We all ene KLIS GCL L 
 Qpribate.) Se aN 
 foe y Cas 
 
 MEMORANDUM 
 
 ON THE 
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF THE CORPS OF 
 ROYAL ENGINEERS 
 
 IN 
 
 INDIA 
 
 SUBMITTED TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE MILITARY COMMITTEE 
 OF THE COUNCIL OF INDIA, 
 
 BY MAJOR G. CHESNEY, R.E. 
 
 LONDON : 
 SPOTTISWOODE & CO., PRINTERS, NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 30 PARLIAMENT STREET, WESTMINSTER, 
 1868. 
 
pone. : | 
 Tae ‘gia? pads cot 
 
 tae 
 Mixal a 
 
MEMORANDUM. 
 
 PERHAPS it may be as well to premise, in explanation of the 
 appearance of this Memorandum, that the writer for some years 
 had immediate charge of the Establishment Branch of the Indian 
 Public Works Office, under the Secretary to the Supreme Govern- 
 ment, in which capacity it was his duty to initiate the various 
 proposals needful to be brought forward from time to time 
 connected with departmental organisation. Subsequently, as 
 head of the Public Works Account and Finance Department, he 
 necessarily continued to be employed both in initiating and 
 advising upon matters of the same kind. The Royal Engineers 
 serving in India being mainly employed under the Public Works 
 Department, their interests while in that country are intimately 
 bound up with the condition of that department, and thus depart- 
 mental questions can hardly be touched on without including corps 
 matters also. Lastly, it will perhaps be deemed sufficient apology for 
 entering on the subject, that the Royal Engineers serving in India 
 have not only no recognised official head in that country, but have 
 not even a local staff-officer as a medium of communication between 
 them and the regimental authorities. Thus it has happened that 
 the initiation of proposals affecting the corps has necessarily often 
 fallen to be made by those like myself, whose claim to speak is 
 derived only from their official position in a civil capacity. 
 
 The Memorandum now submitted has reference to two matters ; 
 first, the pressing demand for an immediate supply of Engineers 
 for India; secondly, the general subject of the employment of the 
 corps of Royal Engineers in that country. These will be dealt 
 with separately. 
 
 I. ImmepiATE DEMANDS oF THE INDIAN PuBLIGC WorkKS FOR SUPPLY 
 OF ENGINEERS. 
 
 The great demand which has lately arisen for engineers for 
 Indian service is due to two causes. What used formerly to be 
 an abundant channel of supply has of late almost dried up. At 
 one time the Indian army supplemented the corps of Engineers to 
 almost any required amount; but, first, the imposition of a strict 
 professional test, and next, the great reduction lately made in the 
 strength of that army, accompanied by the increased pay and 
 improved prospects now offered by other branches of the Indian 
 service—notably the salaries now attached to employment with 
 
 A 2 
 
4 
 
 the native army—tend to invite candidates for special employ to 
 other lines. The result is that the recruits for the department 
 from this source now amount to only about three or four a-year. 
 
 But the main reason why more engineers are wanted is the 
 enormous extension of public works in India now taking place. 
 The expenditure on this head is already threefold what it was ten 
 years ago, and continues constantly on the increase,* and the 
 progress of improvement is at present mainly limited by the want 
 of a sufficient staff to carry out the different projects matured and 
 in preparation. It is under these circumstances that the requisition 
 of the Government of India has been received for a large and im- 
 mediate increase to its engineering establishment, and in making 
 their application, it was stated to be especially desirable that the 
 existing proportion of military members of the department should 
 be maintained. At present the civil and military members are 
 nearly equal in number, about one-half of the latter being engineer 
 officers, and the rest belonging to other branches of the army. 
 But these elements are very unequally distributed. The depart- 
 ment ten years ago was almost wholly military, and since that 
 time it has been mainly recruited by civil engineers, so that the 
 majority of the upper ranks belong to the former class, and by far 
 the greater part of their juniors to the latter; and since, as has 
 been already explained, one of the two military elements is prac- 
 tically no longer existent, it was evident that unless some special 
 measures were taken to supply its place, as well as to meet the 
 demand for additional engineers required by the expansion of the 
 department, the existing order of things must rapidly be disturbed. 
 It was under these circumstances that the Indian Government 
 asked that a considerable number of young Royal Engineer officers 
 might be furnished at once. 
 
 Now the present establishment of Royal Engineers in India 
 being a fixed one—viz. 7 battalions of 48 officers each, or 336 in 
 all—an increase of this strength, which the Indian Government 
 desired should proceed part passu with the requisite expansion of 
 the aggregate departmental staff, would involve an augmentation of 
 the corps. But as the effect of such a measure would not be imme- 
 diately felt, since the young officers commissioned in such a case 
 would not be available for Indian service until they had passed 
 through the Chatham course of practical instruction, the requisition 
 of the Indian Government could only have been at once complied 
 with by a transfer to India of a portion of the establishment of the 
 old or British corps, which is now employed in Great Britain and the 
 colonies. This proposal, however, it is understood, was declined 
 by the authorities at the Horse Guards, on the ground that a 
 temporary reduction of the part of the regiment employed out of 
 India was not feasible, all these officers being fully employed. In 
 consequence of this decision the Indian Government, as an 
 augmentation of the department in some form was necessary, 
 asked as an alternative arrangement that a large additional 
 number of civil engineers might be sent out. 
 
 * The estimate for the coming year, which has just reached England, amounts to 
 8,000,000/. sterling, or nearly 1,000,000/. more than that of 1868-69. 
 
~~ 
 
 ~ 
 
 v 
 
 The following arrangements have accordingly been made :— 
 a. Thirty civil engineers of standing and_ professional 
 experience were sent out in February last, under a covenant 
 for five years’ service. 
 b. Fitty more have just been sent out on the same terms. 
 These were on the whole younger men than the first batch. 
 c. In addition to the annual competitive examination for 
 civil engineer appointments held at the India Office in July 
 1867, when twenty-five candidates were appointed, a special 
 examination was held in December last, when sixteen more 
 were sent out, and at the annual examination held last July, 
 the number of appointments to be competed for was raised to 
 forty. Only twenty-two of the candidates however succeeded 
 in passing the minimum test, and that number was appointed. 
 d. Another examination has just been held, when forty 
 more appointments of assistant engineers were offered to 
 competition. 
 
 Thus the condition in which the Indian Government desired to 
 maintain the department is rapidly changing. The establishment 
 of Royal Engineers serving inj,India is, as above stated, a fixed 
 quantity, and. of the 336 officers composing it only about 200 are 
 available for the Public Works Department, the remainder being 
 engaged on the Survey Department, or with the corps of sappers, 
 or on special duties, or young officers under instruction at Chatham. 
 A slight augmentation has however lately been made to the above 
 strength ; about twenty officers who are employed out of the regular 
 line of the department have been seconded or made supernumerary, 
 and their places filled up. About fifteen more are to be seconded 
 at some future time. The other military officers serving in the 
 Public Works Department are now less than’ 100, and this number 
 is likely to diminish gradually. On the other hand, to the civil 
 members, who numbered about 300 at the beginning of last year, 
 143 have been added since, besides the passed students appointed 
 from the Indian training colleges—perhaps twenty more. Several 
 civil engineers have also been taken into employment by the Indian 
 Government on the spot, chiefly from the staffs of the local railways. 
 
 It will thus be apparent that the constitution of the department 
 is undergoing a rapid change. Already the ratio of military to 
 civil engineers has been reduced from one of equality to that of six 
 to nine, and since the ultimate demands of the public works for 
 additional agency have been by no means satisfied, the change will 
 be eventually still greater, if measures be not taken to prevent it.* 
 
 * Composition of Indian Public Works Department. 
 
 February, | November, 1868 
 
 1867. (approximate). 
 Royal Engineer officers : 204 224 
 Military officers not Royal Engineers 94 94 
 Civil Engineers , 304 447 
 Total . : ‘ 602 765 
 
6 
 
 I will not here enter on the question whether or not the change 
 is desirable; the strongly expressed opinion of the supreme 
 government in India may be accepted as conclusive on this point. 
 The object of this part of my note is to draw attention to the fact 
 that there is a practical limit to the recruitment of the department 
 in tle way lately adopted, and to submit for consideration whether 
 it may not still be practicable to obtain the immediate services of 
 some additional Royal Engineers. 
 
