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Vjsbkujlbx 3,1855.] THB liEADEK, 109
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THE WAR HENCEFORWARD. "E ngland," writes...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The National Party Tried By Its Opportun...
she has promised to them their full share We are approaching a redistribution of the map of Europe arranged as it was at the last general congress by a coterie of decorated gamblers , ignorant alike of nations and of natural boundaries , for the benefit of the ruling class at the expense of every people on the Continent . Constitutional freedom and
national independence might almost be dictated by the alliance at the suggestion of England . It would be so , if we could secure worthy representatives of the country which has obtained for itself Magna Charta and the Bill of Bights— -those great standards of our own freedom , from which however , we ourselves have drifted backwards .
The consequences at home would not be less signal than those abroad . To maintain the position of England on the Continent , we need a redevelopment of our military system . To render that system efficient we require a reform of its constitution . By the combination of families whose hereditary connexion renders them a kind of volunteer corporation , the command of the army has in the main been retained for the aristocracy . There is one qualification : by the system of purchasing , commissions are retained exclusively for the rich . The results of the system are seen in the disasters of the Crimea . The
custom has prevented even the aristocracy from attaining that distinction in chivalrous service which at former times they have so signally achieved . The failure of the campaign has rendered peremptory a demand for a reform ; the demand is a new test to the patriotism and power of all classes . Will the aristocracy and the " wealthier " classes consentto a reform which will destroy their monopoly ? We scarcely believe it ; we anticipate that the demand for reform will be blunted and staved off by a compromise . If the
middle and popular classes were effectively represented , thi ? question of opening the commissions of the army to the ranks , and therefore to all classes—to the poor aristocracy and the middle and working classes—would be grappled with and settled . Besides openng the army to other classes , the effect of the reform would "be to bring that great instrument of power more closely into connexion with the nation , and so to diminish a too exclusive connexion of the soldiery with the Executive
Government , with the Crown , and with the incorporated families . Unhappily , the antimilitary disqualification of the most powerful of the popular representatives precludes them from effecting a reform which would rescue one-half of our constitution from decay . A part of the reform required for rendering the army efficient , and sustaining it by a reserve , as
the Duke of Wellington desired , would be , to develop our militia ; but that would be to neutralise the executive power . We have no belief that Temples , or Russells , will call a truly national army into existence . The members of a national party would do so , but our popular members have committed themselves against the militia , which they con-Bider to interfere with " business . " Sustained
by a truly national force , the members of a national party would develop the power of the entire community by exercising that power on the broadest field with the grandest results and the largest benefits for all classes of mankind . Alas ! our popular members , who stand in lieu of the leaders of such a national party , have put themselves out of office by identifying themselves with the narrowest chimeras . A
place is open for such men as Hampden , Iretoi * ,- or' Ckomwjsll ; but to take advantage of that opportunity for restoring official influence , either the National party must send up new men , or it must induce the men already at its head to lay aside their crotchets , and grapple with the world as they find it .
The National Party itself , if it can be said to exist , has sought distinctive existence mainly by resistance to the late Ministry ; as if a negative and antagonistic mission could ever suffice for the birthright of a National Party ! No ; we require , men who can fetch the arms of the British constitution out of the museum in which they have been suffered to rust , and use them vigorously in the service of mankind , to retrieve the honour and power of their class and of their country . ' There is the opportunity ; what we do not yet discover is the man .
Vjsbkujlbx 3,1855.] Thb Lieadek, 109
Vjsbkujlbx 3 , 1855 . ] THB liEADEK , 109
The War Henceforward. "E Ngland," Writes...
THE WAR HENCEFORWARD . "E ngland , " writes M . Peybat , in his admirable letters from London to La JPresse , " has constantly laboured to become a great house of business , and she is astonished that she has not become a barrack . " That is the true state of the question , so far as the outburst of public indignation is concerned . We have long boasted that we were the workshop of the world . So exclusively have we become that , and nothing else , that when we are called upon to devote our energies to something higher—the maintenance of public law and national potency—we find that we have long ago parted with the means of executing our intentions and fulfilling our duties . A great war for public right found us with regiments instead of an army ; with brave fighting men , but no machinery to sustain them in the camp and in the field . We care nothing for the break-down of the Abebdeen Cabinet .
