18 MARCH 1871, Page 2

Mr. Bernal Osborne followed with a clever but captious speech

against the Bill, which he said would give us "enlarged expendi- ture, ill-defined estimates, and no prospect of permanent security." Purchase was doomed, but he regretted purchase for the only sound reason yet advanced in the debate. It kept out professional officers, who would become a caste, and might possibly prove dan- gerous to the liberties of England. He made great fun by quoting illustrations from the history of the Rebellion, the House, which is as ignorant of history as himself, acquiescing in his assertion that Colonel Pride was a " professional " officer, and Cromwell a general "selected" from a regular service. They were, in fact, officers of "militia," with no training at all. He made a better point, though he raised less laughter, when he alluded to the extreme difficulty of keeping personal cases out of the House of Commons, the "much respected and departed" Mr. Darby Griffiths having actually got a division in "that eternal Dawkins case." There is no doubt this will be the difficulty in the way of selection, but it is

the difficulty in the way of free government too, and it has its compensations. Von Moltke would be hampered. by the House, the Duke of Cambridge may possibly be supported.