The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, APRIL 15. 1856.

Spirit of the Public Journals.

~La~2.stfa►Y~~

Lem'.
Compans

Ci..llm
this day.

BEliii itala
this lay.

(From the Times of this day.)
No one is able to say exactly and confidently why the
report of the Crimean Commissioners has itself heels
called in question, put on its trial, and exposed to all
the chances that time, distance, bad memory, and good
interest cannot fail to create against it. For whatever
purpose the Commission was intended, the report might
have been taken as conclusive. We are not, however,
concerned with the measures by which higher powers,
after shelving that report for months, have exposed it to
the risk of being finally discredited. We are not behind
the scenes, where, evidently, there is some mystery.
But whatever the intention, we are now sure of one re-
sult,—it is, that the men in command in the Crimea aro
still what they are they believed to have been. Out of
their own mouths they declare that they are still the
men to lose any number of horses and men, and every-
thing else Committed to their charge. Nobody can doubt,
indeed they do not wish us to doubt, that in the event of
another war they would do precisely what they did in
the winter of 1854. They are perfectly sure they did all
that could be expected from them. Indeed, what could
they do ? There wasn't a good shop in the place—not a
tredesman calling for orders. There were no carpenters
or labourers—no sailcloth, or scantling, or ropes, or
good tools. They were wholly neglected. What could
they do in such a case ? It has never occurred to these
gentlemen that when a number of Englishmen go with
their horses 3,000 miles from home, and land in a f )reign
country, for the express purpose of destroying,
killing, and doing all kinds of mischief, they must ex-
pect to encounter some difficulties. If they'go to fight
Cossacks, they mast not expect to fare much better than
Cossacks, and indeed will probably have to do what the
Cossacks have to do. The English nob'etnan cannot
carry Grosvenor-square and Belgravia with him so far.
He must bid adieu not only to his own well-conducted
establishment, but even to the livery-stables ; to the
c rnchandter, with his unfailing loads of hay and
corn, and his quarterly bills ; to his excellent saddler,
his clever farrier, and to the whole race that mi-
nister with such fidelity to the wants of a good customer.
Now, it might have been supposed that the experience of
the Crimea would have impressed this lesson on our
noble cavalry officers, and that, whatever the faults of
the past, they would not be likely to repeat them. No
such thing. It, unhappily, the present difficulty with
America should ripen into a war, and 5,000 'cavalry
should be sent to Canada, it is quite evident that Lord
This and Lord That, and all the Honourable?, and their
respective Staffs, would do precisely what their prede-
cessors did in the Crimea; and before the first winter
was over we should hear that man and horse had suc-
cumbed, not-to bullet or sabre, but to frost and snow, to
want of shelter, clothing, food, and all things, under cir-
cumstances where the rude British settler lives, thrives,
and is happy.
Just suppose, in any future war, the stabling of a few
hundred cavalry horses left to Lord Lucan, and to Colo-
nels Douglas, Doherty, and Low, who were examieed
on Friday. Would they do otherwise than they did in
the Crimea When the Commissariat is left in the rear,
when the means of transport gets rather short, or any
other difficulty appears, no doubt his Lordship will make
his complaints heard, though whether he will keep the
Commander-in-Chief fully acquainted with the condition
of his horses and men is net quite so certain. Colonel
Douglas, it appears from his own answers, will be very
careful not to make a suggestion, or even set an exam-
ple' that might be construed into a reflection upon the
conduct of his superiors. He cannot say whether men
could have been hired to erect shelter, or whether sea-
men and carpenters could have been obtained from the
ships. With 108 teen effective, and clear of all demands,
on the Ist of December, he took no steps for sheltering
his troop-horses for several weeks—till January, it would
appear from one answer. For this delay the chief excuse
given is the want of a sufficient supply of tools, though
any labourer knows, as Mr. Galton has demonstrated,
that on almost every soil, with almost any implement
of iron, one man could make an excavation sufficient
to yield considerable shelter to himself or a horse in one
day. Colonel Doherty believed they commenced hutting
the horses about the latter end of January, and that for
the whole of the two previous months the horses were
standing at their pickets unprotected. For this he
knows no remedy, and appears to know none even now
in the probable emergency of there being no sailmaker,
or timber merchant, or contractor at hand, with a good
supply of the proper materials. He could not say, and
cannot now say, whether it is likely that assistance, in
men or materials, could have been ob'ained from the
fleet. He only supposes that if sailors had been paid
for the work their services might have been procured.
As this supposition comes out elsewhere, and as it is
evident the British sailor is in the eyes of the British
soldier a sort of marine navvy, procurable for any service
on the o )ndition, and only on the condition, of pay, it is
worth inquiring how far that supposition is founded on
truth, and whether the two services stand in the rela-
tion, nut of fellow-servants, but of independent
ready to help one another, not for love, but for money ;
to do a day's work for a day's pay. The other officer
examined on Friday, Lieutenant Colonel Low, seems to
have been equally without resources during the months
of December and January, even though he lost 100
hot see out of 143 in three months.

