TRk ITNEKELORED,,BECRpi,liNG .FIELDS: , .-
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THE staten t Made by; Sir De.,,Ltiey Evans just before the sepa- ration of.,,W.gominous ;Ion . Tuesday,,-is,likely. to be of -servioe in
stiiiitila JIISO.exertiona Of the Government, at home; but if it go I
abroad wit aid Correction , it may . hnve .some positively injurious effects; an those who are responsible for protecting the interests of • the country are bound to 46 their best iii theaking the uncon- sidered and undesired: infleenCe: of the statement. , :Sir - De Lacy EVanit's- iiiiifitimi Was, that if .the war be.presecuted for any Wile, it tvm he.ikee§a4 to make larger exertions than we have yet under- taken--.-to bring them nearer to the standard of the last war, when we were keeping up .a foreeof 80,00G .British troops upon the Eastern coast of Spain. besides 40,000 Portuguese commanded by British offi- cers ; with assistanee.rendered to the Spanieh Government; troops to maintain in the Mediterranean, and warlike operations to carry on Open tbe..Canadian. frontier.: We have done nothing upon that scale yet ; but preparations,wa know, are ::Made. ler; supplying a &Mem the :East during the next winter, not Tory far short of the numbers ' Mentioned 4T§ir De Lacy Xv,4444; '8000 is the amount reckoned,. and.'the,rce will be under no deficiency for clothing and. supplies. , The, shortcomings of ..the past winter; : . both with re- gard to the Men and to the munitions of wart . will be rectified. The conquest of Sebastopol, however, cannot be the termination of the War, Unless Buissia,were- thereupon to yield and:to-accept that limitation Whioh.* hive declared, it necessary to ;put upon her. WCbsuitge'lla: the captOre. Pf-SelAstopvt.. to aeoemplieli that ; and if we eittitinff the operatjons of the war, we shall probably..re, quire' higher numbers for our army than we have yet engaged. But the, higaer. the number, the larger. the field of operations, and the 'greater the activity of war,.-thebigher,must- be the arithme- tical' iininiifft of wasto and of , the supplies Of -vont 11BOOSBILTy to re- pair that was=: and , 0= is the point,-upozi- wbieltSir De Lacy EventiLli, itteug: .:There are, he says, :no fewer than eevou.seasoned- Engliali'bettaheas:itt the Cape of Good H. ope,who.will he More serviceable than raw recruits or militialtuls ; alidtheftare, troops. at other 'Stations, is in the Mediterranean, , The Militia bould.sup- ply the stations in the Mediterranean; and the service of :defend.: tog the frontier *Oast the Cape Coffres ceuld be fer;:better exe- cuted by irregular cavalry from India than by . regular European troops. _ We have 40,00 European troops in :India,' and Native soldiers which raise the force to about 3-,20,000‘. ;Sir 'Halsey also glanted at the Australian 0010Hie0 aRd. our other : dependencies, and itt' t the enlistment of German and Polish legions.
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Noy,' the injurious effect which might be .ptodueed by this statement would *rise from its -being taken as n stirvey of our whole resources, whereas it is the survey el, a..part only of those resources, omitting others not less important. In this:first:place, Sir Be Lacy speaks as if we must begin to look .ahroect from the deficiency of our recruiting material . at hoenewilitut .Ministers must be told; as well as the eneroki that the peculiar :plan of levying the British forces is not calculated to draw out the strength of the 'home. population ; On the contrary, : it is rather calculated to draw out the Weakness of that population. . An at- tempt heti been made, by doubling the pay of soldiers on service in the Crimea, to :Am the income of :the -common , soldier on a level with that of, *-.workman; but , half of the payis,reserved. Now, any contractor Could tell Lord Patimure, that ..he Would get few hands for the prompt -execution of it- contract if he • were to offer 1= hands half Weigea weekly; with the other bait reserved until the termination of the contract, three or four years. heat*. It is not Prudential men that calculate that length, who are lady to go soldiering, but the 'adventurous ,classes-alaslier iwhodlook for speedy resultsin a striking form. More pay is; necessary for the =per maintenance of the -soldier, morally. as. liciUss phy-; 81 y; and it ought to be given for ,its oven :merits, aircl not as an attraalM A far hotter attraction would be to separate the bounty„froth the rett4t. allowance, so ,. that the soldier Might no longer regard the Mixture of the two different kinds as a joggle, while the premium, honorarium, or fee, ' should be sufficient to a real *tkaatiart-7-icniething worth handling and handing over. It might ii4-a clear beauty of five or ten ;pounds ; half of it pro- babitto "the girl he leaves behind him; or the *hole perchance for tho4**entally.-untwoogoised wife and children. This would draw thousands to thayeortiitingstatiens, and would save expense, tranbik, and delay, in the operations of recruiting-officers. Then,
probably, we should know something of the population which England can produce, and can continue to produce during a war. It is because the Government abstains simultaneously from im- pressment, and from holding out attractions for volunteers, that we do not get a larger and a better recruiting at home. Sir Be Lacy Evans is quite correct in what he says with regard to India and the Cape. Golden Australia ought not to be unde- fended; but probably a portion of the Indian army would serve well there, mingled in case of need with the active and courageous volunteers that Australia could supply. Government has already resolved to take a legion from British North America, of French and English origin ; and among a population of three millions, constantly recruited by emigration as well as births, large con- tingents might be obtained, even though a better adjustment of the bounty should draw some part of our recruiting supplies direct from the emigrating body. The colonists are full of ardour; but some circumstances have made them doubt whether their ardour is appreciated at home. They have an ambition to be commanded by their own officers, 'and they resent the idea that the higher posts shall not be equally open to colonists as to natives of the United Kingdom. They will of course be willing enough to serve under the Queen's cousin as Commander-in-chief, and Colonel Prince himself would not think of competing with the Duke of Cambridge; but the facilities that have been disoerned by ardent Sir Gaspard' he Merchant have perhaps been counterbalanced by difficulties which have overlaid military authorities in other quarters. Moreover, routine is so powerful at home, that it might perhaps be thought almost impossible to hold out the conditions which would render service in the Eastern army absolutely at- tractive to colonists.
Nothing but ambition can draw a man into the field as a so!.. - dier, and the conditions might really be such as to indulge am; bition. The individual soldiers will want to see their way to ells- tinotion. The communities which facilitate the military =aver- ment will want to see their corporate efforts recognized. If they cooperate in the defence of the empire, they may perkaps ask why they are excluded from representation in the metropolis- of the empire. And it would be difficult to answer the question, eireept by the old plea, that persons at head-quarters -seldom have a very lively interest in the Colonies. Why then should the Colonies feel much interest for head-quarters? If those who are respon- sible for securing an expansion of our resources as the war ex- pands wish to succeed, their ideas also must expand proportion- ately. If they are forced into a new state of circumstances they must meet the exigency with new ideas ; or, being uneirml to their- position, they will be thrust out by men of more expanintefactilties.
It would be a mistake for a Russian reader to imagite that we have no more resources than those impersonated by the representa4 tive men on the field of the Crimea—a great mistake to suppose that the field ofresources extends only to the quarters mentioned by-' Sir De Lacy Evans, when we have whole classes of the home pal pulation left without an appeal, and whole sections of the empire recognized only in very lax and imperfect "negotiations!' If there is any deficiency, it is not in the field of our resources, but in the narrow view of the public men, who cannot frame the condi- tions necessary for bringing the resources of the country freely into play.
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