 As to the first point, it seems quite clear that an indefinite num- 
 ber of competent civil engineers is not to be got on the terms the 
 government is prepared to offer. It certainly so happened that in 
 the present state of suspension of professional operations in Eng- 
 land, an unusual number of candidates came forward for the appoint- 
 ments lately offered, and among them some highly competent men. 
 But it is probable that the best of these had been accustomed 
 to occupy much higher professional positions, and accepted the 
 situations now offered simply because no other occupation was to 
 be had. It seems doubtful if under the ordinary conditions of 
 ergineering progress and employment in Europe, the required 
 number of qualified men would have been forthcoming; at any 
 rate, it will probably be admitted that there are limits beyond 
 which it is not desirable to recruit a government department in 
 this way, while there are obvious objections against filling up a 
 great branch of the public service with permanent members, except 
 ut the bottom of the list. The other source of supply, in the way 
 of young civil engineers, is also strictly limited. The proposed 
 open competition for the appointments annually offered is merely 
 nominal, for since the practice was first established in 1859, in 
 hardly a single instance has the number of candidates who suc- 
 ceeded in passing the prescribed minimum standard been in excess 
 of the ten or twelve appointments offered, it has frequently been 
 below it. Nor will more men be obtained merely by increasing 
 the number of appointments offered to competition. Of the forty 
 appointments offered last July, only twenty-two were taken up; 
 at the examination just ended only forty-four candidates came for- 
 ward for the forty appointments offered, and only twenty succeeded 
 in passing the minimum test. The fact seems to be that the 
 present state of professional education does not afford the means for 
 preparing candidates in the theoretical principles of the profession, 
 while it is only in that part that a competitive examination can 
 properly test their qualifications; that a man’s practical knowledge 
 can be ascertained effectually in this way is impossible. 
 
 Even if the full number of qualified candidates could be ob- 
 tained in this way, it is surely undesirable to fill up a great public 
 department with men who can just succeed in scraping through 
 what, compared with the test required in the Indian government 
 colleges, to say nothing of the much higher standard required in 
 the case of Royal Engineer officers, is a very moderate ordeal. 
 
 This then is the state of the case. On the one hand, the agency 
 which the government of India wants to have is not being supplied, 
 while to make good the deficiency the standard of capacity which 
 
r/ 
 
 it was desired the department should maintain, is undergoing a 
 rapid deterioration.* Even when this is done, the, number of 
 men required is not forthcoming. On the other hand, in the 
 corps of Royal Engineers there is to be had a large supply 
 of young officers who have been selected by what is really a very 
 severe competition; first, on admission to Woolwich, subsequently 
 on obtaining their commissions, and who have afterwards gone 
 through what is now a very complete course of practical training 
 at Chatham, extending over two years. Here then is an agency 
 perfectly adapted to the purpose, which could make good the 
 numerical deficiency in the departmental staff to almost any 
 required extent, without any lowering of the standard of qualifi- 
 cation, and which the Indian government has expressed itself most 
 desirous to have appointed. 
 
 The difficulty in the way of carrying out an arrangement which 
 all parties concerned are unanimous in desiring, is that the young 
 officers on the British establishment cannot be spared from their 
 other duties. It may be, however, that the authorities who 
 raised this objection were not aware of the urgency of the 
 case. In a later part of this note some considerations will be 
 offered on the importance, both in the interest of the corps and 
 the state, of occupying the admirable field which India presents 
 for the employment of its engineer officers on works of extra- 
 ordinary interest and importance. But assuming here that all 
 parties are agreed on this point, what may be especially urged 
 now is that such a time as the present is not likely to recur. If 
 the great augmentation now required for the Indian Public Works 
 department is once filled up in other ways, the matter will be 
 practically disposed of. Now or never is the time to take 
 advantage of the opportunity presented. The real question at 
 issue therefore seems to be not so much whether 40 or 50 Royal 
 Engineers can be conveniently spared, as whether they can be 
 spared at all, under a great and pressing emergency. It must be 
 admitted that the demand has arisen at a time peculiarly favour- 
 able; England is at peace with all the world, and the great forti- 
 fications, on account of which I believe the corps was augmented 
 in 1859, are approaching completion. If ever, then, there was a 
 time when a part of its strength could be withdrawn for other 
 employment, it is surely the present. As to the number that 
 could be spared, or the extent of inconvenience that might be 
 caused, it is not for me to offer an opinion; but while the occa- 
 sion is one for which it would appear quite worth while to make a 
 considerable sacrifice, it is surely a fair assumption that the corps is 
 from the very nature of its organisation not working at full power 
 during peace time. Organised primarily for purposes of war, its 
 employment during peace time is presumably, like that of the rest 
 of the army, more or less of a provisional nature. This much at least 
 is certain, that were a war to arise, any number of engineers that 
 
 * I say this, because it may be taken for granted that when these competitive 
 examinations were first established a supply of picked men was looked for: 1t was 
 never expected that they would become a mere pass test. 
 
8 
 
 might be required would as a matter of course be made available 
 for active service. No question would then be raised as to the 
 obligations of routine peace duties on their services. But next to the 
 outbreak of a war, there could hardly be a more urgent case than 
 the present, the progress of the great public works of India being 
 seriously impeded for want of an engineering staff, or at the best the 
 Indian government compelled to resort to a confessedly inferior 
 agency. 
 
 Is it impossible, then, I would respectfully ask, that the autho- 
 rities at the Horse Guards should be asked to reconsider their first 
 opinion, and under the emergency of the case, to lend at least a 
 portion of the officers now wanted for service in India? 
 
 It is perhaps not impossible that the difficulty which has been 
 raised in meeting the application of the Indian government may 
 have been partly due to the way in which it was put. Forty 
 young officers were asked for. Tosupply these, while the strength 
 of captains and field officers on the home establishment remained 
 unreduced, might no doubt have caused embarrassment, since the 
 system of the Royal Engineer department is based on the employ- 
 ment of the different ranks of the corps in certain fixed propor- 
 tions, and might be thrown out of gear by the withdrawal of a 
 large number of officers from the junior grade only. Moreover, 
 only the minimum of relief would have been afforded to the Im- 
 perial estimates by transferring subalterns, while it is this class for 
 which employment is most easily found at home. But in limiting 
 their application to young officers the Indian government may have 
 wished rather to indicate the agency it would on the whole prefer, 
 than to place any absolute hmit on the standing and rank of the 
 officers to be supplied. No doubt in a general way young officers 
 who can be employed at first in a subordinate capacity while 
 learning the special conditions of Indian engineering are ceteris 
 paribus the best agency for augmenting the P.W. department ; but 
 were it a question between getting Engineer officers of all grades, 
 or getting none at all, there can hardly be any doubt about the 
 answer. The best way of recruiting the civil branch of the 
 department has been pronounced to be by young engineers, either 
 from the government college or appointed by the India office, who 
 enter the department on probation at the bottom, and gradually 
 work their way upwards; but on the failure of this method to fur- 
 nish a sufficient supply for present emergencies, a large number of 
 older engineers has just been sent out, that is, men of the same age 
 as the captains and lieutenant-colonels of the Royal Engineers. 
 There would be a manifest inconsistency under these circumstances, 
 in raising an objection to the employment of the latter in India: 
 indeed, in choosing between the two, it may be presumed the 
 Indian government would prefer that the department should now 
 be strengthened by those who have already been trained in the 
 discipline and method of government service than by those whose 
 previous employment has been with contractors or private com- 
 panies. No doubt it is an advantage to an engineer in India to be 
 familiar with the country; but the history of Indian railway 
 
9 
 
 construction shows that this experience is not a necessary con- 
 dition: at any rate in the present case there is no choice on this 
 head, men of Indian experience are not to be got. 
 
 Under these circumstances it is respectfully suggested as de- 
 serving of consideration, that the Horse Guards might be asked to 
 supply the required number of engineers from the British esta-~ 
 blishment of the corps, in the usual proportion of field officers, 
 captains, and subalterns, as a temporary arrangement, and pending 
 the final settlement of some definitive plan for supplying Indian 
 demands, with the understanding that they should be at once 
 withdrawn again, if required for emergent Imperial purposes, as 
 é.g., in the contingency of England becoming engaged in a Euro- 
 pean war. 
 
 Aid of this kind could perhaps not be afforded all at once to the 
 full extent required; the demand, it may be presumed, could only 
 be met by a temporary readjustment of the stations occupied by 
 officers, and reduction of the engineer establishment in the 
 colonies as well as at home, which might require some time to 
 carry out; but probably very considerable help might be afforded 
 during the present season from the staff serving at home. 
 
