The Army Bill has passed through Committee, mutilated and -shorn,
indeed, but serviceable still. On Monday evening, Mr. Cardwell, in reply to Sir G. Grey, informed the House that in consequence of the opposition to the Bill, which, as Mr. Gladstone subsequently said, threatened to "make legislation physically impossible,' the Government would only insist on the Purchase clauses, and the transfer of power over the Militia and Volun- teers from the Lords-Lieutenant to the Crown. The first object of the Bill was the reconveyance of the Army from the officers to the nation. Thereupon Mr. Disraeli sprang up to say that he had not approved the abolition of Purchase for itself, but as a means towards the reorganization of the Army now abandoned, that Government had acted with singular disingenuousness, and that the Bill should be withdrawn. Mr. Gladstone replied that the abolition of Purchase had always been the leading feature of the Bill, that the opposition deserved an epithet he would not apply to it, and that the Government must, and would, clear the ground for reorganization, by abolishing Purchase and the privi- lege of the Lords-Lieutenant.
