Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/60

16 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, against royal misconduct — they simply provided ' that there should be no ' standing army ' at all, or, at all events, none of such magnitude as to be a fit instrument for enabling a king to play the traitor. Fondly loving a campaign at short intervals, and willingly granting the means, they yet held fast to their liberties, and at the close of each war, had the heart to disband their army, or cut it down to an insignificant strength. Of course, this national habit of alternately raising and breaking up armies involved an enormous waste of military power ; and the increasing complexity of a civilisation ever striving to con- vert given thousands of recruits into a more and more brilliant machine, made it every day clearer and clearer that — despite all the evils and dangers of such an institution — a ' standing ' army ' — whether so called or not — was essential to the wellbeing of England.(^) Now, concur- rently with the growth of this modern neces- sity, our people, though by slow, doubtful steps, had been approaching the idea of what we now mean when we speak of ' constitutional govern- ' ment ; ' and the path they thus followed was one that would bring them in time to a solution of that problem — that once stubborn, difficult problem — which sought to reconcile the exist- ence of a ' standing army ' with the safety of English liberties ; for, apparently, there could be little danger of having to see a battalion file in between the two doorkeepers of the House of Commons, if our troops — like any other public servants — were altogether withdrawn from the