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RECONSTRUCTION
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notice. In view of possible war, I should be more anxious to make the reductions I have suggested than I am now; because if any augmentations are required, they should only be made in certain directions, and if we are disembarrassed of comparatively useless corps we can add to the strength of the warlike portion of our army without difficulty.'

Lord Mayo was equally confident, it may be added, that great economy would be effected by constructing all kinds of military stores in India. 'One cap manufactory,' he said (April 17, 1869), 'one gun-carriage manufactory, one gun foundry, &c., ought to suffice for all India. We ought to have the best gun that science can produce without a moment's delay. Above all, our general policy should be to manufacture everything in India, so as to be as independent as possible of England in time of trouble.'

What Lord Mayo wrote, on the necessity of maintaining the strength of the European force in India unimpaired, may well be taken to heart. Fewer batteries, but all fully manned; and fewer regiments, but all completed to not less than 1000 rank and file, in lieu of half-manned batteries and regiments far short of their complement, would not only admit of economy in the pay of officers and establishments, but would increase the efficiency of the army. And if to this could be added the restoration, in part, of a European force specially enlisted for India, the training of a company of every Infantry Regiment to ride as Mounted Infantry and to take their place, if need