Army and Navy Pre-Ara of England.
what the ‘"Times"’ Thinks of
Secretary Chase's financial report.
By the arrival of the
Bohemian at
Halifax whose mails reached New York on the 3d inst., we have the following details of news from
England:
Army preparations.
The Army and Navy Gazette says: ‘Another battalion of infantry sailed for
Canada of Saturday last, and three more will sail in the course of the present week.
Until hostilities are actually declared no further body of troops are likely to be placed under orders in that event the authorities might naturally look to the fine regiments now in the Mediterranean garrisons, the Ninth, Twenty-second, Twenty-fifth and One hundredth, which could be sent across the
Atlantic without delay from
Gibraltar.
The infantry regiments at home are to be strengthened.
’
Recruiting for the army is going on in earnest.
The Fourth company of Royal Engineers are under orders to embark for
Canada.
The force of Royal Engineers in
British North America will consist of upwards of 700 men and will include the Fourth, Fifth, Seventh Fifteenth, Eighteenth, and Thirty-fourth companies.
The Government having decided on forming a reserve of troops at
Bermuda, for operations in
North America, the Fifth company of Royal Engineers are to hold themselves in readiness to embark at an hour's notice.
Naval preparations.
The
Times and the Army and Navy Gazette says:
‘
The whole of the screw gun-boats attached to the first division at
Chatham are to be removed from the
Medway for immediate service.
The second and third divisions could be got ready in a very short time.
Altogether, the fleet of gun-boats at
Chatham and on the
Medway number twenty-four.--In addition to the above there is a squadron of mortar boats, all of which can be ready immediately.
The Rattlesnake, twenty-one guns, screw frigate, 400 horse power, is to be brought for ward with the utmost dispatch.
The line of battle screw steamer
Mocance, eighty-one guns, is to be brought forward to be placed in commission.
The Flying
Fish sailed on Friday, December 20, for
Lisbon, with sealed orders.
The guard ships around the coasts of the three kingdoms were telegraphed for all men belonging to them to prepare for immediate service.
The screw steam corvette
Satellite, twenty-one guns, accompanied by the gun-boats
Sheidrake and
Spicer, left
Plymouth on Sunday last for the
Southwest coast of
America.
The screw steam frigate
Orlando, fifty-one guns, will take out winter clothing for the squadron at
Halifax.
Several gun-boats at
Davenport are ordered to be prepared for the pennant.
No. 6, screw steam transport
Mauritius, is taking in 300 tons of war stores for
Canada, a battery of twelve-pounder Armstrong guns, and about 800 troops.
The Defence, lion steamer, 22 guns, 600 horse power, is ordered to be ready to sail on January 2d, for
Canada.
She will take out 190 common and 190 segment 100-pounder shells, 50 boxes of common and 50 boxes of the segment 20-pounder shells, 125 boxes of the 14-pounder segment shells, 360 of the naval 88-pounder shells, and 109 boxes of the 24 pounder howitzer shells.
Her solid shot will consist of 600 68-pounders, 160 100-pounder conical Armstrongs, 50 20-pounder Armstrongs, and 50 12-pounder Armstrongs.
Two additional, 100-pounder Armstrongs will be added.
’
Secretary Chase's Gigantic financial scheme.
[from the London times, Dec. 23]
Everything in
America is on a magnificent scale.
She has mammoth rivers, her water falls are tumbling floods, her mountains tower head and shoulders above the pigmy altitudes of
Europe.
She is a continent of very marked features.
But there is nothing in her physical phenomena which no taxes our astonishment as the moral immensities she has lately developed.
We are not used to the thunders of
Niagara, and the tremendous distances of the
Mississippi, and the high shooting peaks of the Andes; but we are not altogether incapable of a new sensation.
We stand aghast when we have for the first time disclosed to us the tremendous vegetation of her national debt and the magnificent scale of her deficits.
The American news we publish to-day is chiefly remarkable for the wonderful financial statement of
Mr. Chace, the
Secretary of the Treasury.
In other respects it is still but an uncertain sound.
The populace of New York was yet hugging the fond delusion that the seizure of the
Trent would be passed over without resentment.
The organs which assume to represent the policy of
Mr. Seward and the opinion of the inhabitants of New York were still keeping up their spirits by big words still boasting that
England had too many interests at stake to risk a quarrel with the
United States, and comforting themselves with the braggart notion that ‘"
Canada is within two days railway journey of half a million of armed men, and has a frontier that can offer no resistance to an invading force."’
