millions sterling—money enough to build two
Crystal Palaces—is taken to pay for transporting
soldiers to the East. Instead of drawing from the
colonies the needless troops there, and taking from
Ireland all that she does not want, fresh soldiers
are raised and others are sent from England. To
fill the places of those regiments sent from this
country the militia is embodied. Nor is this all.
Instead of buying oats and other supplies in Turkey,
merchant ships are hired to take grain from this coun-
try to the Black Sea, thus reversing the natural order
of things—sending grain to the Danube being equal
in absurdity to sending coals to Newcastle. By
such mismanagement enormous waste is of course
induced. The army of 30,000 men who until fight-
ing begins ought literally to cost less for their sup-
port in Turkey than in Ireland, are made a hinge on
which to turn millions of the public money into the
pockets of contractors and others. This direct cost
is not all the national loss. The ships of the Royal
Navy being inefficient for transporting the troops,
the Government go to the commercial marine for
help. By doing this they raise freights against the
merchant, and so against all the merchants' custo
mers—the public. The people pay direct taxes to
make up Royal Navy and Government deficiencies,
and then have to pay higher prices for all seaborne
goods, as a second result of official mismanagement.
Next, the nation has to find men to fill a militia,
rendered requisite by the refusal to bring useless
troops from colonies that can or ought to keep the
peace for themselves. And then, with as calm and
smooth an official face as if all things had been done
in the best possible manner, we find Mr. Sidney
Herbert asking the House of Commons to vote
supplemental army estimates for a war that shows
no fighting, and a militia which, if affairs were
rightly managed, need never be called into service,