IS ENGLAND PREPARED FOR WAR?

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 336, 6 July 1878, Page 2

IS ENGLAND PREPARED FOR WAR?

As Britain is surrounded-by a “ wet ditch;” this question has ;ayflffierent meaning for her than for a Continental Power. France and Prussia are separated only by an imaginary line ; as soon as either side is ready the conilict, in case of war, begins. The unprepared power is forced to stake its fortunes'bn a battlelfor which it is not ready: The French were unprepared in 1870. As nn illustration of this .most p£ : : their baggage carts were packed away.in separate pieces to save room ; weeks were' required to put them together,' Now the carts stand in sheds : loaded, so that they have only to put the horses in and start. In this sense England is never prepared for ’war. She can, 'owing to her insular position, choose hef own, time to begin hostilities, and therefore'does not require to keep a largo proportion of her able bodied men contimulily under arms. Her army is indeed very:small compared with that of France or Germany. The standing army numbers 99,0(10 men, the whole of which could be sent abroad in gny great emergency, for there are in the Kingdom reserves—militia and volunteers, to the number of several hundred thousands who would ho fit for home service, "but hardly fit to be huniid off to meet continental veterans. Sir Garnet WoTesley says—“lf war were declared: to-morrow, about 400,000 drilled;?men would fall into line if required, supported, by 072 field guns.” This is an imposing force; and it goes without saying that they are good men; yefrwe should remember that many of them have been “ drilled” for recreation, and have been accustomed to speak to their officers as Smith, Jones, Tom and Harry, and might not be easily handled without being further “drilled:” Yet,in comparison with 1854, we have become quite a military nation. Then the whole force of the Kingdom was 70,000 men with no reserves. And such was the ignorance of the Home authorities that our little army landed at the Crimea without means for carrying their .wounded, and witfiout sufficient tools for burying their dead, lot alone making roads. When a letter from a field officer was read in the House of Commons complaining of want of means for carrying the sick and wounded, the Minister of War rose and indignantly denied it, he was posi-tive-there were a hundred hospital.. pan- • niers with the army., Theliospital pannier is wickerwork’ basket, curiously made for the reception ■of 'medicihcs, operating instruments, &cT Things are in a very much better state now, and yet .the recently voted £6,000,000 is needed to bring the British arm) r up to tiie state in which continental armies always are. There is a possibility of England relying 100 much on her insular position. Through inability to strike a sharp, decisive blow, war might be spun out for a generation and overwhelm •her in debt; or, while she was preparing an ally might be crushed..

I3ut letusexaminetho two chief elements of national power ; let ns see whether in numbers and wealth Great Briraincompares with tire great continental powers as well as she did during tin war with Napoleon, in which she took a part of which we are so justly proud. | At the beginning ot that struggle the population of the three kingdoms was about fourteen millions ; th'it of France was over twenty-sixrni!lions;AustnaequalledFrance, while -Llussia. in Europe numbered about forty millions. Thus two powers, France and Austria, had nearly double, while one power—llussia, had nearly three times'the population of Great Britain and Ireland. Farther, let us remember, England bad just lost America ; Canada was peopled by French settlers ; the Cape of Good Hope belonged to the Dutch ; the Indian Empire was only beginning to be; Australia and New Zealand wore without a history, and lastly, Ireland was disaffected and required a large force to keep down insurrection. Indeed, the Irish population of four millions might almost bo subtracted from the total of fourteen millions.

Look at the present. In the middle of last year the population of Great Britain and Ireland was estimated at 33,500.000 ; that of France Ls's than 37,000,000 ; of Austria 30,000,000, of Russia in Europe 72.000. . '.I die two. powers'that in 1795 doubled the British population are little more, than equals now, and the power that trebled it is ,now qnly double. This is not mentioning the pacific state of Ireland, the 6.000. of loyal people in the colonies, or the unlimited recruiting ground of India. These facts, that we can only thus briefly state, will male it clear to every reader that eighty years have changed the proportion of pop a i aliens vastly in favor of Great Britain. . • Turning now to thj sinews of war : we have no data to cjutblo us to compare Britain with continental powers in the matter of wealth. Tfe can, however,'compare England now, with England in 1815, and the comparison will show ns that in this matter she has not fallen behind. In 1815tlie public debtvyasnearly£9oo,ooo,ooo while the estate of the nation was worth £2,200,000,000. Tils whole property of the British people was therefore mortgaged to the extent of about; forty per cent. In 1878 the national ; debt is not more than £750,000,000, Avhile the Saturday Review, says the national, estate is worth £8.500,000,000, and' Sir Julius Vogel says it is worth £12,000,000,000. The former estimate is probably that used in estimating the property tax, and. is no doubt below the mark. We may therefore say, that the national assets are at least ten thousand millions of pounds. This will reduce the national debt to mortgage of seven and a half per cent. Whereas it was forty per cent in 1815. Nbw, in order that the public debt should again rise to the forty per cent, of total wealth of the people, it must increase from seven hundred and fifty millions to four thousand millions —that is to say, if Britain j were involved in a thirteen-years war, sire could in each year borrow £250,000,001, and then not burden her people more heavily than they were burdened in 1815. A