1830.] The Opening of the Session of Parliament. 240 



various scattered officials connected with this ponderous establishment, 

 we have to pay at least 150,000/. And this in the fifteenth year of an 

 unbroken peace ; with his Majesty's gracious declaration that we are in 

 brotherly love with all mankind, or, in the more circuitous dialect of 

 the speech, that, " His Majesty receives the strongest assurances from 

 all foreign powers of their desire to maintain and cultivate the most 

 friendly relations with this country/' 



If his Majesty's ministers do not believe those most friendly assu- 

 rances, why do they report them to his Majesty's people ? If they do, 

 why are his Majesty's people forced to pay this military multitude ? The 

 colonies, we admit, require troops, and those troops must be occasionally 

 relieved ; but 30,000 men form a force three times the strength of any 

 that we have in the colonies. Why then are we to be encumbered with 

 the remaining 100,000 ? Are we to be told that they must be reserved 

 for European emergencies ? Let us also be told, that France, or Spain, 

 or Holland, is meditating a descent on our coasts. Let us be told, that 

 the sea between Calais and Dover is dried up, or that we are to be in- 

 vaded by balloons. But if those tales are not to be told us, are we 

 not entitled to demand, why we shall be put under the burthen of 

 an enormous military establishment for a contingency which ministers 

 would be the first to pronounce ridiculously remote? Why are we to 

 pay eight millions of pounds a year for a service which ought not to 

 cost us one ? Nothing can be more idle than to suppose, that if we 

 to-morrow disbanded nine-tenths of the troops now in Great Britain, 

 and if France or Russia declared war against us the day after, we should 

 not have full time to prepare an army adequate to every possible pur- 

 pose. The foreign standard cannot be planted at our doors without 

 our having seen its wavings along the horizon. The channel cannot be 

 bridged over in a night. The preparations of foreign war must be slow. 

 Even the vivid and remorseless activity of Napoleon could not over- 

 come the obstacles that nature has erected between this country and the 

 impulse of a hostile force. On the other hand, by preserving the staff 

 and a few of the regimental officers, a regiment fit to take the field 

 could be formed on the nucleus of the old corps in a month. Napo- 

 leon's preparations for invasion cost him nearly two years, and still they 

 were incomplete. Yet to meet this remote contingency, this almost 

 impossibility, we are to be broken down with an enormous expenditure. 

 Here the premier may exhibit his economical zeal with the most laud- 

 able vigour ; and we shall follow shouting, " lo triumphe" in his train. 



The Navy is the true power of England ; her most vigorous and 

 irresistible arm ; her most natural and most impregnable defence. To 

 the largest expenditure of public wealth actually required by the navy, 

 no true Englishman will ever demur. The Humes and Burdetts may 

 cavil at this expenditure; but we disclaim all alliance with them and 

 their faction. In our remarks we have no object in view but the public 

 good ; and it would be no gratification to us to assist the ambition or swell 

 the clamour of men whose principles we scorn. 



The allusions in the speech to the public distress are flippant and fee- 

 ble. But the topic would now lead us too far ; and besides is too likely 

 to be a permanent one, to make it necessary for us to examine it now. 

 It is the great problem of the time. That England, with her extra- 

 ordinary means of prosperity, should be yearly sinking into pecuniary 

 distress, is not to be accounted for on the ordinary grounds of national 



M.M. New Series Vol. IX. No. 51. 2 K 



