the House of Commons that passed the Reform Bill under his guidance should practically decide that his Irish policy, or no-policy, is altogether unsatisfactory or wrong, can he or will he set aside or make light of the decision? Would his colleagues stand by him if he did? We should then have to tide over a crisis with a condemned and moribund House of Commons and a condemned and moribund Administration; which, except upon the doctrine that two negatives make an affirmative, would be a constitutional problem rather difficult to work out. The vote, taken merely as the vote of a body which once represented the nation, and must represent it, for better or worse, till January next, will cut deep. The wound, like Mercutio's, though not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, will be enough: 'twill serve. The dukes, in particular, need be under no fear of inconvenience to the public service; for, strange as they may think it, they will be speedily and advantageously replaced.

By way of complicating the entanglement, an immediate dissolution has been threatened in order to frighten such waverers as are fools enough to believe that Mr. Disraeli would dare, or would be permitted, to change what he calls a moribund and morally incompetent Parliament for another similarly disqualified. The state of public business makes the majority masters of the situation, and they might address the Queen to prevent the last desperate throw of the political dice. He

forgot this when he circulated the threat; and, to say the truth, his language, since he came from under Lord Derby's gaberdine, has been more than ordinarily inaccurate, inconsequential, and indiscreet. If he does not take care, he will soon present the startling example of the mental law that a man who is

habitually indifferent to accuracy or consistency, who trifles with his own conscience or intellect, who uses words as counters to which an artificial and temporary value may be attached at pleasure, will end by numbing his moral sense and impairing all the finer faculties of his understanding. To such a man,

truth is what serves the purpose of the hour. He has no other criterion of truth, and he goes on judging other men by himself, when he has grown unlike other men; when he has fallen below the low standard he began by applying to them. This is one reason amongst many why honesty is the best policy, why vaulting ambition so often o'erleaps itself and falls on the other side.

When Mr. Jenkinson, the gentleman in the Vicar of Wakefield, who educated' Moses into buying the green spectacles, makes a clean breast of it, he says: 'But no disparagement to your parts. I have deceived wiser men than you in my time, and yet, with all my tricks, the blockheads have been too many for me at last; indeed, I think, from my own experience, that the knowing one is the silliest fellow under the sun. I was thought cunning from my very childhood. At fourteen, I knew the world, cocked my hat, and loved the ladies. . . . I used often to laugh at your honest, simple neighbour Flamborough, and one way or another generally cheated him once a year. Yet still the honest man went forward without suspicion, and grew rich, while I still continued tricksy and cunning, and was poor, without the consolation of being honest.' It will be curious to learn, when Vivian Grey has completed his career, how far his experience bears out that of Mr. Jenkinson. After long experience of the world,' writes Junius, 'I vow to God, I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy.' Does this apply

to political roguery, with which alone we have to do here?

Raro antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede Pœna claudo.

We do not know that we can conclude this article better than by the peroration of Mr. Disraeli's speech in the Maynooth debate of 1845, when he called on Lord Russell, as Mr. Gladstone might call on Lord Cranborne and General Peel, to aid in turning out a dishonest Government, to think less of the limited object of the motion, than of its effects in elevating the tone of political morality and freshening the atmosphere of political life:

'Whatever may be the various motives and impulses which animate these different sections of opinion, there is at least one com

mon ground for co-operation-there is one animating principle which may inspire us all. Let us in this House re-echo that which I believe to be the sovereign sentiment of this country: let us tell persons in high places that cunning is not caution, and that habitual perfidy is not high policy of state. On that ground we may all join. Let us bring back to this House that which it has for so long a time been without-the legitimate influence and salutary check of a constitutional opposition. This is what the country requires, what the country looks for. Let us do it at once in the only way in which it can be done, by dethroning this dynasty of deception, by putting an end to the intolerable yoke of official despotism and parliamentary imposture.'

FRASER'S

S it not a reproach to the men who have led our political parties for the last thirty years that they have been unable to discover, amongst all that have passed their youth in camps and garrisons, a single individual combining in his own person some knowledge of military business with the parliamentary abilities necessary in a secretary of state for war? Is it not an odd thing also, that among the many colonels and captains who have been lucky enough to be returned to Parliament it has been seldom, if ever, that one has been found to make a speech on military affairs combining some of the graces of rhetoric with a vigorous treatment of his subject? General Peel and Lord Panmure may indeed be cited as possessing a limited amount of military knowledge together with a certain robustness of elocution and range of thought lifting them above the nonentities who usually stand up in the House to defend the defects of the service. Sir De Lacy Evans was a warrior whose abilities far exceeded those of men in general, but no government called him to its councils. Lord Hardinge, a soldier of fortune, entered the House under the auspices of a party chief, with some view to serving his party as a professional man. He gave us

VOL. LXXVII.-NO. CCCCLXI.

the pensioners! And there our list ends; because of Lord Herbert, a civilian, the utmost that can be said is that he was amiable and assiduous. His official career is admirably symbolised by the graces of the statue which represents him at the entrance to the War Office. Hence, from year to year old abuses have been continued, old defects left untouched, old weaknesses petrified. Indeed, if it had not been for the press-for Blackwood, Fraser, the Saturday Review, and the Pall Mall Gazette-the country might have remained in ignorance down to the present time, that the army, on account of which such enormous sums are annually voted, is little better than a sham. We regret to say that this opinion, which we felt ourselves called upon to express a year ago, has undergone no material change. General Peel's scheme, from which so much was expected, proves to be inadequate to the occasion. England is still as helpless in the event of a sudden call on her military resources as she ever was, and it is left to us to revert to a subject of which we begin to fear that the importance will not be admitted till some great national disaster has forced it on the convictions of all classes.

