The disagreement with Russia has evidently hastened the adoption of
Lord Kitchener's plan for the redistribution of the Indian Army, and it was finally sanctioned and published on October 28th. Its central idea is to concentrate the fighting section of the Indian Army on the North-West Frontier; to make each division ready for immediate service, the infantry, cavalry, and artillery being trained together; and to rely for the defence and good order of Madras and Bombay mainly on the new ease with which reinforcements can be 'sent to them from the North by railway. The fresh expenditure will be serious —£10,000,000— but it will be spread over five or six years, and will not involve extra taxation, the new claims being discharged out of sur- pluses, or, if absolutely necessary, loans. The merits of the scheme can only be discussed by experts; but Lord Kitchener certainly understands his work, and it is true that the old arrangements were intended to meet a totally different con- dition of affairs. There is little likelihood now of insurrection, and any serious foe advancing from the outside must have the Punjab for his first objective.
Before our next issue appears the struggle for the American Presidency will have been decided, and we see no reason to doubt that Mr. Roosevelt will have been elected. The issue of the Presidential Election is always complicated by the fact that the States, though not equally represented, vote as States, each throwing its weight as a unit, though the degree of its weight is proportioned to population, and no mass vote is taken ; but it seems clear that the Election will turn on the personal merits of the candidates, and that Mr. Roosevelt is nearer the popular heart than his rival, Mr. Parker. The chance of the latter is based on his dislike to expansion, and on the hope entertained by Mr. Bryan's following that "the Judge" may prove hostile to the great financial corporations; but a great and virile constituency never really dreads expan- sion, and there is no proof whatever that Mr. Parker will go• even a step in the Bryanite direction. We shall know by next Wednesday evening, but the election of Mr. Parker would be to most politicians in America a great surprise.
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