Baker Pasha has submitted his plan for the organisation of
the Egyptian Army to the Khedive, it has been accepted in i principle, and s published textually. It is a better plan than the one attributed to the Pasha, but still imperfect. The new Army is to consist of 0,000 infantry, 1,500 cavalry, 1,100 artillery, and 1,400 gendarmes, the whole, with the supply services, amounting to 10,000 men. The Army is to be based upon the conscription, and the period of service is to be eight years ; but half the officers are to be Englishmen, and all the non-commissioned officers are to be Bosnians, Albanians, and Bulgarians, or picked men of the disbanded Egyptian Army. The defect of this scheme clearly is that it pro- vides no European Guard to act as Marines act in a ship and stop mutiny ; that it loaves the period of compul- sory service oppressively long ; that it destroys the only chance of promotion left to the Egyptian conscripts, for the officers will choose Albanian serjeants and corporals—and that it will create much jealousy between the Egyptian and Euro- pean officers. The Indian plan of confining the Artillery to Europeans, giving each regiment a European Colonel and Adjutant, and allowing Egyptians to fill all other posts, is far more expedient ; but even that is not in any way self-govern- ment, while it does not, as we saw in 1857, render mutiny impossible. The total expense is to be only 2368,000 a year.
