We have dealt elsewhere with that portion of Sir ?Echo!
Hicks Beach's speech made at Bristol on Monday which was con- cerned with the War Office, and will only say here that, consider- ing its source, it demands the most serious attention of the nation. We are all always talking about the War Office being "hopeless" and "impossible," and so forth, but no one ever sug- gests a real cause or a remedy. In Sir Michael Hicks Beach s speech there was a suggestion which, if only he will help the nation to follow it out, may produce reform. The other im- portant passage in the speech was that dealing with national expenditure, the growth of which he considered the inc'st dangerous symptom of the present time. In regard to Army expenditure he expressed the belief, however, that increased pay would check the enormous wastage due to recruiting indifferent men who fell out of the ranks before they became good soldiers. "He believed that with a better Army a smaller Army in point of establishment would serve our purpose very well. In fact, the maintenance of a large permanent Army in this country was not necessary. Our Fleet was our great defence." That we most firmly believe to be the truth. A well-paid Army, both in the case of officers and men, would prove a cheaper, not a dearer, Army. "In the last seven years," said Sir Michael Hicks Beach, "our ordinary expenditure had in- creased at the rate of no less than five and a half millions a year, and the country could not go on in that way The safety of the country depended not only upon our military strength, but upon our policy." That is good sense and sound statesmanship.
Previous page
