Extrarts.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XII, Issue 734, 19 November 1859, Page 3

Extrarts.

MUTUAL DISARMAMENT.

(From the ' Economist,/ Aug. 13.) The critical niul complaining remarks pub forward last, week in tho * Momteur1 on tho largo expenditure which England lms this year voted for tho National .Defences ; the announcement, through the same olhcml channel, of the, Emperor's inten- , tion to reduce th& Preneh naval and laud forces to a peace footing; the probability that ho may make this reduction a pretext for urging a similar reduction on this country; and, finally, tho pressure of an increased income-tax, which is supposed to be rendered necessary by our unusual military expenditure alone, have led many inconsiderate persons to entertain with favour the suggestion of a mutual general disarmament of the Great Powers of imrbpe—a scheme so plausible, fair, and seducing in appearance, yet so insidious, futile, and dangerous in reality, as to need more careful consideration and more ample exposure than it has yet received. Lord Palmerston's remarks in tho debato on Friday week showed, we were glad to see, that lie at least, is well aware of the inadmissibility of any such proposal. Considering the enormous forces kept on foot by Prance and Austria, and embodied or in mohilisable reserve by Prussia and Russia,'and the vast expense which these menacing- armies entail, both on tho countries which maintain them and on all their accessible neighbours, we do not wonder that friends of peace and economy everywhere should long for their reduction, and should fancy that such reduction can be effected by mutual agreement. And, perhaps, something of the kind might be done, if no party had any aggressive designs, if rione had any special dangers or special ne°ds, if all were bond, fide, and if all were already relatively equal in their armaments. But, failing any one of these conditions, the scheme becomes at once impracticable. The moment we proceed to details we are met by two insuperable difficulties : —On what principle is the disarmament to proceed P And who is to see that the principle, when fixed, is faithfully carried out? The very object of tho disarmament is evaded, unless the nation which is most armed will reduce its forces in a greater ratio than the nation which is least armed ; and where is the well-prepared nation which will agree to this ? The object of mutual disarmament is to put an end to mutual menace; but one party had armed aggressively, and the other had only armed defensively : —it is obvious, therefore, that the former party must commence its reductions first, and carry them furthest. Yet this would be tacitly to plead guilty to the justice of the suspicions entertained against it. No better illustration of the practical difficulties to a disarmament by mutual agreement can be given than by testing its applicability to the case of Prance and England at the present moment. Of course, as we are pacific, never dream of aggression, hate cost, and only sigh for secure tranquillity, we should only be too delighted to consent to any plan of proportionate forces which should leave us as safe from any attack from Prance as she is from any attack from England, and should leave us, in fact, our old relative position in Europe, viz., that of perfect equalit}T. _ But, as to produce this relation between the parties our navy ought to be double that of Prance, and our army half only as strong as hers : and as at this moment our navy is barely equal to hers, and our army scarcely one-third of hers, it follows that the proposed fair and equal disarmament would involve a great diminution of her fleet and army and a simultaneous increase of ours. She has. (say) 40 screw line-of-battle-ships—so have we. To equalise us, therefore, she must sell us 13; we shall then have 53 and she will have 27, and both parties will have the same amount available for mischief or defence. She has 450,000 men under arms, we have not 100,000; she ought, therefore, to disband 150,000, and we ought to enlist 50,000. This is only just and reasonable; less than this would give us no adequate guarantee of her sincere desire to remain in amity and quiet— yet what would be the reception of the negotiator who should propound such a basis ? Again:—Supposing we come to the agreement to proportion our respective navies as suggested, how are we to secure this proportion ? How are we to equalise guns and men ? How are we to insure that her 2,000 guns are not rifled 64-poun-ders, while our 4,000 are only ordinary 32's ? How be certain that her corvettes will not have the scantling and the armament of our frigates ? . How can we prevent her from having, in addition to the prescribed 30,000 seamen afloat, 60,000 more in, Immediate reserve, and ready at a month's notice, while we keep strictly to our allotted 70,000, and have half these in the dockyards or the coast-guard, half-trained and often absent ? Again:—Suppose Prance and Austria were to agree each to disband 150,000 men, how could either Government ascertain that the reduced soldiers of the other were not merely dismissed on renewable furlough, and capable of instant summons and re-embodiment? If each agreed on the artillery force which should be respectively maintained, how make sure that one party, reposing on the good faith of the agreement, would not adhere to its letter and its spirit, while the other quietly and diligently replaced every ordinary field-piece with an Arm strong, and every musket with a Minie or an Enfield? Would it be possible to proscribe the improvement of weapons ? or to appoint commissioners to see that all these matters went onparipassu in both countries ? And if not, how long would equality of reduction be maintained ? The Emperor professes to be annoyed and uneasy at our naval augmentations and preparations, and alleges that there is no reason for them, and that if continued he will have to make corresponding additions. He says, or is reported to say or to intimate :—" Gentlemen, stop your preparations, and I will stop mine; disband your extra dockyard labourers; cancel your demands, on the coast-guard and coast volunteers, and discharge the fresh seamen and marines whom your bounty has called forth. By this means, both countries will be the gainers." But what is obviously the only answer we can give? "It is your ominous activity that has thus tardily called forth ours: your preparations made ours necessary: if we are to cease ours, you must begin by undoing yours. Do you really mean to ask us to be idle and to fold our hands When, in the course of a few years, you have raised your army to fourfold ours, and your fleet to the same strength in the aggregate, and, therefore, to double our strength in the Channel and in the Mediterranean ? Do you mean to say to vs —' I am vastly stronger and readier than you now, let us both hold our hands and remain relatively as we are ?' " Something like this, surely, must be the meaning or the issue of "mutual disarmament," at this particular crisis of affairs. But there is one conclusive reason why our national defences must proceed without tho slightest reference to what France or any other power may do or may leave undone—a reason which may be stated plainly, amicably, and convincingly—a reason which admits of no reply, and which can give no offence to any State consciously free from sinister designs. We are strengthening our navy, fortifying our arsenals and dockyards, •and training our militia and our volunteers, not (because ive attribute hostile schemes to Prance or to Russia, but because, if we do not do all this, we sink Into the condition of a third rate Power; because, if we do not do this, we lose our relative status and influence in Europe: because, though we fear and expect no special contingency which jnay call upon us for European action, we do not

