The Sun.
London, England, 1871-02-14 00:00:00

THE ARMY ESTIMATES

The Times says :—The new Army Estimates reveal the
cost, if not entirely the character, of that military reorga-
nisation which is to be explained to Parliament on Thurs-
day next. An aggregate vote for the present year of
£15,851,700, instead of the £12,065,000 asked in 1870, exhi-
bits an increase amounting to no less than 12,886,700. In
other words, the charge for the military service of th e country
including, however, certain supplies for the use of the navy
will be raised by nearly three millions of money. The ad-
ditional expense, therefore, is plain enough ; the question
is what we are to get for it. The money will assuredly
not be grudged if the money's worth is forthcoming, and
if a satisfactory and permanent sense of pub-
lic security should be substituted as a re-
sult of Mr. Cardwell's scheme for undignified
" oscillations between parsimony and panic."
Under several of the headings we can discern room and
opportunity for important explanations, and Mr. Cardwell
may, we think, be able to prove that what he asks for will
suffice to give us a powerful and well-appointed force.
No new principles of service are introduced, no whole-
sale levies are contemplated, no armed nation"
will be substituted for a national army. Even the
strength of the regular army is not very large
increased, nor, so far as we see, are the quotas of the
Militia to be raised. But every battalion of the army
will be rendered effective and available, every regiment
of Militia will be embodied for drill and training, officers
of the reserve forces will receive professional instruc-
tion, and a good organization will be given to the
whole body. As regards numbers, too, it is obvious

that if the Militia is encouraged to furnish reserves
for the Line, and if it is itself perpetually rein:
forced by fresh enlistments of volunteers, a great power of
expansion may be readily obtained. At any rate, the
" reorganization" now proposed, if it be neither auda-
cious nor striking, may prove both judicious and success-
ful. The object of the new estimates apparently is to
convert a paper force of 200,000 men without artillery
into an effective and available army of 200,000 troops
with 400 guns, and every subsidiary service complete
in proportion. We must wait for Mr. Cardwell's expla-
nations before we can say how far this object is likely to
be realised, but a sum of nearly sixteen millions'of money
is surely large enough to provide all we want, and the
public will as surely expect to find a return for this
enormous outlay in such a constitution and organisation
of our military forces as will terminate the controversy
once and for all.

The Daily News observes :—The Army Estimates for
the year 1871-72 are of the good old sort : conceived in
panic and born of agitation. The grand total of the
sums demanded of the British taxpayer ought at
least to satisfy those who have' been accustomed to
believe that the efficiency of an army is in propor-
tion to the millions which it costs. That is the
orthodox, English idea of military efficiency, very
dear to all sound Tories, to the " Colonels " in the
House of Commons, and to the Horse Guards. If
the professional alarmists can be kept quiet for the small
trifle of two millions sterling ; and that capacity for in-
dulging a vainglorious spirit which, in compliment to our
neighbours, we have adopted into our language
under the seductive appellation of " prestige," can
be appeased for not quite two millions more than
double the entire expenditure cf the whole Prussian
army in time of peace, and not quite two millions more
than the entire expenditure of the French army
at the beginning of the war last July, perhaps we ought
all to clap our hands and thank the War Office and the
Horse Guards for this brilliant and reassuring result of
their protracted and mysterious confabulations. The
British taxpayer is a very patient being, and very easily
pleased ; only bleed him freely, and he will be perfectly
convinced that he is under the most skilful treatment,
and that he never felt so strong in all his life.
It would be premature, if not invidious, to draw any
peremptory or precise conclusions from the obvious
fact that, whatever scheme of army reorganisation the
Secretary of State for War may be perpending and pre-
paring to pronounce on Thursday next, nothing sugges-
tive of the slightest change in the constitution of our
effective or reserved forces appears on the face of the
Estimates. No new principle of army or-
ganisation is disclosed in these estimates ; but we can
wait for its discovery till Thursday next. An increase
in the vote for non-effective services is rather a
characteristic of the past than an indication of the future ;
and an increase of £4OO in the vote for military education
says little enough for the appreciation in the highest
military circles of those qualities which, more than mere
physical superiority and courage, have made the German
"men in spectacles" more than a match for conscripts
who can neither read nor write, and officers who know
less of the topography of their own provinces than their
invaders.