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^ ^ i -s . g | T ? Z&mt ^ l&tnay be natural for Austria to dread 1 ^ A $ ^ LdW 2 j ^ or we all dread the t return to ' ' ? I i % « fi ^ Ett * $£ pb what could England dread in such ' "V ^ ' I ^^ Sptt ? If political necessity obliged the ^• laSfsliian Government to renew the Stadion policy , what could' English ministers find to regret in an extension of constitutional Government to the Empire ? They can . only regret it by being traitors to English principles ; they can only seek to spare Austria , the necessity , because they themselves are untrue to English standards .
But if so , they are doubly and trebly traitors . They are seeking to avoid the emancipation of the subject nations under Austria ; they are sacrificing ; our own countrymen in vain ; and they are frustrating the war that costs us so much . As well enter into a single combat -with a Russian on the principle of striking gently , as carry on a war of forbearance with
Russia . We cannot really conquer her , save by striking home . Those who administer the ¦ war in the idea that they can spare her , forbid a real victory , and waste blood for nothing . They side with Russia against our own army . They perpetuate the mistake under which our enemy was suffered to be bred , born , and reared into greatness , and they seek a result which involves the ruin and enslavement of our land .
Hitherto , in maintaining Russia , Europe has kept a Goth , to hold down the civilised nations ; a fewyears more , and that Goth would effect tually have mastered those who have sustained bim ; and even now our Government is temporising and compromising . There is only one test of their sincerity—the adoption , frankly and absolutely , of the declaration that Russia must be destroyed .
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SIEGE BY CONTRACT . Ann ? hough we boast very loudly of our superiority in science and mechanics , it is a curious phenomenon that , now we are at war , we seem loth to take the vantage ground offered us by our discoveries in the destructive sciences . It is a fact that \ ye began to sit down before Sebastopol in the same formula and with very nearly the same machinery that Wellington
employed in the reduction of Badajos , more than forty years ago . The pick and the spade suffice to scoop out our trenches ; the heavy guns and materiel were dragged up steeps and along rough roads by horses and men ; with the exception of the Lancaster gun , our artillery was constructed upon the oldest principle , and , with the exceptions of the Minie rifle and Colt ' s revolver ( both dealt out with the most niggard hand ) , the bayonet and " Brown Bess " were the most effective of our small arms . In
all these matters our enemies were quite equal to ourselves . Their guns as heavy in metal , and certainly with range quite as extensive as- © ur own . In order to attempt an impression upon the stone walls of the fortress ( up to this time apparently an unsuccessful attempt ) we have had to approach our range so close to the walls that the loss of artillerymen by musketry
alone has been serious ; and yet the comparatively small pieces of iron , with which we continue to batter away are reported to do little more than just " spot" the white exterior of the , walls . Recent accounts load us to the disagreeable conclusion that we have expended all our ammunition in vain , —or , at any l-ato , with no more serious effects than what the
Russians can repair within the space of a single ni ght . Yet we have not been stationary since the time f the Peninsular war . On the contrary , oil * scientific m « n have been remarkably active in devising tho most formidably destructive forces . ' There was a Captain Warner , for frVBt ^ nce , J > os 0 essed of a power capable of hurljng . into atoms tho largest man-of-war . Where ie ho , nawiN-MJeaxl ; and where lm
invention ?—lost . Officials laughed at the idea for no better reason than that they could not comprehend it ; yet every chemist knows that there are substances ( chloride of nitrogen , for instance ) a very small quantity of which would be the destruction of a city . Then again , there was Perkins ' s steam-gun ; a death-dealing tube , capable of pouring four or five hundred bullets against an advancing column , in a minute , and
with all the power and accuracy of a rifle ; an implement that might be played upon battalions with as much facility as ~ the hose *> f a fireengine , with such effect as may be easily imagined . Yet that has never risen beyond the dignity of "being a toy ait the Adelaide Gallery . James Nasmyth , of Patrieroft—no speculative man , but one of the first practical mechanics in the kingdom—declares that by means of his steam-hammer he can make a
gun capable of throwing a ball upon the Mini 6 principle weighing three hundredweight . Why not three tons—for as George Stephenson said , impossibilities are only matters of money ? Mr . Perkins , son to the inventor of the steam-gun , declares that he ) can propel a ball of one ton weight against the walls of a place , at the distance of five miles . Conceive for one moment the effect of such enormously destructive missiles ; upon a place like Sebastopol , and compare it with , the spattering hail of bullets , the most enormous of which does not exceed eighty-four pounds . The idea has several times been thrown out
in these columns , why not have these undertakings executed on the same terms as other great undertakings are executed upon — by contract . A siege is admitted to be a mechanical operation , and , in the case of Sebastopol in particular , immense natural difficulties have to be overcome . Suppose , by way of * putting the case , that any one of our great contractors
