THE MATERIAL OF THE BRITISH ARMY.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 799, 31 July 1877, Page 3

THE MATERIAL OF THE BRITISH ARMY.

It was good logic as well a right feeling, which made Mr Gathorne Hardy diverge from his task of returning thanks for v the British Army, at the Board of "Works banquet on Saturday, to speak of the splendid rescue just accomplished in the Tynewydd Colliery. " If you would reflect," said the Secretary of War to his hearere, " upon thefstuff of which the army is made, I would refer you to that which, I think, no one could have read this day without emotion, or without a feeling of >.pride, in thinking that such men as these heroic miners fill the ranks of our army. The dangers in battle are great, but they are compensated for by the enthusiasm which is excited by surrounding circumstances;- but in the darkness of a mine, with unknown horrors which may burst forth t at any moment, when you, find men—in the calm,* resolute recognition of their duty—working on hour after hour, and day after day, with the sole view of rescuing a few of their comrades from a painful and horrible death ; when you find that at the last supreme; moment, with unknown dangers before them from air, from water, and from gas, these men went forward, some eight of them, in the same spirit that animated our soldiers on board of the Birkenhead, nobly discharging their duty to God and man—when you have such material for an army, you need not be afraid - to trust it in the field." That is, undoubtedly, one of the reflections inspired by the gallant deliverance effected on Friday, and, though it would especially recommend itself to the war minister of the nation, there is in, the idea nevertheless matter for general pride and pleasure. It was said of Col. Armine Mountain that if he had been hacked in battle into twenty pieces, every piece would have died a British gentleman j and such an event as this memorable and gratifying rescue might well excuse the boast that whenever some sudden need calls upon the rank and file of British manhood the work-o' day stuff answers to the historic sample, then the gold comes out bright and beautiful from the native rock, and there is • pretty surely found the conscience, the courage, the profound recognition of duty, the quiet sternness of mind to discharge it, andj most, and best of all, the spirit of fellowship which have made our annals what they are. Mr Hardy is right, With a store to draw upon in the thick of the population like that exhibited by those glorious pitmen of Pontypridd, a war minister of England need not envv the moblike armies of othei nations. He can rely* on his raw material, and upon its standing proof; for go where he will—aye as low down and apparently with as little a? bus |offcen : bepn tho oai?e~fche

mettle comes forthwith the British bred flesh and bone. Those sea-lions who stood round Nelson and fought with him at the Nile : and Trafalgar were waifs and strays of our seaports. Those boys who latfghe I death in the face at Quatre Bras—as' Miss Thompson's fine bat--' tle-pieco despicts for us were gathered anyhow from cowsheds •ihd plough-tails. The soldiers of the Birkenhead* 7 were recruited at has!.artlS,..jiind_ these Welshjininers— ; whose nalnes""afe "so pathetically * common that we blunder as we try to discriminate hero from hero, confusing Jenkinses, Morgans, . and. bub an ordinary band of collier class. Yet when; duty blows her clear and sacred clarion, in their simple ears how they all ' fall in ;' how they know what a man. must do, being Englishmen ) how little need there is to tell these patient and worthy ' com-, mon people' that the time has come ; to be uncommon, even to the point of dying as saints and martyrs and epic heroes have died!—' Daily Telegraph.'