Mr. Childers has hardly had enough credit for his military
administration, nor should we deny a good deal to that of his predecessors, from Mr. Cardwell to Colonel Stanley. The ad- mirable letter by Mr. Childers to his constituents at Pontefract on Tuesday, which was published in Thursday's Times, shows us the net result gained by the assiduous reorganisation to which so many able minds have applied themselves, the ablest and most careful of all being, no doubt, that of the present Secretary for War. "We have seen an army landed in Egypt (a country 3,000 miles away, and containing about 5,000,000 inhabitants), the entire rout and dispersion of the enemy, and the surrender of the capital, in less than seven weeks after the vote for the expedition had been sanctioned by Parliament." Add even the three weeks of preparation before that vote was proposed to Parliament, and the credit of such promptitude is but little reduced. "Including the troops on their way out when the resistance to us collapsed, 41,000 men had been equipped for this service, without the embodiment of a single Militia battalion, and with the aid of less than one- fifth of our Reserves. It is now certain that twice that number of efficient soldiers could be despatched from this country (leaving a sufficient force at home) within a month of the expedition being approved by Parliament ; and this without its being necessary to embody more than half the Militia, or to obtain any aid from India." That an army of 80,000 efficient soldiers could be despatched from England within a month of a Parliamentary vote, and without aid from India, is indeed a result which would have.excited the envy of our War Secretary in the old Crimean days. Nothing shows so well what may be done by steadily pegging away at adminis- trative reform.
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