Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 401, March 1849Various
Science
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 401, March 1849
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
These considerations are not only directed towards the course of our
foreign policy; they are of vast moment in judging of the expediency
of reducing our forces at this particular time. Last year, with NO
revolutions abroad, the Whigs not only refused to lessen the amount of
our standing army, but increased it. This year, when the Continent is
still in a state of insurrection, and when war is pending in different
parts of Europe--when, moreover, an Indian contest, more serious in
its aspect than any other which we have recently seen, has
commenced--they propose to begin the work of reduction. Her Majesty is
made to say,--"The present aspect of affairs has enabled me to make
large reductions on the estimates of last year!"
We never have suspected Lord John Russell of possessing much
accomplishment in the art of logic; but, really, in the present
instance, he has the merit of inventing a new system. According to his
own showing, according to his recorded admissions, his doctrine is
this: In time of peace, when there is no occasion for armaments,
increase them; in time of threatened war and actual disturbance, when
there may be every occasion for them, let them be reduced. Yet perhaps
we are wrong: Sir Robert Peel may possibly be admitted as the author
of this vast discovery--in which case, Lord John can merely rank as a
distinguished pupil. The astute baronet, in his zeal for commercial
convulsions, has taught us to expand our currency when there is no
money-famine, and to contract it in the case of exigency. Whether
Californian facts may not hereafter get the better of Tamworth
theories, we shall not at the present moment stop to inquire. In the
mean time let us confine our attention to the proposed reductions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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