SCHEME FOR PROVISIONING THE ARMY. (From the Times.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XII, Issue 836, 3 July 1855, Page 3

SCHEME FOR PROVISIONING THE ARMY. (From the Times.)

I The following statement, with which we have been favoured by a him of the highest lespectubility m the piwisiuning trade, we commend to the serious attention of the much enduring Biitish public. This firm, then, are prepared to bind themselves in the heaviest penalties which the jealousy of < iovemraent can impose, to supply to the British aimy in its pie^ent position, or anywhere within two hundred miles of the coast, food consisting of t r e meals a day, to be cooked and dcliv -red at the head-quarter* of each battalion. The breakfast is to consist of tea, coffee, or cocoa, according to choice, and of fresh-baked bread ; the dinner of bread, meat, and potatoes, with a quart of malt liquor, and the ordinary allowance of rum. They undertake to gve fresh meat twice d-week, and vegetables besides potatoes. To this is to be added a substantial evening meal. They are willing to bind themselves under the heaviest penalties, not merely for the performance of the contract in general, but for the punctual delivery of every mestizo the soldiers. They a«sk no assistance whatever from the Government for performing ihis task, except their forbearance and noninterference. They want neither our ships, our horses, our carts, nor our men. They are contented to take the roads as they find them, and to relieve the British soldier from any care or thought for his own maintenance. And this service they are ready to perform at the rate of 3s. 3d. a-head per diem, expressing every confidence that theyshall gjiin. atleaat ninepMice a-h'eaa by the contract ! Observing , also, the miserits sufiexed

bv our Ynpn from defective tents, they are willing to undertake, for anoth.r threepence a-head, to P 10 "'"* our soldiers With excellent tents, to be approved by the co-nmanding-officer, and to be replaced whenever disallowed. Thus, for thrce-nnd sixpence a-head per diom ii a firm ot the most undoubted respectability au<l solvency willing to undertake, under the most ruinous penalties, to provide our troops with competent food and shelter. A r.»'»gh calculation will show that at this rate, an army of 30,00 men might be fed and sheltered for about £1,825,000 per annum -a rom which would not only pro\ ids our ram with that which, vri'h all our machinery of Boards of transports, oi tjommissariat offices, mMles c-arts returns, vouchers, nnd invoices we aie not able to do. but vould set at lib- rtv the vata t amount of shipping now employed in this Imitlcss and wasteful attempt, and leave us in the undisputed p«w»«wii.n of the muish* of al onr commi^ari t officers, if we could h».d any useful purpose to whi< hwe culd apply them If the contract wrr r^allv performed, the saung to the public won < be enormous, but the mere pecuniary economy would be nothing, conipard to tho delight every one in this country would experience in thinking that our soldier« wore no longer worse fed than his dogs, and that the richest country in the world was no longer subjret to ihe reprooch that, while wallowing hraelf in abundance she left her bost and bravest to feel the horrors ot famine, or feed on fowl lit tie hetter than slow poison, and that within seven miles of the sea, of which she boasts to be the mistress.