 Further, there is the large body of young officers under instruc- 
 tion at the Chatham establishment. Everyone who remembers, 
 as I do, how defective the Chatham course was in former days, 
 how much that was done was either useless or slurred over, and 
 how much that ought to form part of a scientific engineer’s educa- 
 tion was omitted, would be loth to see curtailed what is admitted 
 to be now an excellent course of instruction. But the present case 
 being one of a comparison of claims, it might be asked whether 
 the extreme urgency of the public works in India could not be 
 deemed sufficient to justify a temporary curtailment of that course, 
 so as to yield an immediate additional supply of young officers 
 available for employment, both for India, and to take the place of 
 senior officers temporarily transferred to that country. It may be 
 remembered that those sent to India, if they would thus lose a 
 part of the Chatham training, would also enter the sooner upon 
 the valuable practical training afforded by the Indian Public Works. 
 
10 
 
 Part II.—Own THE EMpLoyMeEnt or tHE Corps or Roya ENGINEERS 
 IN INDIA. 
 
 Tue three corps of Indian Engineers have since their first forma- 
 tion, at the end of the last century, been chiefly employed during 
 peace time upon the Indian Public Works, only a very small 
 fraction of the officers being retained on military duty with the 
 Sappers, and a few attached to the Trigonometrical Survey. Thus 
 the duties of the Public Works Department have come gradually 
 to be regarded as almost identical with the duties of the Engineer 
 corps. An engineer officer on completing his course of one year’s 
 regimental duty after first arrival in India, or on his return from 
 leave, is as a matter of course placed at the disposal of the Public 
 Works Secretariat,* and an officer employed in any other capacity, 
 save the very few attached to the Indian Sapper Corps and Survey, 
 is deemed to be out of the regular line. By the abolition of the 
 Indian Corps in 1861 this state of things was altered but little, 
 the so called amalgamation of the Indian and British forces having 
 been carried out very differently as regards the European Cavalry, 
 Infantry, and Artillery, and the Engineers. The Cavalry and 
 Infantry of the Company’s European forces were added to the 
 British army as so many additional regiments. The brigades of 
 Indian Artillery were in like manner added to the Royal Artillery, 
 and officers and men now take their tour of English duty, and are 
 in all respects on the same footing as the old royal regiment, 
 except that they are borne on separate lists for purposes of pro- 
 motion, and retain their claims to Indian rates of pension. But 
 the officers of Engineers continue to be employed wholly in India 
 on precisely the same conditions as before. They are not eligible 
 for service in England, and are unrepresented either at home or in 
 India by any staff, being still wholly employed under the civil 
 government, with the exception of the small quota, principally 
 junior officers, attached to three Sapper corps. 
 
 So far, therefore, as the officers of the three Indian corps of 
 Engineers are concerned, the effect of the measure has been 
 limited to the compliment bestowed on them of commissions in the 
 Royal Engineers. But the ultimate effect of the amalgamation 
 upon the latter is likely to be very great indeed, and it is because 
 the importance of its bearing on the future of the corps has not, 
 as I venture to think, been sufficiently apprehended, nor ad- 
 equately provided for, that the following considerations are re- 
 spectfully submitted. ' 
 
 The amalgamation measure provides that the three Indian 
 
 * The business of the Supreme Indian Government is transacted in five Departments 
 or Secretariats—Finance, Home, Foreign, Military, and Public Works, being con- 
 ducted in each case by a secretary and staff. But the term Pudlic Works Depart- 
 ment is also given to the collective body of executive officials employed on the public 
 works, 
 
11 
 
 Engineer regiments shall be suffered gradually to die out, appoint- 
 ments being made to the British corps in succession to the vacancies 
 which occur in them, so that while the aggregate strength of the 
 Engineer Corps will remain constant, first the subalterns, then the 
 captains, and lastly the field officers, will eventually belong to one 
 amalgamated list. Further, it is provided that the proportion of 
 charge borne by the British and Indian revenues shall remain un- 
 altered, so that for every vacancy occurring in the Indian batta- 
 lions, an officer of the amalgamated corps is attached to the Indian 
 establishment, and thus the strength of the corps serving at home 
 and in the colonies remains unaffected by this change. Already 
 one-half of the subalterns serving in India belong to the amalga- 
 mated list. 
 
 Further, it has been provided that the Royal Engineers em- 
 ployed in India shall be placed at the disposal of the Indian 
 government, and employed in the same way as the Indian en- 
 gineers have heretofore been employed, that is, mainly on the 
 Public Works. Unless they were to be so employed, there would 
 be no necessity for maintaining the Indian establishment at its 
 present strength, since no adequate military duties could be found 
 tor a large body of military engineers in peace time. Nor could 
 the Indian government forego their services without inconvenience. 
 Thus, while the business of that government has been provided 
 for uninterruptedly, the only change in this respect having arisen 
 in the substitution of Royal for Indian officers, a very momentous 
 change has come over the condition of the corps of Royal En- 
 gineers. Whereas hitherto that corps has been employed entirely 
 at home or in the colonies, and with special exceptions, entirely as 
 a military body under the orders of the War Department, for the 
 future nearly one-half* of the regiment will be serving in India, 
 and serving in a purely civil capacity under a civil department of 
 the government. 
 
 While however, India has thus become a principal station for 
 the Royal Engineers, and employment in the Public Works Depart- 
 ment a recognised part of their duties, the arrangements made 
 for carrying out the change appear to be still of a somewhat 
 provisional kind. Of the officers serving in India, all who are 
 employed in the Public Works Department, that is, almost the 
 whole number, are now to be seconded. - Their places, however, 
 are not to be filled up, but their names are entered in the Army 
 List in italics, as if to mark that they have quitted for the time 
 the regular line of corps duty. Thus eventually, when the officers 
 
 * At the time of the amalgamation the British and Indian regiments were nearly 
 of equal strength, consisting of 7$ and 7 battalions, of 360 and 336 officers respectively. 
 Subsequently the British establishment was augmented by half a battalion, the pro- 
 motions being made in that branch. It has been the practice also in the latter to 
 second or make supernumerary all officers employed on other than the regular duties 
 of the regiment, The officers so seconded make up nearly the strength of an additional 
 battalion, and as they belong principally to the senior grades, the tendency of the 
 arrangement is towards a somewhat more favourable rate of promotion in this branch 
 of the corps. The same practice is however now in course of being gradually applied 
 to the Indian branch. , 
 
12 
 
 of the old Indian regiments are replaced by men of the amalga- 
 mated list, nearly one-half of the regiment will be seconded. AlI- 
 though not hors cadre, they will be regarded as employed extra 
 regimentally, and the legitimate duty of the corps will still be 
 deemed to be that on which only about one-half of it is engaged. 
 To which may be added, although they are comparatively minor 
 points, the exceptional state in which all engineer officers in India 
 now find themselves, without any regimental head or repre- 
 sentative—without even so much as a staff-officer for collecting the 
 regimental returns, and also the undefined position of officers of 
 the old Indian regiments on leave, with respect to the India Office 
 and Horse Guards, they being at present deemed to be ineligible 
 for the benefits enjoyed by either the British or Indian service. 
 
 This anomalous condition of things would, I submit, be deserving 
 of attentive consideration, even were it to continue to be applicable 
 to only the smaller half of the regiment. But there can hardly 
 be any doubt that if the corps organisation can be adapted to 
 meet adequately the demands likely to be made upon it for service 
 in India, this proportion would soon be entirely altered. Within 
 the last year the Public Works Department has been augmented 
 by about 150 engineers, the majority of whom might have been 
 Royal Engineers, if the arrangements of the corps had admitted of 
 compliance with the strongly urged wishes of the Indian Govern- 
 ment. There is every reason to suppose that this increase of the 
 departmental operations will not stop until much wider limits 
 have been reached; so that the Indian service offers the prospect 
 of a field of almost indefinite extension, for employment of a most 
 important and interesting kind, if only the corps be made available 
 to embrace the opportunity thus presented to it. Believing that 
 the arrangements of the corps system need some modifications to 
 make them thoroughly suitable for its altered conditions, and that 
 such modifications would be neither complicated nor difficult to 
 carry out, [ venture to draw attention to the matter. 
 