The news had only just reached them that
England had heard of the exploit of
Commodore Wilkes.
It will be remembered that at the first moment it was received with some astonishment, but with great calmness.
The primary impulse here was, not to bluster, but to inquire.
The people of New York, judging too much by their own habits, and delighted to find us so calm, telegraphed at once that ‘"the effect of the news in
England is not so unfavorable as was expected."’ In this fool's paradise they had yet to be disturbed.
They had yet to learn that the more calmly and deliberately a sensible nation examines the ground it proposed to take up, the more resolute it will be in maintaining that ground.
We are as far as ever from being able to judge in what mood our demand for reparation may find them; but if there should have been any doubt upon the mind of the
Federal leaders, or any division of opinion among the
Federal populace when Lord Lyons made his communication, that magnificent and stupendous deficit of forty-three millions sterling remaining at the end of a year, during which the borrowing powers of the
Federal States were taxed to the utmost ought to aid these people to see their position.
Mr. Chase, as a prudent, or rather a zealous,
Secretary of the Treasury, does not go out of his way to mention disagreeable facts.
He does not tell us how much of the expenditure of 1861 was raised by loans and how much by taxes; nor does he mention the present amount of the newly-born national debt of his nation.
Without this intelligence, however, he states quite enough to enable any man of business to judge how long this war of subjugation can last, and what the probabilities are of sustaining another war in addition to it. He says that from July, 1861, to July 1862, the war expenses will be in round numbers, £109,000,000 sterling, of which he has succeeded in borrowing about £40,000,000, and hopes to get the rest by paper money, more loans, and taxation to the amount of about £2,500,000.
If he can get the loans, and if people will take his paper money, and if they will also pay taxes, he will then be able to make both ends meet up to July, 1862; but, if the
South should not be subjugated by that early date, he tells his countrymen plainly that he shall want seventy-six millions sterling for the service of the next year, and that at the end of June, 1863, the national debt of the
Federal States will be nine hundred millions of dollars.
This is pretty well for a three years war. Yet, if we were to examine
Mr. Chase's figures very closely, we should find the estimate of expenditure, and still more the estimate of the amount of debt, very much understated.
However, let that pass.
Two hundred millions in three years form not a bad nucleus to a respectable national debt.--It will be observed that there is no question here as to where the lenders are to come from who are to supply all the money.-- There can be no doubt of course, that they will rush from all parts of the earth to fill up the vacuum in the
Federal treasury.
It is, we presume, consistent with all the experience of American financiers that the more pressing the need of a borrower the greater becomes the zeal of lenders to assist him, and the more deeply the security becomes deteriorated by mortgage the more ready the capitalists is to double his advances.
For the first time,
Secretary Chase gives us a glimpse as to what this security is. Of course national security means the national patience of taxation.
Mr. Chase is about to make the great experiment whether any such securities exist in the
Federal States.
He proposes to raise, by an the me tax, the moderate sum of £2,000,000.
It is but a fifth of what we raise by the same tax; but when
Mr. Chase has obtained his £3,000,000 we shall have a faith in his security which we have not now. He hopes also to get another four millions from other direct taxes.
There six millions, when he gets them, will not go far, as he must admit; but then he has a complete set of excise machinery ready to get into gear.
He is about to tax stills and spirits, and sugar, and tea, and coffee, and tobacco.
He has an impost prepared for bank notes, legacies, and carriages; and — oh,
Mr. John Bright, how can your credit with the
North have fallen so low!--he offers as part security for this mountain of debt a duty upon paper!
If all this only ‘"go forward,"’ as mercantile people say, we shall congratulate the
Federal States upon being as well taxed a community as any respectable, old fashioned kingdom of the Old World.
Whether such sound tax payers will bear such a weight all at must be a ...
hundreds man might have objections to take the appointment of Income Tax.
Commissioner in one of the
Western States.
We do not find any estimate of the cost of the collection of faces taxes or of the new machinery of excise.
We presume that patriotism will supply all the costly expedients of
Europe, and that all these imposts will be voluntarily paid into the exchequer.
If this should be so,
Mr Chase will get some fourteen millions towards his expenditure of seventy-six millions.
And yet it is still dubious whether to this expenditure is not to be added the trifling contingency of a war with England. 
