Page:The empire and the century.djvu/721

. It is certainly not desirable from the health point of view, nor is the association of large numbers of native troops desirable, having regard to their own comfort, and political and economic conditions. If the formation of class brigades of native soldiers be intended, then it cannot but be regarded as a most unwise and dangerous experiment, while the withdrawal of troops from a number of stations means that the civil power will have to rely more and more on the police. These are some of the objections which present themselves. On the other hand, the policy of reasonable concentration instead of dispersion has been followed since the Mutiny days, as railways developed and conditions changed it is a military advantage to have formed bodies of troops ready to take the field, and to increase the field army from 100,000 to 140,000, irrespective of Imperial service troops. But advantages may be purchased too dearly, and it ought to be shown exactly how the troops to be left behind are organized in movable columns and garrisons, and the effect upon the native troops carefully ascertained, as that is a matter of vital importance. Above all, we must be assured that true mobility can be attained, and that the army is preserved from the centralization which was so fruitful a source of danger in the past. By the judicious expenditure of money the additional divisions of the field army can be thoroughly equipped, but it will take many years. The transport alone will be on a gigantic scale, while several thousand officers would have to be obtained from England, and this in itself is a problem difficult of solution. The transport of India is not inexhaustible, but the foundation of an expansible system was laid some years ago by the formation of organized corps and cadres, and by continual effort to search out the resources of the land. The power of rapid railway construction must also be enormously developed in order to move and to feed this increased field army. It is one thing to move a large army in a land of railways and roads and resources, but quite another