 The subject may be regarded from two points of view: we may 
 consider its bearing on the interests of the State; and there is to be 
 considered also its effect on the engineer corps, this last element 
 being however necessarily bound up indirectly with the other, 
 since the State is of course interested In maintaining or improving 
 the efficiency of this large body of public servants. On the first 
 point, indeed, it might seem almost superfluous to say anything, 
 since the opinion of several viceroys in succession, and of almost all 
 the members of the Indian Government during late years, has been 
 expressed in the strongest terms as to the importance of maintaining 
 the agency of the military engineers for its public works. At any 
 rate, it will not be necessary here to do more than state a few of 
 the most palpable and prominent reasons on this head. 
 
 There is first of all the sufficient reason that it cannot be well 
 to make a radical change in the organisation of a great depart- 
 ment which has proved highly successful, without sufficient cause 
 being shown. In the present case, not only has no such cause been 
 shown, but all parties interested in the matter are strongly in 
 
Ls 
 
 favour of maintaining that organisation intact; and the great change 
 of displacing the military engineers from their present place as 
 the leading part of the staff on the Indian public works, if it finally 
 happen, will confessedly occur, not because the government desires it, 
 but simply because engineer officers are not to be had. But further, 
 a very little consideration should suffice to show that this agency 
 ought to be the most efficient which the government can obtain. 
 It bas indeed not been uncommon to hear it alleged that military 
 engineers are by habits and training less qualified to execute civil 
 works than civil engineers. If this means that a military engineer 
 without previous experience, placed suddenly in charge of civil 
 engineering works, will be less fitted for the task than a man of 
 the same age who has had experience, then of course the remark 
 is an obvious truism. But that there is any necessary opposition 
 between the sort of knowledge acquired by the two classes is, it 
 need hardly be said, quite a mistaken supposition. The difference 
 is one of degree, not of kind. The sort of examples people indeed 
 would seem to have in view when they discuss the comparative 
 merits of ‘mere military engineers’ and ‘regular civil engineers’ 
 is that of an engineer officer on the one hand, who has passed his 
 life in the routine duty of the barrack department in England and 
 the colonies, and a Stephenson or Brunel on the other, engaged 
 from early youth on the most varied and important undertakings ; 
 and it need hardly be said that, as regards the Indian Public 
 Works Department, such a way of putting the case is utterly 
 inapplicable. If, indeed, picked civil engineers of proved ability 
 and English experience, could be brought into the service peri- 
 odically, doubtless such men would have their special kind of 
 superiority. But such an arrangement is not practicable. The 
 leading civil engineers would not accept -government service on 
 the salaries it offers; moreover, every great public department 
 must as a rule be recruited at the bottom, and in the case of the 
 Indian Public Works Department, the necessary conditions are, 
 that all the members of it must enter young, and obtain their prac- 
 tical experience as engineers in India. So far, therefore, as expe- 
 rience in the practice of engineering is concerned the conditions 
 are precisely the same for both the military and civil engineer; 
 this experience has to be obtained on the Indian Public Works, 
 and both classes have the same advantages, and both are subject to 
 the same drawbacks of being employed on work which is often of 
 a scattered kind, and carried on at a distance from the great centres 
 of professional observation and criticism. It is only in the previous 
 training and qualifications of the two classes that any difference is 
 to be found, and this is very considerable. 
 
 The civil engineers of the department are obtained from two 
 sources: —1. Students of the Indian civil-engineering colleges ; 
 2. Candidates appointed in England by the secretary of state. As 
 regards the first, there can hardly be any doubt as to the pro- 
 priety, not to say obligation, of throwing open the department to 
 natives of the country ; but for some time to come at any rate the 
 number of those qualifying for employment is likely to be but small. 
 
14 
 
 Besides natives, these colleges are also open to European and East 
 Indian youths; the test for qualification is one of fair difficulty, and 
 the course of surveying especially, carried out under the supervision 
 of the college staff, is thorough and complete; these appointments 
 afford an excellent provision for the sons of officers and other de- 
 serving servants of government who cannot afford to give them an 
 English education, and in this way a body of engineers has been 
 added to the department, who have been brought up looking for- 
 ward to an Indian career, and some excellent public officers have 
 thus been obtained. But, of course, students trained wholly in India 
 are in some respects placed at a disadvantage, and at any rate the 
 number available from this source is necessarily but limited. 
 
 The young engineers appointed from England are ostensibly 
 chosen by open competition, but virtually by what is, as has already 
 been explained, a mere ‘ pass’ examination, while this test has 
 been fixed at a much lower point than is established in the govern- 
 ment colleges. Practically, any young man who chooses can 
 secure one of these appointments by going through a prescribed 
 term of probation of three years’ study and practice, and passing 
 an easy examination. Even if the competition were severe, the 
 system appears so far defective that, in a brief examination, the 
 candidate’s acquaintance with some of the most important parts of 
 an engineer’s education—his practical knowledge of work and sur- 
 veying— cannot be tested properly, while in theoretical engineering 
 there is not much scope for examination, since this is a subject 
 in which, under the present system of professional training, the 
 pupils of civil engineers receive ordinarily no methodical instruc- 
 tion, but are left to pick up their knowledge as best they may.* 
 But as matters now stand, in the absence of any competition, the 
 result is that while among the men who euter the service through 
 this channel there are of course many of ability, as indeed there 
 would of course be were they appointed without any test whatever, 
 the system fails to ensure that all shall be of fair average profi- 
 ciency. It equally fails to ensure that they shall have had a good 
 practical training; the mere fact that a pupil has been articled to 
 an engineer, is no evidence that he has turned his opportunity to 
 advantage, nor does it follow that a civil engineer taking pupils 
 should have necessarily the means of giving them a practical 
 training. 
 
 * At the same time the examinations as now carried out, aim at testing the candi- 
 date’s practical knowledge and experience, which I conceive to be impracticable, 
 while of the theoretical subjects which could be tested by examination—the theory of 
 civil engineering and applied mechanics, it takes no note. If, however, this line of 
 test were adopted the candidates would be driven to crammers for preparation, the 
 ordinary conditions of pupilage not affording the means for it. 
 
 The difficulty of the case suggests the idea whether it would not be worth while to 
 establish a regular school for the young civil engineers intended for India, where they 
 could receive a sound professional education, and a thorough course of surveying gone 
 through under supervision. There is no royal road to this branch of engineering, 
 and it is one in which a man appointed under the present plan may be almost 
 ignorant. It would be easy to arrange also that the students should get a practical 
 acquaintance with works. An invaluable result of such an establishment would be 
 
 the esprit de corps it would tend to foster, and an identification of its alumni with 
 the interests of Government, a thing very much wanted in the department at present. 
 
15 
 
 On the other hand, the military engineers first undergo a very 
 severe competition for admission to Woolwich, and there is further 
 a severe competition within the walls of the Royal Academy for 
 commissions in the Royal Engineers, while the training there, 
 though perhaps of somewhat too special a character, is very thorough 
 and sustained. They further go through a course of practical 
 study in both military and civil engineering at Chatham, which 
 in surveying especially is very complete, occupying two years. 
 Altogether the. special education of a Royal Engineer officer 
 extends over at least six years before he becomes available for 
 public employment. So far therefore as the principle of com- 
 petition goes, it is carried out in his case to a very full extent ; 
 and without wishing to press the value of it too far, still it may at 
 least be said that the men thus chosen ought to be, taken one with 
 another, of more than average capacity. From the time of their 
 admission into the department, the education of both classes 
 afforded by professional experience is of precisely the same 
 character. 
 
 From another point of view it seems fair to presume that, for 
 the same cost to the State, it should be better served by military 
 than civil officers. Military rank is in itself a very palpable mode 
 of remuneration, and if to the one class is offered merely a certain 
 rate of pay, and to the other both the pay and also the social 
 advantages attending military rank, with the prospect of distinction 
 afforded by a military career, it seems only reasonable to infer that 
 a more able class ought to be attracted to the latter. In fact, to 
 make the public service equally attractive to the civil officers, it 
 would be necessary to offer them higher rates of pay than are given 
 to the military men. 
 
