in addition to their company and battalion drill, to take part in annual manœuvres, for whatever length of time, within fourteen days, may be required of them. Officers for both yeomanry and volunteers may not be so easily found as for the militia; but the mystery of commanding a company or a troop is scarcely so deep as that a young gentleman of average ability may not succeed in getting to the bottom of it, after one or two annual trainings. At all events, the experiment is well worth trying.

And now a word or two, before bringing this paper to a close, in reference first to the standing army, and next to the requirements, both of that and of the army of reserve, in the important matter of administration and supply. With respect to the standing army, we content ourselves by suggesting that the great object of the military authorities ought to be to make it complete in all its parts; gradually but slowly, as the force becomes effective, to reduce its numbers, provided peace be matured—not by sending trained men about their business, as was done the other day, but by transferring them to the reserve;—and to make these reductions, when they can be made with safety, exclusively from the infantry. The artillery of the British army ought to be in a far greater proportion to the other branches of the service than the artillery of any other country in the world. Instead of 180 field-guns the utmost which, by any expedient, we could now put in the field, we should be able to turn out twice that amount at least,-better if we say thrice, -fully manned, horsed, and appointed. Our cavalry, also, should not fall short of twelve or fifteen thousand mounted sabres. With these and our home force-a portion of which might easily be rendered effective as garrison artillery, we could get on very well in time of peace, if the infantry did not exceed a hundred thousand, all told. Indeed but for India, we should feel perfectly safe with fifty thousand regular infantry under their colours, after the reserves were in such a state as would enable us to expand them to a hundred thousand in the event of a sudden call. But field artillery and cavalry you cannot make efficient, except after a year or two of training; and without continued practice the training both of the artilleryman and the trooper is soon forgotten. No doubt India, though it drain us of men, pays its own military expenses. So far, therefore, the country is not, in a pecuniary point of view, more heavily burdened by being obliged to keep on foot a hundred than if it mustered only fifty thousand infantry. But the drawback remains, that, till some steps are taken to render service in India to a certain extent distinct from service elsewhere, we really cannot see our way either to large reductions in the strength

strength of the infantry or to a satisfactory working of a system of short servitude, whether in the infantry or the cavalry or the artillery.

The general principle on which the standing army of England ought to be dealt with is, however, obvious enough. An overwhelming artillery, such as shall suffice for militia, as well as regular troops in the field, a stout cavalry, and an infantry, small but perfect, and capable of rapid expansion-give us these, in addition to our domestic garrison, and panics will hereafter be things unknown among us.

And now in regard to transport and supply. We should be glad to be assured that the staff of every railway in the kingdom were in communication with the War Office; that every chairman of a company, every traffic-manager, every stationmaster, engineer, stoker, and porter, had received his instructions how to act in the event of certain contingencies, and understood them. We should be further glad to know that the pattern gun and pattern fuse for field artillery, the pattern waggon, ambulance, and general equipment for field hospitals, were not only settled, but in process of rapid completion. It would be a still greater satisfaction to us to learn that the armament of our fortresses was making progress; that Gibraltar and Malta were supplied with something more efficacious than the old smoothbore sixty-four pounder; and that of breech-loaders there were sufficient to arm as they ought to be armed, the whole or even a moiety of the men that we count upon as our army of reserve. As to knapsacks, haversacks, blankets, camp-kettles, and all the appliances required when troops take the field, it is to be feared that were a sudden call made for these things, it could be but indifferently answered. Mr. Cardwell, however, is not idle; he has established schools of military instruction, which militia and volunteer officers are invited to attend. He is trying experiments with mitrailleuses. He is determined, like his predecessors, to go on experimenting till he shall have discovered the best possible garrison gun, and then, we presume, to make it. We do do not object to this; far from it. Valeat quantum. But in the meanwhile would it not be judicious to let Major Palliser, or some other expert, try whether or not good use might be made of the piles of ordnance which now cumber, and for years past have cumbered the Arsenal at Woolwich? Nor is this all. Often as the Government has been warned that nothing at Woolwich is really safe, often as it has been demonstrated that an active enemy, forcing his way up the Thames, could without difficulty destroy our most important reserves, even if he attempted nothing more, we are still without that supplementary maga

zine, at a safe point inland, which has been so repeatedly asked for, we believe, projected, and is so sorely needed. If Mr. Cardwell and his Surveyor-General of the Ordnance will but turn their attention to this matter, they may render to the country a very important service. We venture also to suggest that some such organisation of the waggons and draft cattle of the whole country as was effected during the War of the French Revolution be again matured. If arrangements were made whereby every General commanding a district could be informed where, and to what extent, the private carriages and horses within the limits of his command might be made available in case of need, a prodigious step would be taken towards rendering our reserve forces mobile, and therefore available, at a few days' notice. There is still time-thanks to the turn which events have taken on the Continent to think of these and other matters akin to them, and to make at least a beginning in acting upon the thought. Let us express the hope that Mr. Card well, taking a wiser view of the situation than seems to be entertained by more than one of his colleagues, will not allow an opportunity to escape from him, such as may never come again.