Now, we should be, very sorry to spoil the romance of
war, especially that of the most romantic branch of the
service—the cavalry regiments. But we respectfully
submit that if horses are necessary to it, and if a Dragoon
without a horse is no longer a Dragoon, but an exceed-
ingly awkward and useless animal, cavalry officers ought
to be instructed in the art of preserving their horses.
We submit that no officer should be intrusted with the
command of a single Dragoon till he has been examined
as to the proper steps to be taken in those emergencies
that are certain to occur in war. War does not consist
exclusively of sword exercise, or even of manoeuvres,
still less of charges without any mareauvring. Indeed,
in all ages, the best generals have been quite as remark.
able for their diligence, promptness, and dexterity in
feeding man and horse as in handling them when fed.
Cat=ar, whom even Lord Lucan would probably think
something better than a clerk in the War-office, took
special care of his commissariat, was a first-rate engi-
neer, disdained no artifice, dismounted his cavalry,
mounted his infantry, dug miles of trench, ran up earth-
works in a couple of hours, and made the same men foot
soldiers, horse soldiers, " navvies," sailors, or whatever
the occasion required. In this way it was that he \con-
quered the world, in spite of his disadvantage in being
by birth the first gentleman in Rome. Notwithstand-
ing the immunities of his position, he condescended to
be, like all other great generals, a professional soldier ;
and he learned his art as regularly as the Stephensons,
the Brunelle and the Bras.seys of this age have learnt
the art of making railways. There appears to be no
doubt that both the Russians and the French consider
war a profession, and not mere good company and horse-
manehip. We must do as they do, unless we would be
beaten ; and beaten we certainly shall be most cruelly,
unless we commit our bravo soldiers to the care of men
who can do something more than charge the enemy's
guns and let the survivors perish for want of the most
•
ordinary care.

( Prom the Times of this clay.)
The bill of the war will probably never be presented
to the British public in a separate form. It is, however, '
a very natural subject of curiosity, and something like
an approximation can be obtained. Our public expen-
diture, under ordinary circumaauces, is very uniform,
and there is no great difficulty in assigning any ex-
cess to its proper causes. ILnce the quarterly ac-
count. of the public income and balances in the
Exchequer, which we publish to-day, is a very
intelligible document. Before the war our expendi-
ture was usually but little over 50,000,0001.,
which bad become as much the figure of our e,ta-
blishnient as a gentlemen's 5,0001. or 10,0001. a-year.
In the financial year just ended it has been 88,429,3451.,
is round numbers, 40,000,0001. more than in peace. At
all events, we may eertaiuly say that we spent last year
35,000,0001. more than we should have done but for
that little freak of the Emperor Nicholas. This appears
in another way. The excess of expenditure over in-
cline in the year ended March 31, 1856, as stated in the
return, was 22,723,8541., although the increased Income
tax and other war taxes had produced about 15,000,0001.
Adding thus what we did pay out of the taxes to what
we did not, the result is near 38,000,0001. To meet the
excess we contracted in the course of the year two new
loans,the ftxmer for 16,000,0001. the latter far 5,000,0001.,
with certain powers or funding Exchequer-bills, to the
amount of three millions more. The produce of all these
operations, the last of which is far from exhausted, was
20,123,0001. The unfunded debt meanwhile has been
increased by some millions. On the face of the table
the " supply services" for the army, navy, ordnance,
and votes of credit fur the war come to about 52,000,0001.

—a singular comment on the very recent proposition for
reducing the cost of the national defences to 10,000,0001.
We shall not be over the mark if we put our share in the
costs of the Russian war during the year just ended at
35,000,0001. It is true that much of it was paid for the
charges of the previous year, but it is equally true that
much—very probably as much, remains to be paid for
this year—that is, the year just ended. It is also to be
considered that much we are now doing is for future use
bat few of our readers will derive comfort from the re-
flection that the war just concluded will leave behind it
an immense establishment, personal as well as material,
to he kept up, to waste, or, still worse, to be found a
use for.
Thirty-five millions aro certainly a very large sum to
spend in bloodshed and destruction in the course of one
twelvemonth. How many social wants might have been
met, how many evils redressed, by half or a quarter of
the money I This is a consideration, of course, of little
weight when honour is in question, for honour knows
no price ; hut it is a consideration when we are not actu-
ally on the eve of war, when we have still time to look
about us, to choose our line, whether proud and provoca-
tive, or modest and pacific. War is the most costly of
all amusements, and no doubt Providence means it to
be so ; for there are people, we had almost said nations,
who would speedily exterminate all the earth besides, if
they could do it cheaply. It is true we have not been
ruirr.d. On the 31st of last month the Chancellor of the
Exchequer had a larger balance in hand than on the
same day of the previous year, and powers of borrowing
unexhausted. Were he now to announce a "clearing
loan" of ten millions or so, he would probably obtain the
money on very easy terms. Our expenditure has been
ti very much less than in the last year of the last war,
when the country was not half so wealthy as it now is ; '
when there was not a tithe of the machinery, no railways,
and when even the soil was not half so pro luctive. We
should have been well able to carry on the war ten or
twenty years longer without any excessive pressure on
our resources ; and, were money all, we could prosecute
another such war with any nation that might compel us to
the trial. But there is the danger of our wealth. The
lighter elements of the nation are easily excited to war,
r the cost of which only falls on those who have sure
I means the .losses of which only fall on some families,