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improve the health and bearing of the boys, or assert that it would damage them as ploughboys or factory hands. It would also instil a military spirit into them.

THE

SOCIETY

OF ARTS.

A.D.

1846-1873.

Part II.
Volunteers

Selections.

Drill pro

fitable for

industry.

15. When the lads leave school, every inducement should be given to them to elect between becoming volunteers or joining the militia, not the present, but a reformed system of militia. Com- or militia. mon cause should be made with all the great employers of labour, not only to allow, but to encourage their hands to keep up the drill and advance it. Call out the volunteers and militia once in the year for twenty days or so, and then return them to their occupations. Throughout the United Kingdom there should be drill from April to October, and your idle half-pay officers should be turned into full-pay, to command the men. Make another proportion of men of a certain age, soldiers for twelve months at proper wages, and then return them to their occupations afterwards. I have consulted several large employers of labour in the North of England, and they all assure me that some such system would in no way interfere with the labour market and the operations of labour, but greatly benefit them both. Such a system is something quite different from taking a bad man for twelve years as a soldier, and then returning him to the labour market with a pension. Soldiers should thus be made in the midst of their industrial Occupations. They should form part of the civil service of the country. Among the very best civil servants, are officers and men of the Royal Engineers. Whether for officers or privates, you know with certainty that you can obtain a competent man for almost any kind of work in the Royal Engineers; and, this being so, why should not there be the same kind of certainty for obtaining civil servants in all other branches of the army? I am assured by high military authorities, that twelve months is amply sufficient to make first-rate disciplined private soldiers, and that more time than this is thrown away. Of course, if you want men to march like machines, life is not long enough to accomplish it perfectly; but this old world dandyism is less cultivated by other nations, and is probably thrown aside on the field of battle.

Royal

Engineers.

civil service connected.

16. I hope to see the military service thoroughly fused with the Military and civil service of the country, and that one test of qualification for entering the civil service, should be a certificate for having served well as a volunteer, militiaman, or soldier, retired from active service.

THE
SOCIETY
OF ARTS.

A. D.

1846-1873.

Part II.
Selections.

Blackstone

Again I quote old Judge Blackstone. "The military power should not be a body too distinct from the people. It should be wholly composed of natural subjects; it ought only to be enlisted for a short and limited time. The soldiers also should live intermixed with the people; no separate camp, no barracks, no inland on standing fortresses should be allowed. And, perhaps, it might be still better, if, by dismissing a stated number and enlisting others at every renewal of their term, a circulation should be kept up between the army and the people, and the citizen and the soldier be more intimately connected together."

armies.

Long service soldiers.

Present cost, £15,455,400.

17. As respects engagement for longer terms-say seven years in India or more-that would be met by a special class, who would look to military service as the sole business of their lives, and the rate of payment would be regulated by the rate of wages and the necessities of the case. So in time of actual foreign war, men would be engaged and paid liberally, and, if wounded, pensioned. If not wounded, they would return to their occupations.

18. The Parliamentary votes for the army in 1868, were £15,455,000. This is exclusive of the cost of the army in India. This enormous sum was apportioned as follows:—

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Future estimated cost,

19. My conviction is, that about seven millions of pounds £8,740,000 sterling would be saved annually, by the adoption of principles such as those I have briefly glanced at, and the future apportionment of Parliamentary votes might, I submit, without pledging myself to precise details, which are far too many for public discussion, be somewhat as follows:

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Standing army, 16,000 men at £65 a-piece
Scientific reserves of Engineers, Artillery, Marines,

Hospital Corps, Staff officers, &c., say 30,000
men, being an increase on the present force, at
£65 per man.

Militia, and drilling of youths from 10 years old and

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upwards.

Volunteers

Colonial corps

Stores

Works and buildings, excluding new fortifications
Pensions

Civil administration

1,950,000

2,000,000

1,000,000

500,000

1,000,000

500,000

600,000

150,000

8,740,000

20. The feasibility of all this depends upon a real public desire to save annually, seven or eight millions of unproductive expenditure, and, in return, to be willing to become home soldiers universally; foreign service being paid for at its proper value. Such a reform like this is not to be accomplished by a stroke of the pen. It could only be effected by slow degrees. But if the principles I advocate were adopted by the public, I think the new system might be fully introduced in the course of seven years, each year during the process witnessing a sensible reduction of expen- the change. diture, until the total cost reached the sum I have mentioned.

Seven years for making

21. When war came, we should be far readier for action than we have been hitherto. An unproductive annual expenditure of A saving of seven millions would have been economized, enabling us to bear seven the additional cost of the trumpets, drums, and fifes of actual

war.

millions

effected.

what this

would do.

22. Allow me to glance at what a saving of seven millions a-year would accomplish for Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. It saving would provide a national system of education. It would provide scientific and technical instruction, through colleges, schools, and museums, throughout the United Kingdom, wherever the wants of the country required them. It would establish complete electric telegraphs between the United Kingdom and the whole of our colonies and dependencies. It would enable us to abolish all taxes on locomotion. It would reduce the postage to all colonies

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THE
SOCIETY
OF ARTS.

A.D.

1846-1873. Part II. Selections.

Army

Reform a

administration.

and dependencies. It would relieve, if not abolish, many taxes on production, and help to give the people a free breakfast-table. It would help in abolishing pauperism.

23. And whilst these positive results to Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce could be predicted as certain, the better organization of military service would directly benefit them instead of being a a wholly unproductive dead weight.

24. I hope to see all friends of peace assisting in this reform. work of civil It is the work rather of civil administration than for the heroes of warfare. The measure, I know, cannot be acceptable to military prejudices and to many of the military officers, who constitute a sixth part of the present House of Commons. But the press is discussing the subject most ably, and the pamphleteers on army reform are many. If the matter be as well discussed in Parliament as in the press, the national will, and the country at large, which pays for the defence of its honour and interests, will soon be the best judge of what is necessary for them. It may be a fight against narrow, short-sighted prejudices, to last as long as those against Catholic Emancipation, the Test and Corporation Acts, Parliamentary Reform, Municipal Reform, Railways, Corn-laws, and Free-trade. But these beneficial changes have become the creed of all men in my time, and I trust to live to see the honour of the country placed in the custody of a national army.

[graphic]

MR. COLE'S SPEECH AT THE DISTRIBUTION
OF PRIZES TO THE STUDENTS OF THE

NOTTINGHAM SCHOOL OF ART.

15TH JANUARY, 1873.1

DEPART

MENT OF

AND ART.

A.D.

Part II.
Selections.

Y LORDS, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN,— This time last year, I engaged to perform the duty SCIENCE I am about to do on this occasion, but was prevented by imperative official business from fulfilling 1860-1873. my engagement. Had I been present, I should have ventured to make a few observations to you on the position in which Nottingham Nottingham stood with regard to art, and the especial fitness of Science and the Town for establishing a Museum of Science and Art. particularly happy in not having to talk about an anticipation, but rather of a performance which has been amply fulfilled.

I am

Nottingham has now its Museum of Science and Art, which is the beginning of something much greater in the future. As I entered the ante-room, a gentleman of Nottingham was kind enough to observe to me, "You will not forget that in old times, we were distinguished for cock-fighting and prize-fighting, whereas, at present, we are distinguished for cricketing and rifle-shooting; and we hope you will make out a good case for our being now distinguished in Art." Last year I wrote to the then Mayor, a letter excusing my absence, and saying that I thought Nottingham was

1 This speech has been revised by the reports of the meeting given in the "Nottingham Guardian," the "Not

tingham Express," and the "Not-
tingham Journal."

Museum of

Art.

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