The imperial garrison, or stand

Ꭱ Ꭱ 2

ing army of this country, though one in name, is made up in reality of three separate sections. Taken in its individuality, it comprises about 185,000 men of all arms, exclusive of officers. Taken separately, we have in India, 62,000; in the colonies, 35,000; in the British Isles, 88,000. Under this latter head, however, must be included nearly 12,000 men, who cannot be counted upon as fighting troops. These are the depôts of the various corps serving in India and the colonies, which though reckoned on the English establishment, neither ought to be, nor could be, brought into line of battle. The most that could be done with them would be to take from each depôt (and there are 90) its best. half, at the cost of depriving the other half of men essential to parades of instruction; and when we had concentrated these imperfectly drilled troops under a skilful commander, and formed them into companies and battalions, we should have then only turned them to a purpose for which they were not enlisted. It is no good economy to use up the reserves of armies serving abroad in order to bring raw recruits into a doubtful field in England. We must (when calculating the real strength of the home garrison) strike out the depôts altogether. Their numbers are so variable-to-day at their full strength, to-morrow reduced by draftsthat no general responsible for a line of battle could count on their muster roll. Neither may they be added to the armies abroad, because there they represent so many discharged, deceased, or disabled men. Twelve thousand then must be subtracted from the army at home, which brings it to 66,000, more or less, ready for action.

The efficiency of our whole army, our 185,000 men, must be tested by its liabilities compared with its organisation and distribution.

be

The British army proper, the 66,000 men, is liable to four services of the greatest importance; the other two, the army in India, and the army in the colonies, are each liable to only one service. The army in India is for war in India; the regiments in the colonies are for war in the colonies; but the army at home is for war at home, war on the continent, war in the colonies, and war in India. The 62,000 men in India may be contending before the year is out with a national rebellion, a sepoy mutiny, and a frontier invasion. They cannot maintain this contest without huge reinforcements of drafts from the depôts and of brigades from the British garrison. It was so ten years ago, it may so again. Meanwhile, and simul taneously with this eastern rebellion, troubles may arise in the west, out of a revolt of the negro races, or a Fenian or other invasion of Canada. How are the 66,000 troops at home to feed both the Indian and colonial armies, maintaining at the same time an adequate garrison for Ire land, and a force capable of showing front to danger, should it threate from the other side of the Channel? General Peel's plan looks to the militia to meet the emergency. I is positively the only device tha has been proposed by authority, and it amounts to this, that out of the 120,000 men enlisted for home ser vice, 30,000 shall be allowed, if they please, to enlist for general service, and to receive for so doing a increase of bounty. But observe the evils which must necessarily attend this arrangement, supposing it to be effected. The 30,000 militiamen engaged for general service are either drilled troops, or they are not. If they come to the ranks of the regular army undrilled, they are perfectly useless in a sudden emergency. If they are drilled, they withdraw from the militia, not only its most reliable portion, but the instruments wherewith the residue

might have been trained to become useful. Yet till General Peel gave us this army of reserve, we had positively nothing to fall back upon as a feeder for our Indian and colonial forces in case war should suddenly come.

While the 66,000 men of whom we are speaking as the home garrison, is liable to be weakened by the demand for reinforcements from both India and the colonies, it is certain that not under any contingency could its strength be raised, by the recall of any portion either of the Indian or the colonial garrisons. Both will have their hands full whenever England goes to war, whether it be in defence of Canada, ›r the West Indies, or to put down in Indian revolt, or because of some lifference with a great European Dower. Indeed, in the latter case, is surely as in the three former, India or the colonies will make lemands upon the home army; for here can be no war between Engand and France, for example, nor probably, in the present temper of he United States, between England ind Russia, which would not extend o all parts of the world. Our 56,000 men would, therefore, have o provide, first, reinforcements to ur own foreign possessions; next, force sufficient to meet and repel nvasion from abroad; and third, a field army to be employed with the armies of our allies, if we had any, on the continent of Europe. Let as see how, by present arrangements, these various contingencies are provided for.

First, for the protection of our own shores, we have, besides the regular troops, the volunteers, the yeomanry, the enrolled pensioners, and the regular militia. Into the constitution of these various forces, it is not our intention to inquire at length. The subject has been very fully treated elsewhere, and the results seem to be these. However prompt the volunteers may be to

take up arms and march to meet an enemy, they have neither the organisation nor the constitution which can render them fit for the actual business of war. They are bound by no military obligation. They can quit the service at any time by giving a week's notice. They are all, more or less, men having business on their hands which cannot be interrupted except at enormous inconvenience; and they are not subject whether embodied or disembodied to the Mutiny Act. We say nothing of their lack of equipment for a campaign, such as knapsacks, canteens, haversacks, and the like; because all these might be supplied after an interval. But they are without a staff, without a commissariat, without means of transport, without tents; and what is more, save in exceptional cases, it would be extremely difficult to supply them with these things. Remember that though in London and other great towns, it is easy enough to bring together from time to time, perhaps 300 or 400 out of battalions nominally 1,000 or 1,200 strong; in the rural districts volunteers drill by companies, and even by squads, which at the best are drawn into battalions only once or twice a year. How could you prepare these men for protracted operations in the field, extending it might be for six or eight months at a stretch; and rendering necessary continual changes of ground, advances, retreats, and all the other contingencies of war? Nor can you reckon upon manning your fortresses with volunteers, and thereby setting free for more active work troops less under the constraints of civil occupations. Out of the whole force of 150,000, probably not 50,000 could afford to be absent from their homes for anything except a spurt. The volunteers, therefore, may be counted upon as comparatively of little use, save under very exceptional circumstances. They might add a