THE INVASION OF ENGLAND.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 132, 8 September 1871, Page 3

THE INVASION OF ENGLAND.

Can an enemy land an army on our shores ? The great Napoleon failed in the attempt, and there is none else that can do it, or that will make the attempt. It ia no easy thing to disembark an invading army : and for our satisfaction let us hear the testimony borne to this point by Mr. Vignolles, the president of the mechanical section in the late meeting of the British Association at Liverpool:—" I think," said he, " I shall be disabusing the minds of many who have supposed this country ia not prepared, or that the Government have

been unaware of the necessity of creating the best means of communication in the event of invasion or war, by stating that for several years the military department at the Horse Guards, and the chief engineers of the country, have been in constant communication, and have formed deliberate arrangements by which, in the event of any casualty occurring, such as the invasion of the country, within forty-eight hours the whole of the military forces of the country—loo,ooo men— if we had them at our disposal, might be brought to any one point of attack." Mr. Vignolles next pointed out, by extracts from Mr. Kinglake's Crimean War, " that in fine weather, without opposition, and under the guns of the fleet, it took five days to land 20,000 troops, 1000 horses, and 60 guns. These facts," Mr. Yignolles said, " would, he hoped, be some consolation to the old soldiers and old women as to our alleged want of preparation " It is very clear that • we are in no such danger as to need any increase in our national forces ; aDd we may even believe that we shall be just as secure if our bloated war establishments were cu f down to more moderate dimensions, as we should be were they swollen into the boundless magnitude that our alarmists are continually clamoring for. We ought, at least, to reduce them to the level of the expenditure of 1850. The alarm of invasion had just then been raided, and we dwelt safely, untouched and unthreatened, with a war service much lower in all its branches than the one we are now maintaining. We are now paying for our navy nearly double what it cost us in 1850, and nearly as much as we then paid for botli army and navy. Our army now costs us nine millions more than it did at that date; and as much as army, navy, and ordnance all combined in 1850. Ought not this needless, ruinous, and ever growing expenditure to cease, or to be greatly curtailed ? Ought not England, unscathed and untouched as she happily is, as an example to the world, and in mercy to her overburdeued taxpayers, to be foremost in proclaiming a policy of peace, and in contenting herself with the establishments of peace ?