Captain E. Walter, head of the Corps of Commissionnaires, who ,
has had, he says, thirty years' experience among soldiers, in the service and discharged from it, repeats that the physique of the rank and file is declining. He quotes official papers, showing that on January 1, 1873, there were 28,263 men in the Army under twenty years of age ; that the number of crimes of insub- ordination have increased more than 30 per cent., and that the desertions of 1872 were in excess of the average for the pre- ceding six years by 50 per cent. He also quotes reports from Dublin and Millbank, showing that a _large proportion (in Millbank 13 per cent.) of soldiers sent to prison are physi- cally unfit for hard labour, and asks for a Royal Commission of Inquiry, a course which we trust will not be followed. If the alarmists are right, the Commission would be merely a waste of invaluable time; and if they are wrong, the facts can be explained by the responsible Minister in Parliament. The men will not give public testimony as to the grievances in the Army, and recruiting officers know what is wrong and what is the extent of the evil just as well as any Commission can teach them. If the facts are admitted, the country will cry for a remedy, not for more discussion.
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