16 NOVEMBER 1833, Page 13

COMPARATIVE COST OF THE BRITISH, FRENCH, AND PRUSSIAN ARMIES.

Is it not evident that a financial crisis is approaching? We think so; and that it will come, in all probability, before another session is ended. In that case, half-measures and palliatives must be abjured, and recourse must be had to legislative provisions, vigorous; 'substantial, and effective. But there is only one way to secure the concurrence of the nation in such measures; and that is, to retrench all unnecessary expenditure, and to satisfy the taxpayers—the reasonable portion of them at all events—that their money is not wasted.

If our Ministers are men.of discretion, they must be intent upon the modes of reducing the disbursement side of the next Budget.

If they are sincere and searching in their inquiries, they will still find numerous items of improper expenditure which escape those who have not the advantage of official accounts to guide them,

and who are obliged to move for returns without end, in order to get at a knowledge of facts with which it is the duty of the public servants to be familiar.

There is no occasion, however, to call to our aid these official details in order to satisfy ourselves that there is one department

in the public service, the cost of which is unreasonably large : we

allude, of course, to the Army. We have often urged an ex- tensive reduction in our military expenditure. Sir HENRY PARNELL, when Secretary at War, would have cut down the Estimates to the extent of 600,000/. ; and by a comparative state- ment of the cost of our Army with that of France, we showed in the Spectator that this reduction might be increased to at least a million. It is a fact to be borne in mind, whenever the old story is told that retrenchment has been carried as far as it is safe and practicable, that, making every allowance for the difference in the value of money, the English soldiers cost 9/. per man more than the French. For the future, it will be impossible to pretend that our troops are better fed and equipped than the French ; for we have the unexceptionable testimony of Sir WILLOUGHBY GORDON to prove that the French Army in every essential particular is in

a most admirable state. • • •

But the Government of Louts Pitinme is not the only one on the Continent from which our rulers might learn a lesson of economy. The Prussian military establishment is supported on much cheaper terms than our own. Here 'again we are not in- stituting a comparison between our Army and one of a second- rate description. NAPOLEON repeatedly expressed his admiration of the Prussian troops. Every one who has had an opportunity of examining their arms and equipments allows their excellence. The question then is, svhat is the cost of the Prussian military establishment? We find an answer to this inquiry in the work of the Marquis DE CHAMBRAY, a brief notice of which is given in the last Number of the Foreign Quarterly Review. The Mar- quis is there termed " a distinguished French military writer, the author of the best military history of NAPOLEON'S Russian ex- pedition." He passed several years in Prussia during BONA- PARTE'S reign, and has lately revisited it. He estimates the total of the Prussian Army at 300,000 men ; of whom 100,000 are troops of the Line, 50,000 Reserve, and 150,000 Landwehr. The whole establishment, including fortresses, &c is supported for 3,374,104/.

The English Army, Ordnance, and Commissariat, exclusive of the Dead- weight, which amounts to about two millions and a half, costs in round numbers five millions sterling : the number of our troops may be taken at 100,000: if our Army were as numerous as the Prussian regular forces, the cost would be half as much more—say seven millions and a half. Thus it appears, that our military establishment is more than twice as expensive as the Prussian, exclusive of the Landwehr.

The difference in the cost of provisions in the two countries will account fairly enough for part of this enormous excess on our side; but then, on the other hand, clothing and equipments can be furnished at a lower rate in England than in Prussia. Be- sides, a third, part of our Army is stationed in Ireland, where filth's..b is much cheaper than on this side of the Channel. Prussia has been and is at an enormous expense in keeping up the numerous fortresses with which her dominions are studded—not merely along the Rhine, at Cologne, Ehrenbreitstein, &c., but in the interior. Again, not having the details before us, we have de- ducted nothing from the Prussian sum total for her Dead-weight, and the cost of her Militia force of 150,000 men ; which it is fair to presume must be considerable. We are aware that some of our foreign garrisons are very expensive establishments ; but, making every allowance, the difference in the cost of our Army and that of Prussia will still appear enormous. Why should it be so? Will our Representatives perform their duty faithfully, if they suffer the present system to continue? Let them inquire into and satisfy themselves of the truth of such state- ments as the above. They may not be competent to argue every question of detail with the Secretary at War, or Sir HENRY HARDINGE ; but if the House of Commons absolutely reduces the sum total of the Estimates by a million, the people at the Horse Guards will find out, as Sir JAMES GRAHAM has already disco- vered at the Admiralty, that they can make a million less answer every purpose which is absolutely necessary : and we cannot now pay for others.

It is undeniable, that there is a back-stairs influence at work to prevent a reduction of our Military expenditure, which nothing but a determined vote of the House of Commons can overcome.