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econd year of 20,000 mounted troops at L60 a year each . . . 1,200,000 Add to this cost of first-class Reserve of 96,000 at L10 7s. 6d. each . . . . . . . 997,600 Cost of 30,000 men for six months' extra training at the rate of L60 a year each . . . . . 900,000 Cost of extra training for supplementary officers and non-commissioned officers . . . . . . 500,000 ----------- L21,892,815 Add to this the cost of the troops maintained in the Colonies and Egypt so far as charged to British Estimates . . . . L3,401,704 ----------- Total personnel . . . L25,294,519 Materiel (allowing for additional outlay due to larger numbers) . . 4,500,000 Staff and administration . . . 1,500,000 ------------ Total Cost of Army at Home and in the Colonies . . L31,294,519 This is slightly in excess of the present cost of the personnel of the Army, but, whereas the present charge only provides for the heterogeneous force already described of 589,000 men, the charges here explained provide for a short-service homogeneous army of one million and a half, as well as for the 45,000 troops permanently maintained in Egypt and the Colonies. The estimate just given is, however, extravagant. The British system has innumerable different rates of pay and extra allowances of all kinds, and is so full of anomalies that it is bound to be costly. Unfortunately, the Army Estimates are so put together that it is difficult to draw from them any exact inferences as to the actual annual cost of a private soldier beyond his pay. The average annual cost, effective and non-effective, of an officer in the cavalry, artillery, engineers, and infantry is L473, this sum covering all the arrangements for pensions and retiring allowances. I propose in the following calculations to assume the average cost of an officer to be L500 a year, a sum which would make it possible for the average combatant officer to be somewhat better paid than he is at present. The normal pay of a sergeant in the infantry of the line is 2s. 4d. a day, or
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