Lord Sandhurst (Sir W. Mansfield) made his first speech in
the- House of Lords on Monday. It was a good speech, though far too. verbose, and its point was, that for short service we enlisted men too young. If boys enlisted at 18 are to be discharged into the Re- serves at 22, the regiments will be gradually filled with immature- men, unfitfor service anywhere, and specially unfit for India. That, order, though now suspended, was issued on the 22nd March, and received by commanding officers with "blank dismay." The remedy would be to fix 18 as the age for the Militia, and 20 as the age for the Line, and invite men from the Militia to fill all vacan- cies. We should then fill the Line regiments with drilled men of 20,—a great improvement if, as Lord Northbrook pointed out, we could be sure the Militiamen would volunteer. To make the plan com- plete, it requires the rest of Lord Sandhurst's former scheme,— ballot for the Militia. The order of the 22nd March, it was also. explained, was only intended to deplete the Army a little,. the number of recruits approaching the Parliamentary limit, so that recruiting was stopped, and also to make a be- ginning for the Reserve. It was, said the Duke of Cambridge,. a "tentative measure," and one of which he had serious doubts. The general effect of the discussion, which of course came to nothing, was to -mdicate that the Commander-in-Chief accepts. the Army project, but does not like it ; and that Lord Sand- hurst neither likes it, nor intends, if he can help it, to accept. it. Whether amid all these individual wills we shall get an Army at all begins to be doubtful.
Previous page
