THE COST OF MILITARY GLORY.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 178, 4 January 1875, Page 3

THE COST OF MILITARY GLORY.

The Berlin Correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette , writes on October 26th: The Berliners have other questions to excite them besides the still engrossing Arnim affair. There has been a falling off of £1)20,000 in the Customs receipts for the present year ; the stamp duty for the first eight months of 1874 has produced £24,000 less than in the corresponding period of 1873; and, as most of the other receipts show a similar diminution, the Budget is threatened with a rather large deficit. To meet this, Herr Camphausen, the Finance Minister, is already planning [a general increase of all existing taxes, and notably of that on tobacco, which at presents yields but £560,000, and which it is proposed to make yield £6,000,000. Now this is particularly grievous to the Germans, who have hitherto smoked more cheaply than any people in Europe, and who will have the cost of martial glory brought home to them in a strikingly painful manner when they are obliged to pay fourpence an ounce for their tobacco instead of three halfpence. However, there is no help for it. Although the military budget of Germany is less at present than that of ißussia, France, and England (the exact figures are—Russia, £28,000,000 ; France, £18,400,000 ; England. £14,416,000; Germany, £13,600,000), the expense of the army is increasing at a rate out of proportion to the augmentation of the national wealth. A formidable chain of sixteen forts is being built on the Alsace-Lorraine frontier, the proposed reorganisation of the Landsturm will swallow up large sums, and it has just been decreed that two more storewaggons are to be added to every artillery battery, and that waggons and field-pieces shall in future be drawn by six horses instead of four : so that 108 horses will now be required for each battery. In addition to this, it is found that the pay of officers and non-commissioned officers, and also of men in the special corps, has grown inadequate, and must be raised. At present the yearly cost of each soldier in France is reckoned at £l9 2s 6d, and in Germany at £l7 12s; but the increase for which Herr von Roou stipulates will make the German figure almost exceed the French. The increase will be moved for next session ; but this is not all, for the national ambition to possess a fleet is drawing Germany into immense naval expenditure. The recent launch of the Deutschland and Frederick the Great brings to seven the number of German firstclass armour-plated frigates, and the Imperial navy comprises besides three smaller ironclads and forty-five ordinary men-ofjwar, making a total of fifty-five ships, carrying 425 guns and manned by 4000 sailors. This already places Germany among the naval Powers, but the Government aspires to have twenty-five first-class ironclads by the year 1882 (the date fixed for the completion of the fleet), and at that time 17,000 men will be needed. The question is how to get all these sailors, for it has been found extremely difficult to man the navy up to its present requirements. The pay of the sailor is much less than that of the ordinary mechanic, and as seamanship is uncongenial to the German temperament, the idea of drafting men into the navy by force has been abandoned. It is probable that the Government will be obliged to establish training ships, as in England, and in the meantime will try to tempt able-bodied fishermen and merchant seamen by doubling the pay ; but to do this the estimates will have to be swelled to an enormous extent.