THE ARMY SYSTEM.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1943, 17 May 1880, Page 3

THE ARMY SYSTEM.

The remarts made by the Duke of Cambridge at the dinner of the Institution of Civil Engineers are worthy of notice. Referring to the short-service system in the army, the Duke said :—“ I must put it to you — whose knowledge on such a matter must be great—whether you would not prefer, in the great works you undertake, to have workmen of some experience rather than boys—that a certain length of service is necessary to make a good soldier. I have no doubt you find in your workmen that there is a certain happy medium of age, when all a man’s physical energy is developed without his losing any of the spirit and dash of youth. And such a man will be most useful to you in your great undertakings. So it is with us in the army ; and what we want to determine is, up to what period of life a man should remain in the service so that the country may obtain the benefit of the combination. We have not yet decided the point, but I hope wo soon shall do so, and that we shall get an army in every respect as efficient as wo should wish it to be.” It will, of course, be answered by the advocates of a short service system that wo must have not only an army but also a sufficiently numerous reserve, and that this reserve can only be obtained by a short service system. To this argument it may bo rejoined, however, that while the short service system has given us an army which notoriously is not so efficient as we should wish it to be, it has given us only reserves which are not available in the wars in which the English army is most often engaged. A certain portion of our navy is always ready to engage with an enemy at literally an hour’s notice, and if weeks or months were allowed for preparation nothing could be done to increase the fighting value of that portion. The English army cannot claim to be as efficient as it should be until a certain and sufficient portion of it also is to take the field in the most perfect condition conceivable at very short notice ; and so long as the ranks are filled with boys a regiment is certainly not in perfect condition,