chooso to bo utterly powerless, and to be liable to be treated as powerless, in case such a contingency should arise. But more than this—weave putting in ordor our national defences because wo ought to have done so long ago, —because our condition for 25 years has been unsafo, disgraceful, and almost ludicrous. We are preparing, nob because we sue or dread any now dangers, but because at last wo are awakening to dangers that have hemmed us in for more than half a generation. What wo are doing, we ought to do as resolutely, as thoroughly, and as promptly, if despotism were to givo place to constitutionalism across tho wator to-morrow, or if both Prance and Russia were to dismantle half their navies and disband half their armies before tho month of August had expired. The great wars which ended in 1815 left every State in Europe so exhausted, and every nation so sick of bloodshed and of conflict, that peace became for 40 years the normal and almost necessary condition of the world. Those wars, too, left England so paramount in reputation and in strength that she could safely venture to sleep in the shade of her countless laurels and her formidable name. Her manifested character and her boundless resources, proved and developed as they had been in a struggle of unexampled fierceness and duration, were, and were certain long to continue, a sure protection against attack, and might justify her in neglecting all inferior defences. But years rolled on. She grew in wealth; others nations grew in power. She reposed trustfully upon the past; other nations looked steadily and ambitiously to tlie future. A change, too, came over the spirit of the world. A new generation had grown up, a stranger to the salutary lessons and the righteous horror inspired by the former European conflicts. Peace ceased to be the inevitable atmosphere in which we lived. Revolutions came; aggressions began; war followed, on a scale of more.than ancient magnitude and massacre;, a belief in and an expectancy of conflict has taken possession of mankind; and, in this altered state of European feeling, the relaxed, supine, undefended attitude which was permissible and not undignified a while ago, is neither decorous, just, nor sane. The possibilities of national life are changed; the actualities of national action must be changed too. Independently of all neighbours, and of all immediate probability of danger, we must now do what we never ought to have left undone, and what no people but ourselves would ever dream of doubting or delaying for an hour. We must do all this now, and once for all; we must do it for the sake of that feeling of confident security I which is the soul of commerce and prosperity; we j must do it for the sake'less of safety than of dignity. We must exonerate ourselves at once and for ever from those indecorous panics which now come upon us periodically, and which any unusual proceedings on the part of our neighbours can at any time arouse. We must place ourselves in such a position that no new frigates or steamers launched at Cherbourg—no fresh cannon cast or rifled at Lyons—no reported activity in the dockyards of Toulon and Brest —shall henceforth have power to fright us from our propriety. Semper vigilans, semper paratics, England may then hold her course in steadiness and pursue her avocations in peace. Moreover, there can be no really proportionate or equivalent disarmament as between Prance and England, let both parties be as sincere and bond fide as they please. The purpose of such disarmament—which, unless it effected, it would be futile and deceptive— must of course be to render each party safe from the other by reducing both to aparitv of strength. Now, no mutual disarmament would effect this unless we could persuade the Emperor to abandon his own sensible system and adopt our absurd one. When England reduces her navy, she dismantles her vessels and lets them rot in harbour; she sells off her surplus stores (at an enormous loss); and she disperses and whistles off to the winds her trained and practised seamen. She really disarms and reduces herself to a state of comparative defencelessness. When Prance reduces her navy, she simply ceases building;. she diminishes her crews, but retains rigging and fittings ; and she dismisses the more finished and practised seamen to the merchant or coasting service (whence she can recall them at a week's notice), retaining the less skilled in order to complete their discipline and practise. The truth is, that unless we alter our system we shall be always at a disadvantage. Our fleet in commission may at any given moment be double that of Prance, —and yet a month afterwards hers may be equal to ours,—if only she has the hulls ready. The only real naval disarmament of Prance (unless she we're to sell 'us her surplus ships and build no more) would be the abandonment of her inscription maritime. But were any such proposal made to the Emperor, how pungently. might he reply, " Gentlemen, imitate my plan if you please, but don't quarrel with me for it. Your defencelessness—positive or relative—is your own fault. I have Russia to watch, and Prance to keep great. I choose to have a large and readilymanned navy. Do you take care to have the same, according to your own estimate of wants and your own choice of means." Any talk of " agreements to disarm," therefore, pace Mr. Cobden, is obviously idle and unworthy. To be safe, England must have the supremacy at sea. If she once abandons this idea, as either costly or impossible, her only alternative will be to maintain a land force proportionate to that of Prance, which would be far more costly, far less possible, and, what is worse, far less effectual. Let us never forget that if we trust to an army, the struggle (if it comes) will take place on our shores; if we trust to our navy, the struggle is relegated to the sea or to the harbours of our foe, and the soil of England remains inviolate.