The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-19 00:00:00

equally among themselves. Not but what the
Ministry must bear (by reason of their official posi-
tion) the brunt of the blame accompanying the
visible evidences of responsibility. Yet, while
the members of the Government must perforce
be held, first of all, blameworthy because of
the vapid and fruitless character of the present
session of Parliament, the Opposition must cer-
tainly not be allowed to pass by free from all
reprehension. The Opposition, in point of fact, is
invested with a responsibility only second to that
appertaining to the members of the Govern-
ment. It is the duty of the Oppo-
sition, in common parlance, to keep the
Cabinet up to the mark in the way of practical
legislation by the exercise of one moiety of its func-
tions as an Opposition. The other moiety alone,
however, has almost exclusively been called into
play since the members of the Lords and Commons
came together in February. The repressive, and
not the incentive, powers of the Opposition having
been directed of late to the regulation of the labours
of Parliament. Insomuch that the Innocents have
many of them been coolly murdered in detail all
through the session, by way, we suppose, of getting
the hands of our legislators well " in" betimes to the
work of the now fast coming. autumnal massacre.

A double barrelled literary rifle has recently fired
off two " paper bullets"—rolled into one in the very
act of discharge—as a sort of feu de joii, in honour
of the Volunteers.
An excellent little treatise, in other words, has
recently been published by the Messrs. Longmans,
a brochure*‘ entitled "The Volunteer in the Field,"
written conjointly by Captain PALLISER, of the
Eighty-second Regiment, and Captain NANGLE, of
the Royal Artillery. In the course of their argu-
ment those " brothers-in-arms," our fraternal pam-
phleteers, throw out some admirable suggestions.
While paying a well-merited tribute (a tribute all
the more valuable coming as it does, in their in-
stance, from skilled military critics) to the magni-
ficent movement of the Rifle Volunteers. Several
of these suggestions appear to us, as sympathisers
in the cause represented by our Volunteer Riflemen,
so really and practically excellent in themselves
that we are desirous cf directing attention to the
pages in which they originally make their appear-
ance.

The Volunteer Movement has by this time as-
sumed to itself such an aspect at once of perma-
nence and of magnitude, that it becomes a source of
patriotic solicitude to ensure it in every possible
way the largest amount of advantages that can be
insured to it—without militating against the inte-
grity of its distinguishing character as a VOLUN-
TEER Movement. When General PEEL insisted
some time back that all our warlike
forces indiscriminately are essentially, every
man jack of them (not a jot less than
the members of our various Rifle Corps) " Volun-
teers"—the right hon. ex-Minister-of War applied
the phrase to Army and Navy half literally, half
figuratively. Volunteers, without doubt, both our
blue jackets and our red coats, are without a drill
as contradistinguished from those foreign navies
which are still manned by pressed men, and from
those continental armies which are raised to this
day through the terrible agency of the inexorable
conscription. But Volunteers in the same sense in
which our riflemen are Volunteers, neither the crews
(of her MAJESTY'S ships nor the contingents of her
MAJESTY'S regiments can for a single moment affect
to be. Receiving pay as they do from the QUEEN'S
Government, they cannot obviously assume to them-
selves, in the fullest meaning of the phrase, the
character peculiarly belonging to the members of
our numerous rifle corps, the character expressed
in their own distinctive title as Volunteers, as the
Volunteers ! The latter, in fact, have hitherto
been entirely—self supporting. They have hereto-
fore received no further aids from the Government
than—their recognition in the first place as the new-
born National Guard of England, and in the next
the presentation, to each man, of his rifle ! But
very recently—with a view simply to secure to the
National Movement here referred to that cbaracter
of permanence which we must all desire to see
attached to it for the sake of the old
Fatherland the Question has been raised
in the House of Commons whether—with-
out running any risk of destroying its cha-
racter as a volunteered and self-supporting addition
to the defences of the country—this now consider-
able body of Volunteer Riflemen might not be more
securely kept together and sustained in its general
organisation by the according to it of some supple-
mentary assistance from the Imperial Government.
The result we all know—the result of the late tem-
perate discussion of this really delicate and some-
what momentous question in the popular branch of
the Legislature. Our Volunteers the Commons de-
cided—most wisely, most judiciously—must receive
at no time in any shape, as pay, one bronze farthing,
one doit, or stiver from the national Exchequer. It
was felt instinctively by every one that the dis-
tinctive character of our Volunteers would at once
evaporate and vanish so soon as payment in hard
coin for service should pass into the hands of our
Riflemen lrom her MAJESTY'S Treasury. Rifles
they may still receive, as they have already re-
ceived, with dignity—materiel of one kind or an-
other they may yet accept from the Government
without in any respect derogatory from their cha-
racter as Volunteers or diminishing their sense of
independence. But Pay—Never! In fact every one
sees the matter distinctly in this light. The house
has so decided—in accordance with that unanimous
recognition. And there an end. There chi end at
least to the question as to how far the State can
advance to the aid of the Volunteers practically
without destroying or in truth injuring in any
imaginable way their character as Volunteers.

There yet remain, however, still to be thought
of, and to be answered, a great variety of questions
as to the manner in which the Rifle Corps now
existing in the United Kingdom can secure to them-
selves a permanent position in the land, how far
they may be enabled to secure this to themselves
by the mere form and manner of their internal or-
ganisation. It is with a view to aid them in the
discussion of these really important considerations
h
character
and NANGLE have together
L appeared before the Riflemen of England in their
) aspamphleteers.
Foremost among the difficulties
confronting the Volunteern y critics and as
ilitar
RiflemofeanunionyaEnneeg,laanndd
there is one so frequentlya source
of costly annoyance, as it may be termed into the
bargain, necessitating as it does unnecessary waste
of both time and money—a vexation indeed so no-
torious among Riflemen that it scarcely requires to
be particularised. Allusion is made here of course
(
to the "unexpected calls," to the "extraordinary
calls" to which the members of our Rifle Corps all
over the country are perpetually being sub-
jected—calls always so "unexpected," and
often, in truth, so "extraordinary." "We are

of opinion"—say our pamphleteers (pp. 12, 13)
" We are of opinion that an effectual remedy for

this evil may be found in the substitution of one

yearly concentration of the Volunteer Corps who

* The Volunteer in the Field." By Captain E. Pal••
liser, 82d Regiment, and Captain Nangle, Royal Artil-
lery, Bvo., pp, 50, j...onsaan and Cowpony, 1861.