The fate of a Coalition is nothing to us . With our military system it matters little whether we exchange a Newcastle for a Gtbet , an Aberdeen for a Palme bston ; or whether official England ranges itself under the showy rhetoric of a Debby , and the O riental dictatorship of an Ei , iiENB obotj oh-. Unless the system be changed , it will be only a change of persons ^ But what we do care for is that the severe lesson read to the nation
in these latter days shall not be lost upon the national intelligence ; that in future we shall not forget the interests of the barrack in our eagerness to care for the house of business ; and that we shall not forget that no nation ,., however . , successful ., as _ a _ , gigantic " firm , " ever sustained its place in the world which * did not maintain , with the utmost care , a highly-disciplined and effectively-organised army .
The late Ministers had not the courage to turn the Serpentine through the Horse Guards ; they had not the courage to break down that monopoly of promotion which has been the bane of our military system , as much as another monopoly was the bane of commerce . They have failed because thej r did not grapple with a decrepit system' ; because they sought to make war under an incubus of routine and nepotism ; not to speak of an absolute want of two great
departments of the army—a regular land transit service , and an educated staff . Theft intentions , we believe , were honest , but they had not the courage to dare , the brain to plan , the hand to execute . The real causes of the break-down of our system lie deeper than the faults of an Administration ; they are to be found in that deplorable complication of patronage and routine of which , until now , every Administration has been at once the victim , the accomplice , and the slave .
Who or what is to blamo ? In the first place that spirit in the country which prevented any Government from calling out the militia for so many years ; that spirit which made " peace and retrenchment" a profitable cry , within three years of the signing of the Treaty of Adrianople ; that spirit which , in later years , tolerated the peace agitations and
peace congresses set on foot by the believers in Mr . Cobden and the Emperor of Russia ; that spirit , in short , which- left our army without a reserve , our fleet a fleet only on paper , and the British Government without any unquestionable potency to sustain its voice in the affairs of the world . Irom the wide dominion of this spirit sprang that temper of the Parliament which made meanness imperative on Governments ; that system of written checks and counter-checks , of divided responsibility and of petrifying routine , that desire to be
economical rather than efficient , and those plans for preventing abuses , which seldom allowed uses to develop to maturity . This spirit destroyed the fine organisation of the armyand an army organisation once destroyed cannot be renewed in a day . It is to this spirit we trace the littleness of British foreign policy for the last thirty years—the period embracing the reign of the Russian Emperor . And when war became a moral and political necessity , from the dominion of this spirit the eountrv had to be rescued . In
consequence , the war found us with inadequate means , a young and unseasoned army—a mere skeleton of a militia—and no reserve . Had half the efforts been made to improve the constitution of the army which were made to destroy it—had the peace party , instead of striving to disarm us , striven to destroy the aristocratic plan of promotion by purchase , which is the blight of our military system , how different would have been the fate of the army of the East . We have always contended against that system of patronage in which the most powerful of our contemporaries now professes
to see the cause of-our disasters . But we did not take up the argument in order to serve a political purpose , or to fabricate a dark intrigue . We did not take ~ it up as a good and safe stone to be flung at particular men , and forgotten when it had done the work of the moment . We asked that the army might be really national , at a period when the Times scouted the notion , and had that demand been complied with , we should not have lacked men , alike robust and intelligent , in this hour of the country ' s need . These are the causes that have brought low the military prestige of England . So much for
the past . The war henceforward ! Unless treachery intervene , we are on the eve of the great war which will teat the s , inews of the European nations and settle the pretensions of Russia . One by one States cast their lot with one or the other side . Austria meets Prussian hesitation by calling upon the German States to fight aiid cas-jt their lot with her . Prussia mobilises her troops- —for what ? to fight for or against Russia . Sardinian troops Mediter
are assembling on the shores of the - ranean to take ship for the Crimea . A French army is preparing , we are told , to march through Switzerland to join the Austrians . The states of Europe are marshalling for the fray ; and in this contest England proposes to play a part . Shall it be a great part or a secondary part ? If she would stand consp icuously in the front there must bo no more of that chaotic derangement which has brought her army so lowand reduced her military
pres-, tige . There must bo an end of deficiencies which shock the sonso of the nation , and consume our soldiers in disease , starvation , and despair . Thero must be an end ol nepotism and exclusivism , in patronage and promotion . There must bo no more crying qut in Parliament by statesmen presuming to lead this people , that Russia is not to bo humiliated , that her territory is not to be infringed , that her dignity and consideration are to be conserved . Whig and Derbvite alike , uttering sentiments like
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 3, 1855, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03021855/page/13/
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