Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

up batteries, and in large fortresses to place two or more batteries under a lieutenant-colonel of their own battalion. All detachment duty should as far as possible be performed by the coast brigade-which should be augmented—and in India by a small corps of invalid artillery. It will be observed that sixty-eight batteries are now abroad as against sixty under our scheme. The companies abroad therefore should, in comparison, have a higher establishment.

The wastefulness of connecting field batteries with ammunition columns is obvious. What are the duties of an ammunition column? These are to transport, keep from damage, and issue spare ammunition of all sorts to an army in the field. Surely, therefore, they should be rather a branch of the Ordnance Store Corps than of the artillery. The Ordnance Store Corps is naturally the corps to take charge of the ammunition, and there is no reason why the artillery should furnish the transport for it rather than for any other military purpose. Owing, however, to the fact that artillery drivers are more accustomed to take wagons over rough ground than are the drivers of the Commissariat and Transport Corps, and seeing that the reserve of these drivers is small, we would suggest that the transport required for the ammunition columns should be provided by reserve drivers of the Royal Artillery, and the additional men now gunners and batmen partly by the reserve of the Royal Artillery, partly by the militia reserve, and partly by such volunteers as might voluntarily undertake the duty.

1

A few words about officering the garrison or foot artillery. It is admittedly at present the most unpopular branch of the artillery. It is a question whether separation from the rest of the arm would not render it still more unpopular, and whether it would not be difficult to get officers willingly to join it. Of course the granting of commissions on leaving the academy to the different branches, according to qualifications, predilections, and place at the final examination, would secure a sufficient number of officers. But unless these felt that the foot artillery presented some attraction to counterbalance those which the horse and field batteries undoubtedly present, the foot artillery officers would be, as regards qualifications, the worst of each batch quitting the academy. This would be a most undesirable result, but we are convinced that the advantages suggested, alike by the Committee and ourselves, would induce many able young men to select the foot artillery. Even if they themselves had a preference for horse and field artillery, the extra pay and good appoint

ments reserved for them would influence the parents. This is the case with the engineers, most of whom are attracted by the higher pay and prospective appointments solely, and not by any preference for the work itself. What applies to the engineers will, we confidently believe, be found to apply to the garrison artillery equally.

We have now gone through the various branches of the subject which forms the text of this article. We have necessarily dealt with the various points in a more or less general inanner, and have been obliged for want of space to leave much untouched. The object which we set before us will, however, have been attained if we have succeeded in convincing our readers that the optimism with which the Commander-in-Chief and certain artillery generals have sought to lull the public is unfounded on fact, and that the Royal Artillery needs not only an improved administration, but a radical reorganisation. Our artillery is a splendid body of officers and men, but is capable of vast improvement as a whole. This is recognised to be the truth by the large majority of artillery officers themselves; and it is to be regretted that official non possumus should prevent the country turning to full account the energy, zeal, and capacity of the officers and men of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. The corps recognises its need of improvement, and asks to be improved; surely public opinion will force the Government to grant its request.

ART. X.-1. Hansard's Parliamentary Debates for 1888. 2. Lord Hartington's Address to the Electors of Rossendale, June 16, 1886.

3. The Right Hon. G. J. Goschen, M.P., at Birmingham, 'Times,' December 13, 1888.

4. Lord Derby at Liverpool, Times,' December 19, 1888. 5. Lord Hartington at Liverpool, Times,' December 19, 1888. 6. Lord Salisbury at Scarborough, 'Times,' December 21, 1888.

IT T is very necessary in political controversy, especially for those more immediately engaged in the strife, from time to time to step aside from the turmoil and noise of the combat, in order to survey more completely and more quietly the general situation of affairs. The actual progress of a campaign is often but little affected by incidental skirmishes, which, nevertheless, to the soldiers engaged may appear at the time to involve nothing less than the fate of the contending armies. In the war of British parties at the present time it is specially desirable to bear this in mind. The ultimate objects for which each party is contending must not be lost sight of in the interest bestowed upon mere incidents of the contest. It may be that a wily leader of a party will sometimes endeavour to concentrate the attention of the public solely upon such incidents, in the hope that he may get them to forget their disapproval of his grand scheme of policy-by pointing their indignation against what he describes as a cruel and bloodthirsty system of government. Let the watchword of our party be, not the merits of Home Rule, but the wickedness of the Unionist Government;' so seems to speak the once great leader of the Liberal party. 'Let us inscribe on our banners a simple scroll, "The Bad""ness of Balfour;" and under this inspiring legend let us march on in confidence to victory.' An astonished public has heard it declared on authority that the game of law and order is up;-let political principles go to keep them company! The Government is bad, Mr. Gladstone is good, only give him a majority and you will see-what you will see! If this were Liberalism, alas for the future of the Liberal party! Liberalism it is not. It is nothing but the appeal of a party leader for power; an appeal to party prejudice and to the ignorance of the masses whom he flatters. It is as consistent with Toryism as with Liberalism; indeed it is more

consistent with the former than the latter, if the boast of the old Liberal party were a true one, that to it belonged in the main the men of independent and inquiring and even somewhat sceptical minds; who, whilst the Tories owned no 'argument but force,' prided themselves on obeying no force but argument.'

