AND WAR SALARIES. 177 



pledges taken for the non-establishment of it, the Ordnance 

 Select Committee, or any substitute for it, is only a deception 

 and a snare. Until such time, it would be an act of folly to 

 set about the remodelling of that committee or its equiva- 

 lent ; seeing that, even granting its establishment on the most 

 perfect organisation conceivable, its decrees would be equally 

 futile. 



The Ordnance Select Committee was typical of many 

 others which do not, like it, sit permanently, but are insti- 

 tuted from time to time to deal with some specific topic or 

 proposition. The Small-arms Committee, which abrogated its 

 functions in 1859 or '60, was one of these. Relative to those 

 temporary and minor committees, it is unnecessary to state 

 more than that they are open to the same general animad- 

 versions as the Ordnance Select Committee itself, with the 

 addition of another, specially dependent on the circumstance 

 of their temporary nature and organisation. 



The pay of members of these temporary committees is 

 considerable enough to make the reception of it by com- 

 paratively speaking poor men a matter of consequence. The 

 tendency of circumstances is, to prolong deliberations beyond 

 the time needful for the eliciting of truth and arriving at 

 some conclusion. The thought may have often occurred, that 

 if some independent member of Parliament, strong in the 

 economics of finance and expenditure, would deign to scruti- 

 nise narrowly the manner in which the army and navy esti- 

 mates are expended, instead of inveighing (as too ordinarily 

 the practice) against war-appliances in the aggregate; if^ 

 instead of launching incriminations against war-establish- 

 ments and the morality of warfare, such independent member, 

 contenting himself to accept the status quo as regards the 

 practice of warfare, would do his country the service of seeing 

 that the war-funds were well expended, the public would owe 

 deep recognition. As matters stand, it so happens that lead- 

 ing men amongst the class of politicians referred to, ignore 



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