Lord Dalhousie started a debate in the Lords about the
Army Estimates, but he did not make much of it. His main point was that instead of giving men 2d. a day extra, "stoppages "should be stopped. Recruits are told by the recruiting-sergeants they are to have so much a day, and when the men find most of it stopped for kit, &c., they naturally think themselves swindled. Twopence a day will not stop that, and in a year or two we shall have the trouble all over again. Lord Longford in reply made a clever but unstatesmanlike speech, showing that he wants either a conscription or voluntary service for long periods, but admitting, that he could get neither. He consequently preached content till we could. Earl de Grey wanted to keep the Militia intact as a first reserve, and not mix it up with the Line, and the Duke of Cambridge in a really capital speech, by far the best we remember -him to have made, quite agreed with Earl de Grey, but said we must make the best of the bad, and no other reserve was attain- able. The general effect of the debate was that everybody who knows anything disbelieves in the Army, and nobody has the courage to act on his belief. When the calamity comes, every one of these moral skalkers will eagerly shriek, "I told you so l"
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