FOR PEACE AND WAR. 81 



miss a great many good horses unless you buy them at three years old. A 

 farmer will sell a horse at three years old because it may have a white face, or 

 something for which he does not think it good enough to keep it on longer, 

 and he will take the Government price at that time, but if he does not sell it 

 then, he keeps it on longer, and he gets a better customer for it than the 

 Government at foiu- years old. 



" 350. Would it not be better for the Government to buy them from the 

 farmers at three years old, and keep them for a year? — I think so. 



" 351. Do you think that it woixld be worth while for the Government to huj 

 them at three years old, and keep them either in some general depot or some 

 depot for each regiment, until they are four years old ? — I think that if you 

 were to increase all your batteries, for instance, 20 per cent., and take three- 

 year-old horses into them, they woiild mature better. With a battery having 

 20 extra horses, you have got all the materials there, and you would always 

 come out with your strength and leave 20 horses behind ; and every autumn, 

 supposing you want those autumn manoeuvres, let every battery colonel send 

 you 20 of his worst horses, and let them go through the autumn manoeuvres, 

 and sell them for whatever they will fetch. I think you would not want to 

 create dep6ts or any extensive establishments, and you would also allow us to 

 begin buying horses on the 1st of April, which we ought to do. That is an 

 idea of my own, and perhaps it is presumptuous of me to say so, biit it strikes 

 me as a practical thing." 



On the same side follow Lord Vivian, Major Wardlaw, Colonel 

 Price, and Colonel Baker. Colonel Jenyns, while not altogether 

 opposed to the sj'stem of purchasing three-year-olds as a re- 

 serve fund, thinks the establishment of Government depots 

 would interfere with the privilege that commanding officers 

 have of purchasing their own horses. To this privilege, on the 

 other hand, Lord Charlemont takes strong objection. Admit- 

 ting the possibility of Lord Strathnairn's dissent, his Lordship 

 objects altogether to the purchase of horses for the regiments 

 by the Colonels of the regiments. He says : — 



"I would have all the horses for army remounts purchased by the Govern- 

 ment. I would have all horses for the army service purchased and stationed 

 at proper depots, to be there conditioned, trained, and broken, and never sent 



to the regiments till they were fit to go to the ranks. 



"622. You object to the system of buying by particiilar regiments ?—Tes, I 

 do. I know that in fairs the colonels of ditlerent regiments continually clash 

 against each other in their purchases. 



" (523. Do you mean that it raises the price ? — No, I do not mean in raising 

 the price so much as in interfering with each other's taste or discrimination 

 in the purchase. I think that a great deal of diificulty arises often from the 

 commanding officers of different regiments being in the same fair, and clash- 

 ing against each otlier. 



" 624. Do yoix mean that their individual tastes clash ?— It is not that 

 merely ; they want black horses for one regiment, we vnll say the Life Guards, 

 and the Life Guards want three or four greys for the band. The colonel of 

 the Greys is there, and he is very angry at the greys being taken away from 

 him for the band of the Life Guards." 



But Sir Henry Storks does not consider that the pxtrchase of 

 three-year-olds, with a view to keeping them and breaking them 

 to use at four years, is at all an economical arrangement, as 



