STATE OF THE IMPERIAL ARMY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXV, Issue 4252, 26 June 1895, Page 3

STATE OF THE IMPERIAL ARMY.

The defeat of the Bosebery Government during the passage of the Army Estimate? through the House of Commons, is, in all probability, very largely the outcome of an agitation against existing abuses in the War Office administration. The London "Daily Chronicle," now the most stalwart exponent of modern Radicalism in England, has fiercely inveighed against the Bystem that permits incompetent royal dukes at the head of the army, and personally attacked the Duke of Cambridge for retaining a position for which he is notoriously unfitted. The " Spectator," in milder and more reasoned terms, has followed the same course ; and " The Times " has published a series of articles in which the maladministration of the War' Office is scathingly exposed. Through this it was, no doubt, that the attention of the House of Commons was directed towards the affairs of the army, with the result just announced by cable. The announcement of the retirement of the Duke of Cambridge as Commander-in-Chief has also followed from the same cause, and the appointment of Lord Wolseley as his successor. It has also been proposed to introduce reforms into the army on the lines laid down in the Hartington Commission. The Hartington Commission, it may be explained, was appointed in June, 1888, for the purpose of inquiring into the civil and professional administration of the naval and military departments, the Commission being presided over by Lord Hartington. But the report was simply pigeon-holed, and, because of the remonstrance! of the Duke of Cambridge, nothing virtually has been done since then in the way of reform. The most competent authorities maintain that Great Britain has the weakest, the most costly and the least effectively - trained army of any Great Power. "The Times" asks why, with an annual expenditure of eighteen millions sterling, Great Britain can support a force of only 144,000 men with the colors ? How is it, it further asks, that when a cavalry force, individually the most expensive in the world, is brought together, it is found to be unfitted for the purposes of war ? And then it refers to some items in the Estimates, furnished by the War Department, in which such anomalies as an increase of pension amounting to a couple of pounds is shown to have been allowed an old soldier, and in the next line is nearly a couple of hundred thousand pounds which nobody can throw any light on. Switzerland, Roumania, or even the little Bulgarian state could, in a fortnight, so " The Times " states, put into the field larger fighting forces readier and better equipped than Great Britain. It is scarcely to be wondered at that public opinion at Home on this question is excited and restless, and that great changes have occurred, involving a Government defeat and the deposition of a royal duke from the head of the army.