A very able Royal Commission has reported that scarlet is
'not a good colour for Army uniforms. It is unusually visible to the enemy, as are also black and white. The Commission, therefore, recommend that either mud-colour, the well-known khakee of the Indian Service, should be adopted, or that a grey believed to be unusually durable should be selected, The white facings and belts will be made umber, and the metal will be bronze, instead of brass. They suggest, however, that scarlet may be retained for fall dress. The argument looks strong, and has apparently been accepted by Lord Hartington, but is the Commission quite certain that comparative invisibility at a certain distance signifies much, at a time when field-glasses are so efficient P The Prussians do not think so, or that pickelhaube would be doomed; nor do the Austrians, with their white uniforms. If the necessity is not strong, it is a pity to abolish "the hue of England's war," the thin red line, whose visibility does not in- crease the enemy's readiness to charge. We had much rather hear, if we are to have a new dress, that it was to be one which left the men their fullest powers. No gamekeeper would put on those tight things.
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