 It seems needless to press the advantage to the State that, for a 
 great department like this, which controls an enormous ex- 
 penditure, it should possess the guarantee for integrity afforded by 
 the character of the corps of Engineers. This is probably of even 
 more importance than ability or scientific acquirements. It must 
 be confessed indeed that the routine business and the restrictions 
 of a government service are not calculated to develope marked 
 professional excellence among the mass of its employees. A good 
 deal of the work to be done is not always of a very elevating cha- 
 racter. A large part of the department staff is not so much 
 employed on grand engineering works, as in conserving public 
 property, and one of its primary duties is to guard the public 
 purse; to keep works in order, and to make a little money go a 
 long way. Duty of this kind is not calculated to produce Brunels 
 and Stephensons, nor is a corps of such men wanted. What the re- 
 quirements of a great department like this—occupied in the main- 
 tenance as well as execution of work—are calculated to produce, 
 and what they demand, is a reasonably high level of average ability, 
 and a general high sense of public duty. It may be safely asserted 
 that this standard has been very successfully maintained under 
 the old system, conducted mainly by military officers; and further, 
 that the members of the department while it was thus constituted 
 
16 
 
 have identified themselves thoroughly with the interest of Govern- 
 ment, and have made economy a ruling principle in their work 
 —by no means a common thing in civil engineering. To which 
 may be added, that the military engineers have been satisfied to 
 
 accept a comparatively subordinate position in the public service, 
 
 and, while employed in a civil capacity, to be remunerated at 
 much the same rates as their comrades in the military staff 
 departments. Whether the officers of a purely civil service would 
 be satisfied with the same conditions seems at least doubtful. 
 The tone of the young civil members seems to warrant the con- 
 trary opinion. Judging from the correspondence maintained in 
 the Indian newspapers, as well as in the English professional 
 journals, a large number of these officers seem to be occupied in a 
 ceaseless agitation for higher pay and larger privileges, which the 
 concessions already made seem to have no effect in allaying, 
 Under present arrangement the civil and military members are on 
 the whole on the same footing as regards emoluments ; for although 
 the emoluments are not identical, since the military members are 
 paid by a staff salary in addition to their regimental allowances, 
 while the civil members receive a consolidated salary, still the 
 difference tells both ways; in some grades the military and in others 
 the civil, are somewhat better off the one than the other;* the 
 existing scale however would appear from the agitation going on 
 to be far from sufficient to satisfy some of the civil branch. Of 
 course no one would suppose that the whole body is responsible 
 for the sentiments of some of its members; but I fear it is incon- 
 testable that the esprit de corps of the department in respect of 
 its contentment and cheerful loyalty has been of late years fast 
 undergoing a change. 
 
 Lest it should be supposed that the writer is necessarily biassed 
 on this point, it may not be out of place to advert here to the fact 
 that at a time when the civil members of the department were 
 really at a disadvantage with their military brethren in respect of 
 allowances, he was one of the first persons to bring the subject to 
 the notice of Government, and that the scheme lately carried out, 
 by which the Public Works officers are placed generally on the 
 same footing as regards emoluments, was initiated by him in 
 conjunction with Colonel Strachey. Being himself the head of a 
 branch of the department which is open equally to both classes, it 
 must be his duty as it is his wish to avoid scrupulously all bias of 
 feeling. But impartiality does not require that facts should be 
 ignored, and to admit that, under present arrangements, the mode 
 
 * The grade in which the civil members are at the greatest comparative disad- 
 vantage is that of assistant engineer, and they argue that two men should not be paid 
 at different rates for doing the same work. The fallacy of this argument is in as- 
 suming that because two men are similarly employed, their services are equaliy 
 efficient. The fact is that while the military officers entering the department have 
 usually been already for some years employed more or less in responsible duties 
 under Government, and, especially in the case of line officers, have an adequate know- 
 ledge of the language and country, their younger civil members come usually fresh 
 from their pupilage, ignorant of the language and often with all their practical 
 experience to get. On the other hand, a captain of engineers or superintending 
 engineer may receive considerably less than a eivil officer in the same grade, 
 
17 
 
 of supplying civil and military members to the department is 
 likely to produce equally good men in each class, would be to 
 ignore the probabilities indicated by the facts. Moreover, it has 
 to be observed that the argument here proposed is not for in- 
 troducing any novelty, or for forcing the Royal Engineers into a 
 new position, but simply in effect for maintaining the state of 
 things heretofore obtaining. The real point at issue is in fact 
 whether the Engineer corps is to retain the position it has so long 
 and honourably held, or to fall into a subordinate element of this 
 great branch of the public service.* 
 
 It may be replied that these considerations, if valid, point to 
 the advantage not only of retaining the existing proportion of 
 military officers, but of giving them a preponderance in the 
 department. If the military officers be the most useful agency 
 of the two, then, it may be asked, why not return to the 
 old state of things, and have an entirely military staff for this 
 as for so many other Indian departments? But not to mention 
 that this would involve an increase to the Engineer corps, greater 
 than could in practice be effected, there are many forcible 
 advantages in employing a mixed agency, two of which may 
 be just mentioned here. A great department like this, if com- 
 posed wholly of a military staff, would inevitably tend to become a 
 purely seniority service, such as it used to be in earlier years, and 
 this would be fatal to its efficiency. A still greater objection from 
 a professional point of view, lies in the separation it would tend to 
 foster between the two great branches of the profession. So long 
 as these are kept apart from each other, employed upon different 
 duties, the cry will always be maintained, whether or not it be 
 founded in reason, that there is an innate difference between the 
 professional abilities of the ‘civil’ and the ‘mere military’ 
 engineer ; and were the body which has the entire control of the 
 professional press in this country to be excluded from the great 
 field of employment afforded by the Indian Public Works Depart- 
 ment, the proceedings of that department would inevitably be 
 subjected to a hostile criticism very difficult to repel. But 
 officered as it now is by a staff composed indifferently of military 
 
 * It must be remembered that although the department is now (or was a year ago) 
 officered in nearly equal parts by military men and civilians, the latter being a late 
 addition are principally, as yet, in subordinate posts, and that the former still oceupy 
 a vastly more important and influential position than the relative numbers would 
 indicate. The full effect of the change taking place in the composition of the service 
 has therefore not yet been manifested. This is clearly shown by the subjoined table, 
 
 Public Works Establishment, February, 1867. 
 
 Chief _ Super- Executive | Assistant | 44) 
 iiss _ | intending Eno} Wetriy Bee otal. 
 ngineers. | yy. 43 ugineers. | Engineers. 
 ingineers. 
 Royal Engineers : 11 25 111 57 204 
 Other Military Officers | 1 4 60 29 94 
 Civil Engineers ; — 4 119 181 304 
 Total ; 12 33 290 267 602 
 
18 
 
 and civil engineers, it offers an admirable apparatus for dissipating 
 the feeling of jealousy which has heretofore been too often ex- 
 hibited by the one towards the other; while the military engineers, 
 now that they have found a common field of employment with 
 their civil brethren, may enter on the course of honourable rivalry it 
 presents, with every confidence that the reputation of their corps 
 will not suffer from the competition.” 
 
 The foregoing remarks have been addressed to the subject from 
 the side of State interests ; there still remains to urge the im- 
 portance of making the excellent field for instruction and ex- 
 perience, afforded by the Indian Public Works Department, 
 available to the fullest possible extent for the corps of Royal 
 Engineers. That corps is primarily organised and maintained for 
 purposes of war, and no doubt its military efficiency should be the 
 first consideration. But war is happily an exceptional! occurrence, 
 and in time of peace adequate military employment cannot be 
 found for the whole corps. Only a minority of the officers (I am 
 speaking of the British establishment) are attached to the engineer 
 soldiers, and with the depots and schools of instruction ; the re- 
 mainder are chiefly employed under the War Department, in charge 
 of the various fortifications and military buildings in England 
 and abroad, and although these duties may be very necessary and 
 financially very important, it will probably be admitted that the 
 mere conservancy of buildings does not form a particularly useful 
 or elevating training for an engineer. Just at the present time, 
 indeed, a large number of officers are engaged on the great 
 fortifications now erecting in Great Britain and elsewhere, and it 
 may be freely admitted that these works, both from their national 
 importance and professional nature, take precedence of those un- 
 dertaken in India, which, however extensive, are yet stamped with 
 the note of provincialism. But such opportunities occur only once 
 in a century, and the present one will shortly come to an end. 
 Speaking generally, it will probably be admitted that the routine 
 duties of the Royal Engineer Department are ordinarily of a kind 
 which would be sufficiently well performed by a much less highly 
 trained agency, and that if an officer employed in it becomes a 
 skilful and accomplished engineer, his proficiency will have been 
 acquired by special means and not in course of his regular 
 departmental occupations. This defect in the condition of the 
 corps, hitherto inherent in the circumstances of its organisation, 
 the Indian field of employment offers itself opportunely to remedy. 
 
