The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-17 00:00:00

LORD ELCHO ON THE MILITIA.

Lord Elcho is of opinion that by utilising the
militia and increasing the "Militia reserve," Mr.
Cardwell might have added to our available forces,
and at the same time obtained a reserve of meu for
the regular army. Without reckoning the simple
embodiment of the militia, which has
taken place even times in our • history,
the last time being during the Indian
mutiny, there are four ways of increasing our avail-
able forces by its means. First, as regiments or
battalions for garrison duty and active service
abroad; secondly, as companies to be attached to
regiments of the line ; thirdly, as individual re-
recruits for army service ; and fourthly, as individuals
forming a Militia Reserve for the army. Lord
Elcho cites the various occasions on which these fcur
methods have been tried, and concludes that so far
the Act of 1867 has been a success, though it has
been so in consequence of relaxing or omitting the
conditions as to measurements and medical examina-
tions. Of these four modes he holds the first and
last to be the best and safest. Individual volunteer-
ing he considers to be radically unsound as a means of
recruiting the army through the militia, while
enlistment by companies destroys the efficiency of
the militia. There is, he believes, a grave defect in
the Act, in the want of a provision empowering
officers commanding militia regiments, on the volun-
teering of one of their men for the Militia Reserve,
to raise another in his place. General Peel, the
originator of the Act, intended to include
this provision, and the want of co-opera-
tion among commanding officers must be
attributed to its omission. In conclusion Lord
Elcho quotes a passage from a letter by General
Peel, who observes, with justice, that it really ap-
pears ridiculous that in the militia there is a supera-
bundance of men, and comparatively no officers, while
in the army there are two or three supernumeraries,
in every rank, stopping promotion, and yet no
plan can be devised to form an Army of Reserve.

THE LOSS OF THE CAPTAIN.-AMERICAN VIEWS.

The principal constructors in the navy yards of the
United States attribute the instability which in-
volved the loss of the Captain to the cellular bottom

of the ship, her heavily weighted poop, and the over-
roasting employed. Mr. S. R. Graves, M.P., assures
us that at Brooklyn recently unfavourable compari-
eons were made between the ascertained centre
of gravity of the Captain (2.7) and that
of the American ironclads then building there. The
shallow Miantonomoh, with two feet of freeboard,
carries her centre of gravity four feet below the
water-line ; and t double-turreted, four feet free-
board ship Colossus, intended to carry 14 inches of
armour on sides and three inches on deck throughout
was expected to float, when ready for sea, five feet
above her centre of gravity. In spite of all adverse
opinion, however, in these directions, Mr.
Graves found no doubts, under the influence of the
disaster, thrown on Captain Coles' principle. On the
contrary, he thought that the faith of the construc-
tive department of the United States in the turret
and the low freeboard, when judiciously combined,
remained undimished. Surprise on all sides was ex-
pressed that the results of the stability experiments
should have been withheld from the officers in com-
mand of the Captain.