is beginning to occupy public attention and with Lord Wolseley, Sir Evelyn Wood, and Sir George White, the new Quarter-Master General, at work at headquarters, we may expect some rapid and thorough administrative reorganisation. Mr. Brodrick, the Under Secretary for War, in a speech on Wednesday, showed pretty plainly that, as far as he is concerned, the Government will not be backward, though after Lord Lansdowne''s utterances there was no reason to doubt their willingness to take partin a forward movement. The army is too small for its work, and the addition of 8,000 men in the present year does not go far when it is considered that since 1871 until now the army had not been increased by a single battalion. One consolation for the British taxpayer may be found in the fact of the army's popularity. The recruiting returns are satisfactory as, though there has been no general depres sion of trade, there has been an increase of four thousand recruits in the last six month. Allowing for a lowering of the standard required, some portion of the increase may reasonably be attributed to the Jubilee displays and to the martial spirit evoked by wars and rumours of war in Crete, India, and elsewhere. Every man costs us £55 a head and there is no way short of couscription—which would simply throw the cost of maintenance directly upon the soldier's relatives—of reducing that capital expense. Though the army contains a larger number of young and smaller men, we still have 36,000 officers and men whose chest measurement exceeds 38 inches and more than 11,000 whose stature is at least 5 feet 11 inches. For good conduct and sobriety the last returns show that our soldiers never had so excellent a record.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.