ART. IX.-Count Bismarck's Circular Letters to Foreign Courts. 1870.

THE

HE time has not yet come for an inquiry either into the causes or the ultimate results of the tempest that is now sweeping over Europe. We can already clearly see that the diplomatic science of modern times must be re-cast. There is no portion of the European equilibrium in which the power of France does not form an important element, and that element must now be struck out of every calculation. What will be the position of the Scandinavian Powers before Germany, or of the Ottoman Empire before Russia? These are problems with which statesmen will have to grapple before long. The insolence of 'big battalions' will not suffer them to sleep; but they do not constitute the pressing interest of the moment. the midst of the devouring calamities of the present war men have little heart to speculate upon more distant and contingent evils. The hope of peace is the one solicitude of all who are not maddened by the bloodthirstiness of conflict. How is all this desolation to be arrested? Can no resource be found in the influence of neutrals, in the calmer judgment of the victors themselves, to bring these calamities to an end? Is it possible that

In

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two nations so civilised, so loud in philanthropic profession, should be able to find no better way to accommodate their conflicting wishes than a butchery and a devastation which will not make agreement easier, and which no agreement can undo? Cannot we, who have nothing to lose or gain by the issue, who were strangers to the quarrel and to the rivalry out of which it sprang, do anything to bring the combatants to a more reasonable mind?

Whatever the duties of neutrality may be, men must be of stone who, in the presence of so much misery, can refrain from reflections such as these. To what extent they have found an expression in our national action it is difficult to say. No one can doubt that a strong feeling prevails in England in favour of some effort to arrest the slaughter. Whether this feeling is shared or repudiated by the Government no one can tell. The disclaimers put forth at provincial dinners by various members of the Government go for very little. Diplomatic action is not necessarily ineffective because it is unavowed. The moment when its character should change, and its formal garb should be assumed; is a matter of delicacy, on which the outside world can arrive at no safe opinion. We have fair ground for hoping, from the known disposition of the Ministers principally concerned, that their inaction is only simulated, and that they are watching, with anxiety at least equal to that which any who are not responsible can feel, for the moment when the formal mediation of neutrals can advantageously commence. We are, however, fully aware how low the influence of England has fallen. The fictions which have been our grand device for settling all internal difficulties have spread to every part of the national affairs. We have compromised between the traditions of the aristocracy and the more prudent instincts of the middle class by a foreign policy which never acts, and by an army which is too weak to fight any civilised nation except under the wing of a military ally. If our remonstrances are to be valued by the strength which lies behind them, they are worth about as much in Count Bismarck's scales as those of Belgium or Denmark. But our selfimposed weakness does not relieve us from all responsibility. In ordinary times silence may best become the feeble. It is useless to invite rebuffs by expressing opinions that are not wanted on every passing European event. But there are calamities which transcend all ordinary rules, and to the authors of them we are bound to speak; to give advice, if it will be received-if not, at least to pronounce a judgment and record a protest. Rebuffs suffered in such a cause would not be dishonourable; they would at least save us from any moral complicity

with acts which we abhor, and from the danger of being estopped by a seeming acquiescence at this time from the chances of action which future contingencies might offer.

We do not dispute that offers of mediation must depend for their opportunity, and for their justification to some extent, on the mood of the power to whom they are addressed. It is easy to imagine cases in which the offer would be worse than futile. The most benevolent' neutral would have abstained from remonstrating with Brennus in the Forum or Mahmoud at the gates of Constantinople. The homilies of the Foreign Office would have glanced off harmlessly from the moral armour of Rosas or Juarez. Conquerors of the barbaric type are as little willing to hear argument on the moral obligations of the victors to the vanquished as the cat would be to discuss her duties to the mouse. Such potentates are simply human beasts of prey. They recognise no other intervention between them and the gratification of their cupidity and their revenge than that which can make good its words by blows. Any more pacific approach they receive only with a growl of menace. An appeal to mercy is wasted on them, because it is addressed to feelings which they never had or have lost. Nothing will arrest their career of devastation but satiety or disaster.

If Her Majesty's Ministers have thoroughly satisfied themselves that the Prussians must be classed in this category of conquerors, there is nothing more to be said on the subject of diplomatic action. In that case the Prussians enjoy for the present that immunity from remonstrance, which is the privelege of triumphant brute force. But if the Government adopt this view, they must have strong grounds for doing so, of which the outside world have no conception. The Prussians do not seem in the least anxious to occupy such a position in the eyes of other European nations. They lay claim to no such immunity from neighbourly criticism and advice. On the contrary, they seem to invite it. In hypocrisy or in sincerity, they spontaneously appear at the bar of opinion to plead their cause against the people whom they are preparing to despoil. Count Bismarck's Circular Letters to foreign Courts, whatever we may think of their style of argument, are an acknowledgment that Prussia expects her doings to be judged by neutral nations, and that it is a matter of no trivial concern to her to procure a favourable judgment. If in answer to this challenge our Government expresses no opinion, we must either conclude that it has no opinion to give, or that a careful consultation with Mr. Cardwell and Mr. Childers has banished from the mind of the Cabinet every consideration except that of

terror.

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