had undertaken the job , and- let us picture the manner in which he would have proceeded . Of course his estimate would have been a very large one , and his command of men arid money unlimited . He would have required an armament , probably not inferior in extent to that actually sent out , but how differently provided and constructed ! No want of medical
stores there , or of ambulance-corps to econO ' mise the lives of his workmen—our contractor would have known better than that ; the surplus profit would have pleaded eloquently for the lives of those who were - to * assist him in executing the task . Arrived before tbo fortress to be taken , a swarm of stalwart " navvies , " armed with the rock-cutting machine , which has effected such wonders in America , would have hollowed out the trenches with ten times
the celerity of the best Sappers and Miners . A tramroad and machinery would have brought up the heavy material from Balaklava to the trenches with scarcely any expenditure of human or even equine labour . The position of the forces would have been defended on all sides by defences which no enemy could approach , far less overcome . Well housed , and warmed , and fed ( economy would have taught all this to our contractor ) , the troops would have awaited in their impregnable camp the moment when they would be required to rush forward to complete
the conquest of the fortress , already pounded to atoms by machines of irresistible power which would have been brought to bear upon the enemy from a distance far out of reach of their puny artillery . This , as it scorns to us , would bo the wny in which a great contractor would avail himself of English skill and English science if pitted against tho ignorant hordes who have hitherto had to send to Manchoster or Birmingham for the meanest piece of mechanism used to apin thorn a hank of yarn . But then , to bo sure , this would put an end to all prestige of military glory , and woukl reduce war to a mere mechanical operation ,
Is this an evil ? Is war , then , so much of i pastime that we love to hear of our braves gentlemen falling in the execution , of whd could be better done at less sacrifice of life ? I is true that the employment of a contracto might have the effect of upsetting Vauban , a well as of stultifying the memory of some ver glorious sieges . But what then—if the worl were better done ?
Government has already adopted one or tw of these notions—in part . The contiactc idea , for instance , has been reduced into limn Messrs . Brassey and Peto to make a railwa from Balaklava to the trenches . The navvi < have been hired for the purpose , and are all < good character ( out of compliment , it is pr < sumed , to Lord Aberdeen ) . The railway wi
probably be finished by next March , by whic time it will not be wanted ., or ought not although , to be sure , it may then serve t carry Menschikoff and his luggage down i the Agamemnon . Nasmyth ' s idea , too , hi been taken up by Government , to the extei of " empowering him to proceed in carryin out his designs . " But all this is terribly tittl < by-tittleish , arid lacks the grasp and power ( men who foreknow and foresee . The fact
patent : the science of warfare , like that < Government , wants development . To gai that , both must be performed by men whos heads are equal to their purposes .
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THE RIFLE CONTRACTS . It anything could prove how slowly the natui and magnitude of the war into which we hai drifted had opened upon the mind of the M nistry , it would be the small supply of in proved small arms furnished to the troops . ' is reckoned that about 45 000 stand of rifl * and carbines on improved plans have bee delivered in by makers ; to allow a store <
50 per cent , on the arms in use is a very sms allowance ; so that now , at the end of 185 we have efficient fire-arms for 30 , 000 men go against the Czar . Do not let it be pr tended that the force was always to have be < larger ; who would believe you , if you averr that you intended to have thirty people dinner , and you "only laid knives and forks i ten ? Do not let it be said that no time i
been allowed for getting the supply : it was 1851 that the Duke of Wellington affirm the necessity of substituting the Minie rifle the old musket , and it was in the lifetime the late Duke of Orleans , if we rememl rightly , certainly before 1848 , that Sir Chat Shaw witnessed those feats with the Mi which he publicly described in this count The Lancaster gun may have been tried 1 recently , the Mini 6 has been known and use for eight years at least , and to this < some of our troops are sent out with " brown Bess" to fire salutes of . honour to
Russians . It cannot , originally at least , h been intended to shoot the Russians . In the admirable romance of Ajnadis Gaul , the great King Lisuarte is going fortl meet a mortal enemy , and he is encountered a beautiful lady who makes him a present < fine sword : the King is led into an amb and his sword breaks off at the hilt . Iu excuse , the Government accuses tho < tractors , acid tho contractors accuse Gov <
mont . The contractors , says tho right hon < able the 7 imes , prevented the eatablishmer tho Government factory at Woolwich , w would have furnished tho supply wanted ; and the contractors cannot noako fast enough , contractors reply through their local org that they can make at tho rate of 3000 a \ in Birmingham alone ; but that Governi first paralysed them by threatening to eata ' tho factory ; then gave contracts only to principal firms in Birmingham ; and to tint
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mmst ^ - ^ jgg ^ = ^ = | ' = T [ ' firs ^• jgjMg LEAPEB , Satttrdat ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 9, 1854, page 1164, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2068/page/12/
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