2 JANUARY 1864, Page 8

The French Government has decided that general officers, how- ever

employed, must quit the service at the age of seventy. A similar rule, to be broken only by a formal resolution of both Houses, is urgently required in Great Britain, but will not, of course, be conceded. Our statesmen have forgotten the value of youth as a motive power, and to the present chiefs of the Adminis- tration men of fifty seem " rising young men," and men of forty boys. A Cabinet Minister of thirty would shock Lord Palmers- ton, and a general of twenty-five suggest to the clubs that the end of the world was at hand.