The education of the army generally is now much more carefully attended to than in the old days. Instruction in musketry, gymnastics, and garrison duties is provided; and stricter tests are imposed on all candidates for Staff employ or for promotion. Armed camps of exercise have been instituted, where large bodies of troops are assembled, and opportunities are afforded for higher tactical training. The Commissariat department has been improved and enlarged; the military accounts branch has been remodelled; and the supply and manufacture of matériel of war now leaves little ground for criticism. The new regulations for the relief of troops have greatly shortened the British soldier's term of Indian service. For his benefit, too, large barracks have been built on approved principles in the plains, and sanitaria constructed to hold about 10,000 British troops in the hills during the hot weather. By all these and similar measures, and by a liberal expenditure of money on sanitary requirements, the death-rate of the British Army in India has been reduced to one-half what it was in former years.
Other great questions still remain to be dealt with. The conditions which led to the formation and growth of three Presidency armies are materially altered by the development of intercommunication between the various provinces of India; and the system is unlikely to be much longer retained. The expedient of a Staff Corps has been found cumbrous, and its abolition is becoming only a matter of time.
