THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE ON THE ARMY.
THE inability to make a good speech which has marked all the members of the House of Hanover extends to the Duke of Cambridge, and adds a good deal to the importance of his speeches. We may be sure that he is not speaking because he wants to speak. Speaking is an embarrassment to him, and in defect of oratorical power, he falls back upon a conversational simplicity which sometimes recalls irresistibly the memory of George III. " What, what !" he seems to be saying to himself, " not men enough,—must have men enough ; pay 'em better—then have men enough." This habit of colloquialism has, however, the advantage that the Duke is always intelligible, and as he really knows the Army, and something of foreign politics, his advice is worth attention apart from any consideration of his personal and official rank. He was clear enough in his utterance at the Fishmongers' Dinner on Thursday night,—unpleasantly clear, perhaps. He said in so many words that " a warlike state of affairs might arise before we were many weeks older ;" that " it was really so serious a matter " as to compel the Com- mander-in-Chief to speak out ; that we must go on with our military reforms ; that the principal want was men ; and that to obtain men, we must grant more money. Nothing, so far as it went, could be more definite. He disclaimed the faintest idea of resorting to Conscription. A conscription for garrison- service in Asia was, he acknowledged, impossible, and even if possible, not desirable, and the utmost that could be done in that direction was to retain the law which authorises a ballot for the Militia. But conscription being unsuited to our cir- cumstances and our institutions, it is all the more necessary to induce men to join the Army, and he asked with urgency and reiteration permission to offer better terms. Every great employer was paying more to attract men, and so also must the State.
It was all very sensible, and quite true, and the only criti- cism we have to offer is that it was all, or almost all, super- fluous. His Royal Highness, like most Royal Highnesses, fails to see precisely where the shoe pinches. Nobody denies that if we want a larger Army, we must pay our soldiers more, possibly much more. Nobody seriously resists the proposal for such payment. We do not hesitate to say that if men in whom the country had confidence on pecuniary subjects—say, for example, Mr. Disraeli, Sir S. Northcote, Lord Ilartington, and Mr. Forster—all said deliberately that another million must be given in direct wages or the Army could not be kept up, the country would unseat almost any Member who refused the money. The cause of resistance is not miserliness, or even pecuniary caution, but a profound distrust in the straightforwardness of the Army chiefs, a profound doubt whether they are really seeking the end they say they are in search of. Are they wanting a strong Army, or a more com- fortable Military Club ? That is the unspoken suspicion at the bottom of everything. People read praises of the Army every day, its devotion, and its self-denial ; but whenever the slightest improvement is made, they see every officer in the Service raging for " compensations " and " grants" and " pen- sions," and in short, cash under every denomination. They see heroes with £10,000 a year grasping the extra price of commissions, and naturally say, This profession cares first of all for money.' The Duke of Cambridge says he wants money for the men, but he does not say how much money, or how many men for how much money, or how he proposes to ensure the payment of the money to men and not to officers. If we give him two millions more, will he guarantee a permanent force of 100,000 Regulars at home and efficient ? If not, how much army will he guarantee ? Will the money go as hitherto it always has gone, without an Army to show in return ? We have been increasing and in- creasing military grants, and still we have not a sufficient Army, and desertion is more frequent than ever ; and the Commander-in-Chief, with war in the near horizon, as he be- lieves, is compelled to ask at the Fishmongers' far more wages to attract recruits. Has he any clear idea in his mind of the There is another subject upon which, if the nation is to be called on for more money, the Commander-in-Chief, and the old-world clique who upon so many points mislead him, must make up their minds to speak out. Why does he treat all notion of heavy savings as so impossible ? He may be perfectly right—we believe he is right thus far, that quick savings are impossible — but he should show that he is right, and not put forward statements about the cost of the " Woolwich Infants" as .if they accounted for the expenditure of fifteen millions. The country believes—erro- neously, we fear—that there is huge waste in the Army, and that belief must be corrected, if the nation is to respond with any cordiality to the demand for more. What stops the Com- mander-in-Chief from contributing his mite to the explanation, and saying frankly why, in a military point of view, the British Army requires such heaps of Generals en vein:lite, and Colonels without regiments, and half-pay officers, and people of all sorts whom Frederick William of Germany—surely a soldier to the bone—would send to live on £50 a year without the faintest compunction. Five-sixths of the expenditure could pro- bably be justified, but it needs, when more money is asked, bold and general explanation, and explanation from a non-Minis- terial point of view. Nobody expects from the Duke of Cam- bridge an original or a striking reorganisation of the British Army, but he has a plan and an ideal in his mind, and it is probably a sensible one, and it is the greatest mistake not to put it frankly before the world. If he is afraid of a speech, let him try a pamphlet, which everybody will know, without or with his signature, to be his production. If the nation is taken into the Horse Guards' confidence, there will be no stint in.the supplies ; but it cannot be decoyed into grants, even though apprehensive that they are necessary for its safety.
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