 There are, however, perhaps some — and those members of the 
 eorps themselves—who, while admitting this, will yet contend 
 that it is not desirable a military body, like the Royal Engineers, 
 should be more fully employed in peace time, and that at any rate 
 they should not be employed in a civil capacity. To some minds 
 
 * The Public Works Department has so far laboured under the deficiency that it 
 affords no experience in the great school of railway practice. But this will be 
 remedied now that the Indian Government is about to undertake itself the construc- 
 tion of railways, since it may be taken for granted that both branches of the depart- 
 ment will be employed on the staff of these works in the usual proportions. 
 
 o* 
 
19 
 
 there appears to be an incongruity in employing military men on 
 other than military duty; but this objection surely arises from a 
 confusion of ideas, in mistaking the means for the end. An army 
 is a necessary evil, and if the members of it could still be employed 
 as private citizens in time of. peace, the gain would be un- 
 questionable. Unfortunately this is not found to be practicable, 
 and in order that troops shall be efficient for war, it has been 
 necessary (at least in modern times) to keep them always in a 
 state of preparation and training during peace. But this, if a 
 necessary condition, is not in the nature of things a desirable one, 
 and that in the case of engineer soldiers, there should be such a 
 connection between their civil and military pursuits, that the one 
 forms a useful preparation for the other, is a state of things which, 
 so far from telling against this mode of employing the engineers, 
 might even perhaps be usefully imitated in all other branches of 
 the army. 
 
 Unfortunately, as has been observed, this employment of even 
 the engineers has only been practicable to a limited extent, be- 
 cause the British Government does not undertake the direct 
 execution of public works on which it could employ them. But 
 the Indian public works now thrown open to them offer an almost 
 illimitable field for their employment, in every way calculated 
 to develope their professional faculties in the highest degree. That 
 the efficiency of the corps is likely to be increased by being thus 
 fully actively engaged: in peace time can hardly be contested, 
 while it may be noticed that a state of war almost certainly causes 
 a check to the progress of public works, and that thus the staff 
 employed on them will be set free without inconvenience just at 
 the time when they are wanted for military duty. It is incon- 
 ceivable, for example, that England should be engaged so ex~ 
 tensively in hostilities in any part of the world as to demand the 
 services of a considerable body of engineers without the financial 
 pressure consequent on a state of war extending to India. From 
 this point of view the employment of the military engineers 1s 
 recommended on grounds of economy. To which it may be added 
 that the augmentation of the corps, which the demands of the 
 Indian public works will necessitate, if it isto maintain its present 
 place in the departmental staff, might serve to meet a difficulty 
 now beginning to be seriously felt, of the stagnation in promotion 
 throughout the regiment. So long as the Engineer corps in India 
 belonged to the Indian ar my, a practical limit was placed on 
 augmentation by the tradition that promotion should proceed at 
 an equal rate throughout the entire establishment. But under 
 the new system of promotion adopted for the Indian army, its 
 officers have already outstripped their contemporaries in the 
 engineers in most grades, and are likely to do so still more as 
 time goes on. At any rate there is no fear of their supersession 
 by the engineers under any augmentation of the latter that is 
 likely to be made. 
 
 The question therefore has to be asked whether, so far as the 
 corps is concerned, it should not gladly embrace the opportunity 
 
 B 2 
 
20 
 
 thus presented for so large a development of its functions, and 
 whether instead of merely accepting the reversion of the place 
 heretofore occupied by the Indian regiments, and that as it were 
 under protest, as a kind of exceptional and unwelcome duty, it 
 should not lay itself out heartily to occupy the new field of em- 
 ployment now thrown open to it? At present, indeed, less than 
 one half of the corps is serving in India, but if the Engineer corps 
 is to continue to occupy its present place in the rapidly expanding 
 Indian service, it is plain that these proportions must shortly be 
 reversed. Under this expectation it will be at least not inap- 
 propriate to review its organisation and procedure, and to adapt 
 them, so far at any rate as may be practicable without sacrifice of 
 any essential principle, to harmonise with the extenien functions 
 it will be called upon to fulfil. 
 
 It seems the more desirable to draw attention to the subject, 
 because unfortunately the idea of Indian service under the condi- 
 tions at present attached to it appear far from being altogether 
 welcome to some members of the corps. Now although the posi- 
 tion of the corps in India is, I believe, susceptible of improve- 
 ment, still the objections which are made by officers of the Royal 
 Engineers, so far as I am acquainted with them, appear to be in 
 many respects founded on a misconception as to what that position 
 actually is, and, since it would be desirable if this could be clearly 
 explained, a few remarks will be submitted on this head. I will 
 conclude this Memorandum by suggesting some points in which 
 I venture to think the Indian system might be modified without 
 inconvenience—in some cases with positive advantage—to har- 
 monise with English practice. 
 
 Mode of Remuneration.—One objection, made by an officer of 
 the corps, lately holding a distinguished official position in India, 
 to our system, was that it was contrary to regimental custom and 
 to proper military ideas for officers of engineers to be paid extra 
 
 salaries in addition to their regimental - allowance, for merely 
 doing their duty. This view, however, is based entirely on a 
 misconception. The officer in question seems—from the memo- 
 randum drawn up by him—to have overlooked facts very material 
 to the case. An engineer officer in India no doubt receives a ‘staff’ 
 salary, as it is termed, in addition to his regimental pay whenever 
 employed in any capacity, but it needs hardly be pointed out that 
 he also receives extra pay in every other part of the world, only 
 the allowance is styled by a different name. So far from the 
 aggregate salaries of the engineer department in India being ex- 
 cessive, they are comparatively smaller than in the colonies. In 
 the colonies an engineer receives double the pay of a line officer ; 
 he gets nothing like so much in India. Every officer of the 
 Indian army receives additional allowances while actively em- 
 ployed, as well as those of the engineers. A lieutenant-colonel 
 commanding a regiment of native infantry, for example, receives 
 nearly as much as an engineer holding the post (usually filled in 
 that rank) of superintending engineer. Compared also with the 
 staff departments of the army, brigade, general staff, commissariat, 
 
21 
 and so forth, the engineer salaries will certainly not be found 
 excessive. 
 
 As to the proposal emanating from the same quarter, that 
 engineer officers should take only the departmental duties of 
 military stations, those engaged on civil works being seconded as 
 supernumerary, or non-regimentally employed, it may be sufficient 
 to observe that in India there are few fortifications or special 
 military works to develop scientific military engineering, and that 
 the Sapper element of the army is there on a most attenuated 
 footing. Just at the present moment there is certainly a great 
 military undertaking in progress, in the construction of new 
 barracks for the European garrison on a very extensive scale. 
 But this, like the fortifications of England, is a special and tempo- 
 rary affair, which will not be repeated; and, once completed, the 
 military part of the departmental business will consist mainly in 
 repairs and conservancy of the most commonplace kind. Indian 
 practice would under such circumstances be more monotonous and 
 less improving than that to be had in every other part of the 
 globe, and the corps, if limited to such duties, would inevitably 
 sink in professional ability and professional estimation ; in fact 
 such a change would strike a fatal blow at its efficiency and 
 prestige.* 
 
 Another objection to such a proposal is, that the number of 
 military engineers who could be usefully employed on the so-called 
 military duty in peace time would be quite inadequate to meet the 
 demands of war. India has no fortresses to occupy engineers 
 during peace, such as afford employment for the engineers of 
 continental nations; but there is bardly any limit to the number 
 that could be employed when the army takes the field. A reserve 
 of engineers is therefore wanted to be kept up, and this the 
 present system very conveniently supplies, even from a purely 
 military point of view. : 
 
 Charge of Money.—Another objection appears to be that engineer 
 officers are placed in charge of money-chests. The objection here 
 is not, it may be presumed, to the amount of responsibility 
 involved, but must have’ arisen on the score of such a duty being 
 incompatible with the position of engineer officers. If such an idea 
 be entertained, it arises, I venture to think, from a misconception 
 of what is implied by the imposition of this responsibility. The 
 traditions of Indian administration have always assumed that the 
 charge of its treasuries should be deemed a post of honour, so to 
 speak, to be confided to officers of high position ; and accordingly it 
 was long customary, in places where a civil treasury was established, 
 
 * It is just possible there are some of my brother officers who may say that this 
 would not matter, because they don’t want to be good civil engineers, but to be soldiers 
 only. To such I have no argument to offer, because the man who cannot see that the 
 tendency of modern military science is daily towards the greater employment of the 
 engineer’s art, and in its most complex and highly developed form—so that to be a good 
 engineer soldier one must also be a skilled engineer—occupies ground which is not 
 to be reached by argument. But I would ask such a person, if there be one, how he 
 would propose to employ fifteen battalions of engineers, or one fourth that number, 
 as soldiers, in peace time ? 
 
