The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-09 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 1870.

IT is not usual to book for much enlightenment on
great topics at Fishmongers' Hall ; and yet the Duke
of Cambridge has just made an after-dinner speech
there which directly informs the nation what he wishes
and indirectly what he intends. Whoever may under-
take the re-constitution of the army, the Commander-
in-Chief will have no hand in the business. Whether
his Royal Highness be responsible for the grievous
delay in putting the business, of the War Office in
proper order is a question which affords much scope
for inquiry; but it is certain, on his own showing,
that the Duke is prepared to resist reorganisation
on the ground that the English army is a perfect
machine. It is "efficient," "powerful," "noble,"
"patriotic," and possessing, according to the Com-
mander-in-Chief, various other qualities too numerous
to be recounted in detail. Probably the foreigners who
heard this effusion at Fishmongers' Hall were too
polite to laugh at the idea that the British army was
a perfect machine requiring no further amendment;
and to the English people generally such egregious
conceit and self-delusion are likely to be fraught
with too serious consequences to furnish a topic for
mirth. Nobody questions the great bravery of the
individual British soldier, nor underrates the sur-
prising feats, in proportion to its strength, which the
British army has accomplished. It is neverthe-
less true that the force, as an aggregate
apparatus for offence or defence, is likely to be
admirable only so long as it does not go into action.
It is enormously costly, and yet it is not on a par with
any of theleading European armies either in equipment
or scientific skill—to say nothing of numerical
strength. In suppressing the Indian Mutiny, or in
reaching Magdala, the English soldiers shone to ad-
vantage, because :*nlividual bravery had full scope in
such enterprises. But we all know what became of
the army in the Crimea, where valour was of no
avail to counteract the bungling of generals and the
disgraceful inadequacy of the supply department.
Viewed apart from that vanity which is one of the
worst characteristics of our nation, the army is un-
satisfactory, both to those thinkers who prefer a
powerful force, and those who desire to reduce the
military body to the smallest proportions. It is costly,
and yet it is too weak to play more than a secondary
part in a European war. The best course for a
nation in our position has long been decided to be the
keeping of a small fore of regulars as an active
nucleus, and the sormation of a great reserve
which would carry on the ordinary industrial
avocations in time of peace, and take the
field in time of war. Reduce the men
who are soldiers only, and augmetA the
force of citizen soldiers with the saving—for one
reaular costs as much as two or three men of the
reserve. This is the plan which the present Ministry
favours, and which was shadowed forth in
Mr. Cardwell's speech on the last army esti-
mates. We now sea why the improvement
is not more rapidly and thoroughly adopted. The
Commander-in -Chief desires no change in a body
which possesses all the virtues. Army reformers
may labour, out the inertia of the Horse Guards
will always be a dead weight in the
opposite scale. And similarly with details of organi-
sation and discipline. The books written by
competent British officers can testify to the constant
improvements in drill and appointments made by
the continental military authorities. They are unceas-
ing in their endeavours to outstrip each other. The
Horse Guards looks on with a self-satisfied smile.
The whole system of modern army discipline and
manceuvres has been remodelled on the Continent'
with the aid of late experience ; but experience is
obviously superfluous to a body which is so good as
to need no change. ,