OUR RESOURCES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 4, Issue 172, 5 January 1860, Page 4

OUR RESOURCES.

[From the Times.']

i Jt was maintained, the other day that we jcould not at this moment bring above 30,000 [infantry into the field against an invader. I /his, upon a rigorous principle of reckoning, ! may possibly he true, but we may add that it is full three times as much as we could have done tweaty-five years ago. The troops at home, besides being trebled in number, are infinitely better equipped, armed, and trained. Instead of being scattered by companies oyer the kingdom, they are massed in large bodies, and inured by the practice of camps to the usuages of actual war. In particular, the artillery lias been strongly reinforced, and, instead of eighteen, we* could now produce 180 guns, all excellently served. Taking our home army altogether, it may fairly be esti mated as worth five times the force available in 1832; and to this we are proposing to add a reserve of veteran soldiers in the prime of strength. Of the navy we may speak in the same strain. Our arrears in line-of-battle ships have been rapidly made up, and in the other departments of a national marine we have little to complain of. We have a formidable fleet of gunboats ; we have our Orlandos and Merseys, worthy rivals, as we : believe, of Niagaras and General-Admirals; and if steam rams and iron-cased frigates are to take the lead in such matters, we: have both upon the stocks. At sea we have a channel squadron and Mediterranean squadron, while as to sailors we have already some reserve force, and have adopted measures for supporting it by others. We are not overlooking any of the discoveres of modern science. We are rifling our cannon ; we arc practising musketry, and, by the aid of our well organised militia and our new volunteer corps, we are bringing a knowledge of arms to the popula tion generally. These facts, taken in the aggregate, ough, we think, to. put an end to the panics which have periodically disordered the state. We are now rapidly approaching the posiLion —-if, iudeed, we have not actually attained it —in which no assailant can hope to attack us with impunity. We shall be no longer defenceless, and that ought to be enough. We cannot exhaust our resources in maintaining great armies on a continental footing, nor can we afford always to keep our amaments at the highest pitch of strength. But what we can afford to do is to protect ourselves effectually against surprise, and to insure this much, that any enemy shall be kept fairly at bay until the real strength of the country can be brought out. We can do this without imputation, or reflection upon other powers, whose example, indeed, we are but following at a distance; and when it has been done, we hope we may be relieved from alarms which were, perhaps groundless as regarded actual danger, but which, as regarded the exposure of the country, were certainly not without justification.