22 
 
 to place the senior administrative officer in charge. Thus bills on 
 the diplomatic agencies used always to be drawn on the residents 
 of the native courts, these being the most important officials in the 
 country, and until quite lately the fiction was retained that the 
 Governor-General himself had charge of-the treasury of Fort 
 William, the officer actually in charge—one of the senior civilians 
 in the service—being styled sub-treasurer. This shows what are 
 the traditions on the subject, but in fact the point is not any 
 longer one of practical importance, because departmental trea- 
 suries have been abolished except for petty disbursements, and 
 the engineers have banking accounts with the civil treasuries, 
 and make their payments by cheques. Whenever special circum- 
 stances—as, ¢.g., distance from a treasury—require a departmental 
 chest to be kept, the engineer is allowed the aid of a responsible 
 treasurer. 
 
 Departmental Accounts.—It appears to be supposed by some 
 officers, that these are a special difficulty in India. The notion 
 may perhaps have been acquired by the officers who served 
 in India during the mutiny, and so have spread through the 
 corps, and certainly they were justified in any opinion they may 
 have formed, for nothing could have been worse than the state of 
 the accounts at that time. The beginning of reform made in 
 1854, upon the antiquated and defective system of the old military 
 board, had been checked by the outbreak of the mutiny, and an 
 epoch of the extreme confusion and delay had supervened, far 
 worse than that which had gone before. No definite system of 
 accounts had been prescribed for disbursing agents, the audit was 
 dilatory in the extreme, and officers, while personally liable for 
 retrenchments, could with difficulty ascertain what their pecuniary 
 responsibilities were. 
 
 But this state of things has since undergone an entire alteration, 
 and nothing can be more unlike than the present system and con- 
 dition of the accounts and the past. Every disbursing officer now 
 obtains a final clearance of all his disbursements, month by month, 
 within a few days of rendering his accounts, and the obnoxious per- 
 sonal retrenchments have been abolished. Extravagance or care- 
 lessness in building is dealt with on the merits of the case, like 
 any other professional matter, but an officer is not called on to pay 
 out of his own pocket for loss of public money, or excesses over 
 estimates incurred through his fault, and in this respect, if I am 
 correctly informed, he is on a better footing than his brother 
 officers serving elsewhere. As to the accounts themselves, whereas 
 formerly there was no defined system, the rule and forms are now 
 so precise that a man can hardly make mistakes, while a trained 
 accountant is attached to every executive division, who is re- 
 sponsible for the correct preparation and compilation of the 
 accounts. * 
 
 * The Public Works expenditure for all India is finally booked in the central office, 
 and the Accountant-General’s books balanced for each month monthly, within three 
 months of date; the audit and adjustment is therefore probably as rapid as in any part 
 of the world. This, however, is a secondary matter as regards the disbursing officer. 
 
 — 
 
23 
 
 Objection that the Public Works Department is a Cwil Depart- 
 ment of the State-—This seems to be an objection with some, who 
 consider that, as a military corps, engineer officers should be 
 always on a military footing; but it really seems when looked into 
 to arise out of a misconception of the case. The Public Works 
 Department is no doubt a civil department of the State, but so is 
 the English War Department. Its head and the principal 
 officers under him are usually civilians; and, which is very 
 material to the point, an officer serving under it does not 
 become amenable to the penalties of the articles of war in respect 
 of his departmental functions—as, eg., for unskilful building or . 
 careless surveys. His military status is in fact not determined 
 by his being under the War Department, in which respect he is 
 under precisely the same conditions as the various civil officers 
 attached to it—storekeepers, clerks of works, &c., but in virtue of 
 his commission as an officer. 
 
 It will be urged, however, that the Royal Engineers of the 
 British Establishment, although performing civil duties under the 
 War Department, are also directly under the orders of the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, and that their reliefs, roster for home and foreign 
 service, and so forth, are regulated, not by the War Department, 
 but by the Deputy Adjutant-General at the Horse Guards, and 
 that in this way their military character is sustained. This dual 
 system is, however, not practicable in India, because the Indian 
 Government has always retained direct control of all the army 
 departments; these, 2.e. the Ordnance, Commissariat, &c., are 
 under the Military (Indian War) Office, and are not directly 
 subordinate to army head-quarters. The utmost change therefore 
 that could be effected in this way in India would be to transfer the 
 control of the corps from the Public Works to the Military De- 
 partment, that is, from one civil authority to another.* But the 
 executive engineer of an Indian military station, although respon- 
 sible for his departmental duties to a civil authority, is virtually 
 on the staff of the general commanding; his whole business is 
 intimately connected with the service of the troops; and which, I 
 would ask, is really doing most of a soldier’s work, a man nomi- 
 nally in civil employ, at a place like the Peshawur frontier, where 
 there are 10,000 troops equipped for active service, with the 
 duties of which he is immediately associated; or an officer in 
 charge of the barracks at some West India island, or remote 
 colonial station, where, although ostensibly employed in a military 
 capacity, he is perhaps the only soldier in the place? 
 
 Objection that Departmental Promotion is not regulated by 
 Seniority.—This would appear to be a great stumbling-block 
 or executive engineer. The great relief to them has been afforded by the introduction 
 
 of a definite procedure, the formation of an establishment of trained accountants, the 
 abolition of personal retrenchments, and the opening of banking accounts with the 
 district treasuries. : a ; 
 
 * The Military Department of the Indian Government is borne on the civil esti- 
 mates. The superior staff is composed of military men, but so, for the matter of that, 
 is the staff of the Public Works Department. This, however, is merely an accident, so 
 to speak; in early days the military secretary used to be a civilian. 
 
24 
 
 with many, and yet when looked into the objection appears 
 at most a very unsubstantial one. It is contrary to military 
 principles, say those who entertain this objection, that a senior 
 should be required to serve under a junior. But it will be 
 apparent that this proposition requires to be largely qualified 
 before it can be accepted as correct, even from a purely military 
 point of view; at any rate the terms senior and junior must be 
 employed in a very elastic sense to fit in with it. Clearly regi- 
 mental seniority does not establish a claim which can never be set 
 aside, because the purchase system is based on the principle of 
 allowing juniors to supersede seniors in the freest way. Again, in 
 the case of officers exchanging, we frequently see seniors serving 
 under juniors. There are further the exceptions caused by brevet 
 rank, when a senior in the army serves under his junior. But, it 
 may be replied, these exceptions merely prove the existence of 
 the rule for which we contend, namely, that precedence in a 
 regiment is determined by regimental rank only. But in the 
 Engineer corps the precedence of the general officers is now 
 determined by their army rank as colonels, and a man is thus 
 liable to be commanded, even regimentally, by oue who has for 
 the greater part of his service been junior to him, so that even the 
 idea of relative rank by regimental seniority does not hold good 
 universally. There is, moreover, the case of the Crimea, where 
 the line officers attached to the Engineer Brigade and the Engineers 
 took precedence under an arrangement determined neither by 
 army hor regimental rank. In the Army Departments, moreover, 
 the seniority rule by no means universally holds good, the Adjutant- 
 General, for example, need not necessarily be the senior of his 
 “deputy; and—which is a very pertinent illustration—in the Indian 
 army as now constituted officers take precedence in their regi- 
 ments neither according to seniority of their regimental nor of 
 their army commissions, but simply according to the pleasure of 
 the Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 It seems clear, therefore, that the rule of regimental seniority, as 
 applied to the duties of the Royal Engineer Department on the 
 British Establishment, is not, as some would appear to think, a 
 practice intrinsically proper from the nature of things, but one 
 which is in great measure arbitrary, and might be altered without 
 any violation of the military code. And as regards the Indian 
 Public Works Department, the departure from a system of pre- 
 cedence by seniority is sufficiently explained by its peculiar orga- 
 nisation. Its staff is not wholly composed of engineer officers, 
 or even wholly of military men; and if it be said that in the case 
 of a mixed service, army rather than regimental rank should 
 determine the claims of seniority, how could such a rule be applied 
 when half the members of it are civil officers, and the whole are 
 distributed indifferently among the various situations to be filled ? 
 To which may be added that in any emp oyment which demands 
 intelligent and difficult service from its members, the higher 
 appointments must necessarily be fill-d by selection, if they 
 are to be filled with efficiency, and this can only be secured either 
 
25 
 
 by putting juniors over seniors, or by shelving the latter en- 
 tirely ; which of these two plans is the least expensive as well as 
 most considerate to those concerned needs hardly be said. It 
 may further be noted that the present system has been adopted 
 after full trial of the other. In the earlier days of the Depart- 
 ment, before any considerable public works had been undertaken, 
 and its duties were principally confined to the mere conservancy 
 of public buildings, the rule of seniority in promotion was rigidly 
 maintained. At this time the Department was officered in effect 
 only from the Engineer corps—the line officers employed in it 
 being comparatively few in number, and regarded as supernume- 
 rary, while there.were no civilians. When, however, extensive 
 public works came to be undertaken, involving the application of 
 exceptional skill and energy, the seniority system was perforce 
 abandoned, in fact it broke down when the smallest strain was 
 put on it. 
 