For the time Mr. Gladstone has given up argument on the question which divides political parties. Lord Hartington, Mr. Goschen, Mr. Chamberlain, and other statesmen, have put to him, time after time, questions which must be answered before Home Rule again assumes a practical form; which must be answered if the British people are to understand what is Mr. Gladstone's proposal for the future government of the British Islands. The truth is that Mr. Gladstone has no scheme to propose. The Home Rule Bills of 1886 were destroyed by discussion in the country even before they were rejected by Parliament. They could hardly hold up their heads during the general election; and they are now declared to be dead by almost all those Englishmen who supported them. Beyond this the public knows nothing except that Mr. Gladstone is in favour of an Irish Parliament and Government. It is believed, on the strength of those obscure utterances for which the late Prime Minister has become famous, that Irish members are to be retained at Westminster; so that whilst British influence is to be rigidly excluded from the Government and the politics of Ireland, Irishmen are to take a large share in the government and politics of Great Britain. Nothing is more curious in Mr. Gladstone's political action since the general election, and be it added more significant, than his deep distrust of Home Rule as a practical measure of re

*The only statement at all definite upon this point that has, as far as we know, been made by Mr. Gladstone was contained in a letter, dated October 26, 1888, which was read at a public meeting at Dalkeith. The important paragraph runs as follows:

I rejoice, though without surprise, to learn how largely not only Scotsmen in general, but such Scotsmen as were at one time dissentient, have comprehended and appreciated the position which we have given to the question raised about the retention of Irish representatives at Westminster. Great Britain, free, by an honourable and perfectly public understanding with Ireland, to determine that question as she shall deem best for Imperial interests, has, I conceive, indicated a very general desire, without entering into particulars, in favour of such retention, and, without seeking in any way to bind the judgement of the country, we recognise that desire and are prepared to give it effect. This, I hope, is clear.'

form which can bear the light of day. As a phrase it is admirable; and a phrase may rally a party, if from that party have retired nine out of every ten men who were accustomed to weigh phrases. In old days the Liberal party in or out of office were definite enough in their aims. In the great struggle for Reform the popular cry was for the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill.' As regards the Irish projects of 1886 the Home Rule leaders assure us, It's not the Bill, it's neither Bill, and it's nothing like the 'Bill.' Then what is it?

[ocr errors]

Mr. Gladstone, on almost every occasion when he speaks, begins by scolding Liberal Unionists for refusing to abjure at his command the principles of the Liberal party, as they have been held by every Liberal statesman from the Irish Union till his own surrender in 1886. This is usually followed by an elaborate and ingenious disquisition upon the figures polled by the rival candidates at the latest election (if it has in any way been favourable to him), and the rest of his speech is then devoted to Mitchelstown or to Mandeville, to the brutal behaviour of the police, the almost murderous conduct of the prison authorities, and the imfamous action of the magistrates. But as to what Home Rule is to be, as to how it will improve the state of Ireland, as to what measures an Irish Government and Parliament are likely to adopt, as to how differences and difficulties are to be avoided between Ulstermen and Parnellites, between Ireland and Great Britain, not a word! His party in the House of Commons imitates very closely the tactics of the Parnellite party in the Parliament 1880-1885, against Mr. Gladstone and his Irish ministers. They rarely set themselves to explain their demand for Home Rule. They continually denounced Mr. Forster, Lord Spencer, and Mr. Trevelyan, the judges, the magistrates, and the police, as tyrannical, corrupt, cowardly, and cruel, and they set themselves, by deliberately wasting the time of the House of Commons, to prove that a Parliament of the United Kingdom could be reduced to impotence, and degraded in the estimation of the public. But after all, when the country is sharply divided by men's views on a great question of principle, that party will in the long run prevail whose principles grow in general acceptance with the public. Incidents such as those on which Mr. Gladstone delights to expatiate serve the turn of a platform orator admirably for a day, but they do not greatly affect the general judgement of the public. Neither do obstructive tactics in the House of Commons, though they

« AnteriorContinuar »