The Commander-in-Chief has laid a plan before the Government which the Queen thinks upon the whole very moderate, inexpensive, and efficient. The principle which the Queen thinks ought to be adopted is this: That the force which has been absorbed by the Indian demand be replaced to its full extent and in the same kind, not whole battalions by a mere handful of recruits added to the remaining ones. This will not only cost the Government nothing because the East India Company will pay the battalions transferred, and the money voted for them by Parliament will be applicable to the new ones, but it will give a considerable saving, as all the officers reduced from the War Establishment and receiving half-pay will be thus absorbed and no longer be a burden upon the Exchequer. Keeping these new battalions on a low establishment, which will naturally be the case at first, the depots and reserves should be raised in men, the Indian depots keeping at least two companies of one hundred men each. [The Crimean battalions of eight companies had eight others in reserve, which, with the aid of the militiamen, could not keep up the strength of the Service companies. In India there are _eleven_ to be kept up by _one_ in reserve!] No possible objection can be urged against this plan except two: 1. That we shall not get the men. This is an hypothesis and not an argument. Try and you will see. If you do not succeed and the measure is necessary, you will have to adopt means to make it succeed. If you conjure up the difficulties yourself, you cannot of course succeed.