The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-28 00:00:00

THB MILITIA.

Mr. Sidney Herbert's speech on introducing a
bill for the amendment of the Militia Acts is the
careful investigation of a problem the importance
of which is at length fully appreciated. How are
we to extract out of our population all the military
strength which it naturally supplies, and give it its
requisite training and organization ? There can be
no doubt as to the richness of the stratum, and it
is our fault if we do not get at the ore, reduce it
to metal, and convert it, if necessary, to useful
purposes. The Registrar General tells us that
the Census of next year will probably give us more
than four millions and a half of an age to bear
arms, and, with all the deductions we can rea-
sonably make for the various causes and reasons of
incapacity, it is very strange if we cannot get as
many fighting men as we want out of so many Eng-
lishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen. There are more
deductions to be made here than in any other coun-
try, owing to the spreading and enterprising habits
of our race ; yet a man has only to use his eyes, and
he will feel that he may pick up any number of men
fit and ready to fight for England in some way or
other. But we have to contend with difficulties. It
is out of the question to set to work like France or
Austria, and attempt to raise a regular army of
450,000 soldiers, which would be our proportion,
bound to the service for a certain number of years.
The navy, the merchant service, the colonies, and
home industry have been beforehand with us. IN hen
we confine the question to the soldiers at home,
available for our defence, we have further to deduct
the large portion of our army in India and other
distant dependencies. We have only about a hun-
dred thousand soldiers at home, including all the
depots ; and this is quite as much as we can expect
to maintain, as it is considerably in advance of our
normal state for many years before the Russian
War. But, as this is plainly not enough for pos-
sible emergencies, we are driven to a more expan-
sive and heterogeneous kind of armament than our
" military" neighbours. We must be all things to
all men, and have soldiers of all kinds, adapted to
every variety of class and circumstances. We must
give openings for those who can devote two or
three years to the service, for those who can spare
a few weeks in the year, for those who can spare a
few hours in the week, and even for those who will
simply pledge themselves to be forthcoming on a
serious emergency. This, at least, is what we are
doing at this moment, and the result is numerically
a wonderful success. We gave the figures the other
day, and will repeat them. Taking the above
classification, the Embodied Militia is for those
who will not be bound for a long term, nor for
foreign service ; and it musters 15,911. The Dis-
embodied Militia affords a wider and easier op-
portunity to those who have other occu-
pations, and are not perhaps their own masters,
but can give a month or so at a convenient time of
the year. It has on its rolls 52,899, though, as Mr.
S. Herbert tells us, that figure will not bear exami-
nation. The yeomanry cavalry is a higher class of
the same kind of men, and its effectives are stated
to be 15,000. The enrolled pensioners are already
trained, and undertake to be ready in the hour of
danger. They amount to 15,000. The comes the
last class in our enumeration—the volunteer rifles
and artillery, of whom we saw a magnificent dele-
gation in Hyde-park. They are reckoned at 122,367.
Not one of these estimates makes large demands on
our faith, but by these easy steps we mount up to
the very satisfactory total of 323,259—independent
of all our soldiers abroad ; independent too, as we
believe, of immese numbers of civilians at home
ready to fight for their country, and able to do good
service.

Of all these classes that which is most in ques-
tion, and in fact under change, is the embodied
militia, numbering, as we have said, a little under
16,000. These men cost as much as the line ; they
make too just as good soldiers, but they are not
available for foreign service ; it is a difficult task to
select the right kind of officers for them ; and the
chief use which has hitherto been made of these
regiments, as feeders for the line, is one that de-
stroys them as a militia, leads to a fearful amount
of desertion and fraud, and even infects the disci-
pline of the regiments of the line brought Into
contact with them. These are evils too great to
be borne, even though the- embodied militia is a
form of service which has its conveniences to good
soldiers and honest men as well as to the contrary.
But it is argued that if a man is willing to serve in
a camp or a barrack:for several yea's, a very little
inducement will bring him into the line, for it
cannot be supposed that an ordinary Englishman
sets much store on the militiaman's privilege of
not fighting except against an actual invader.
The amount of bounty lost by these men
deserting and enlisting in the line, or perhaps
going off altogether, is a serious item in our mili-
tary expenditure. Then comes the difficulty about
officers. The very notion of the militia is that it
is the indigenous force of the country, officered by
men enjoying influence and virtual command over
the feelings of the people. They may or may not
be country gentlemen, of old families and landed
property; but they ought to be men holding real
sway by virtue of their position and character.
These, however, are generally the men most tied to
their homes, and least able to reside for a couple of
years in a colony or at a camp. Had they desired
this sort of life, and been freed from home duties,
they wouldlhave gone into the line. The conclu-
sion is that it is difficult to officer these regiments
rightly. Again, there can be no permanent reason
for embodying one regiment of militia and not
another ; so that under the existing system there
must always be changes equivalent to the creation
and disbanding of effective corps. These changes
are costly, inconvenient, and as wasteful of men as
of money. The very fact of an embodied militia
implies the useless character of the disembodied,
which is a charge and trouble to the country with-
out any equivalent benefit.
The present proposition is so to amend the gene-
ral militia act as to make all the militia equally
serviceable. It is proposed to raise the militia in
England from the nominal force of 80,000 to
120,000 effectives, and to raise the Scotch and
Irish militias from 5,000 and 15,000 to double those
numbers. With all the recent experience of
the
laxity of the service, it implies some faith in
power of administration to hope for anything
bet-
ter; but Mr. Sidney Herbert speaks with confidence.
To prevent double personation he praopoesetbi'm. thate To
the regiments shall practise at the e
secure good training, every regimentohave as
m
is
ptohsed the
have an
adjutant and two sergeants who
if tey
v .
school at Hythe. Besides variousmilitia
omf iando
jroiopiroog
amal-
isions, it is intended that the
The
counties may be
depots for stores are to
g be
me
ha toei dl t
hf oyr
ot
or eel
tin ions g,
hand d •
e site design of
desire, and rented by
however, it is desirable that t Government. In this case
the building should be approved by the engineers,
as a depot for arms should always be made de-
fensible, and cannot therefore be left to the county
architect, as if it were an• almshouse or a county
court. Tee whole of the militia, disembodied as
well as embodied, have been furnished with the En.
field rifle, and all that is now wanted is to secure the
attendance of those who are on the books, and in
respect of whom a considerable outlay has been •
made. If the principle of the general militia, as a
local force, under officers of local influence and
knowledge, bo faithfully carried out there must be
an end of the systematic desertion and non-attend-
ance, which make the whole force little better than
a delusion and a scandal. These are not, or at least

ought not to be, men enlisted from the public houses
of Westminster, or any other recruiting ground, but
men whose character and life ate well known. As
the rifle corps, with their occasional hour of prac-
tice, will be hiefly from the middle ranks of the
towns, and the yeomanry will be from the village
farmers, so the militia should be from the peasant
class, which can meet for practice in months so fixed
as not to interfere with the operations of husbandry.
This is a reasonable way of meeting all cases and
classes; and, when it is fairly carried out, there can
no longer be any pretence for embodying one regi-
ment of militia and disembodying another, As
caprice may suggest„—Thnes.