 But while thus contending for the principle, it would quite 
 mislead the reader were he given to suppose that cases of seniors 
 serving under juniors are at all frequent. What most commonly 
 results from the system is not that a junior is put over a senior, 
 but that juniors get the preference for select appointments and 
 quicker promotion; but the department being so large, and 
 employment in it scattered over the whole breadth of the country, 
 this can easily occur without regimental ranks coming into col- 
 lision, and a system of selection of this sort, it need hardly 
 be remarked, is not unknown in England, where the commands 
 of districts and the superior appointments at head-quarters are not 
 always given to the seniors. In fact it may be asserted that the 
 case of an executive or superintending engineer being regimentally 
 junior to an officer departmentally subordinate to him has probably 
 never occurred, and it is only in the highest appointments that 
 the thing is even likely to happen. The grade of superintending 
 engineer (equivalent to that of commanding engineer of a district) 
 is the highest to which an officer in ordinary course can claim to 
 rise, and the head departmental post of chief engineer of a province 
 being filled up purely by selection, a superintending engineer may 
 certainly be liable to find himself under a regimental junior. But 
 the chief engineer is also secretary to the provincial government, 
 and the orders issued from his office are usually issued not in his 
 own name, but under the authority of the Governor, which of 
 course does away with all idea of supercession, the chief engineer 
 being thus as it were the vehicle for conveying the orders of the 
 Government to the Department.* 
 
 It may however possibly be argued in rejoinder that, admitting 
 these facts to show the necessity for maintaining the system of 
 selection in this department, and that regimental supersession 
 but seldom occurs, they only prove the unsuitableness of ser- 
 vice in this department for the Royal Engineers, to whom the 
 
 * In some provinces the secretary is not also styled chief engineer; the superin- 
 
 tending engineers in such parts are thus the departmental heads, and the question of 
 precedence does not arise at all. 
 
26 
 
 idea is obnoxious that a senior should be lable to serve 
 under a junior. Whether the principle they contend for be 
 really inviolably maintained out of India, the considerations 
 already offered may perhaps render at least doubtful, while it 
 has been explained how small the liability in India actually is; but 
 however that may be, is not the objection in this case after all 
 merely an imaginary one, based on an ambiguous use of the idea 
 of ‘serving’? From the way in which the matter is sometimes 
 spoken of, it might almost be supposed that the claims of depart- 
 mental business involved some liability to subvert the proper 
 precedence of officers in purely regimental duty, whereas in fact 
 the two things have no sort of connection. Departmental duty is 
 purely civil duty, and nothing done in it can form the subject of 
 reference in a military court, so that really there need not be more 
 question of one’s military rank while road or canal making in the 
 department, than there is in the hunting-field or at one’s club.* 
 The fact is that the officers of the Public Works Department are 
 for the time being, quoad military status, in the position of private 
 citizens; their military rights are not subverted but are merely 
 suspended temporarily, as happens when they take leave of absence. 
 The ties of departmental precedence do not extend beyond depart- 
 mental business, and never conflict in any way with the claims of 
 regimental duty, and they terminate with the cessation of depart- 
 mental employment. The arrangement, it may be added, is one 
 quite familiar to the corps, in the case of the officers attached to 
 the Board of Trade and other civil departments: the only point 
 exceptional in its application to the India Service is the great extent 
 to which it is there carried. 
 
 Lastly, to those who, while approving of the practice, yet object 
 that it is carried too far, it may be sufficient to reply that it is not 
 found in practice to produce any inconvenient results. Men do not 
 Jose sight of their relative military functions because in peace-time 
 they are not exercised, but when the troops take the field, the 
 engineer officers told off to accompany them pass at once from 
 the orders of the Civil Government to those of the Commander-in- 
 Chief, and fall, as a matter of course, into their proper regimental 
 places. No army enters more readily on a state of war than the 
 Indian army, and no body of officers understand more thoroughly 
 the rules of military obedience than those of the Engineer corps; 
 the supposition that any misapprehension as to the claims of 
 military subordination is likely to arise from the Indian depart- 
 mental system is sufficiently refuted by reference to the testimony 
 of the past, and with all the experience afforded by past Indian 
 campaigns, & prior? objections as to its supposed tendency are 
 surely not entitled to weight. That system has not been found to 
 interfere with the military efficiency of the corps, which bears an 
 undeniably high reputation among the Indian services, and its 
 most distinguished members have been men employed wholly during 
 
 * A man may of course become amenable to the articles of war for conduct unbe- 
 coming an officer or a gentleman, arising out of departmental affairs, but so would he 
 equally become liable for the consequences of similar conduct if exhibited in his own 
 drawing room, 
 
 an 
 
27 
 
 peace time under the departmental system. What as I venture to 
 think are some defects of our organisation will be pointed out 
 presently, but assuredly the abolition of promotion by seniority in 
 the Public Works Department is not one of them. 
 
 Possible Modification of System.—At the same time the diffi- 
 culty which our system creates in some quarters would un- 
 doubtedly be removed by the adoption of a scheme, drawn up by 
 Colonel Strachey and myself a few years ago, in a Memorandum 
 submitted to the Governor-General on the employment of the 
 corps of Royal Engineers in India. To make clear the nature of 
 the change proposed, it may be briefly explained that under the 
 existing system the public works, military as well as civil, of 
 each of the ten provinces which make up British India are dealt 
 with by the civil government of the province, and are provided for 
 in the provincial estimates as submitted to and finally approved 
 by the supreme government. The head departmental ministerial 
 officer in each province is the chief engineer, who is also secretary 
 to the provincial government. The larger provinces again are sub- 
 divided into circles, each under a superintending engineer, to whom 
 the executive engineers of divisions are immediately subordinate. 
 A division of public works usually covers a considerable area of 
 country, comprising one or more civil districts, within which the 
 executive engineer has charge of all the public works and building 
 except works of irrigation ; it may thus consist of a group of civil 
 and military stations, and the roads uniting them; but the more 
 important lines of road are usually formed in separate executive 
 charges, and the large military stations have also in most cases been 
 constituted executive divisions by themselves. Irrigation works 
 also form a special branch of the Department; in the larger pro- 
 vinces there are a separate Chief and Superintending Engineers for 
 the Irrigation Department, and everywhere the Executive Engineers 
 of divisions of irrigation works are employed wholly in that line. 
 Thus the line of demarcation between the different kinds of duty 
 is already marked with tolerable distinctness; but in the Memo- 
 randum referred to it was proposed to carry the separation still 
 farther—to relieve the executive engineers of military divisions 
 entirely from the charge of civil works, and to form separate 
 circles of these military divisions, the general superintendence of 
 them being placed upon the Inspector-General of Military Works— 
 an office lately created and attached to the Supreme Government— 
 the superintending engineers of these Military Circles, which 
 were to correspond in extent, so far as might be practicable, with 
 the army divisions, being styled Deputy Inspector-General. The 
 relations of these officers to the civil provincial governments, and 
 the amount of control which it was considered the latter should 
 continue to exercise over the military works in their respective 
 provinces are points which, although very important, need not be 
 dwelt upon here. It will be sufficient for present purposes to ex- 
 plain that while the proposal was made with the primary object of 
 strengthening the military administration of the Supreme Govern- 
 ment, which has the immediate control of the army in all other 
 
28 
 
 matters—the present interposition of the provincial government, in 
 regard to military buildings, being plainly anomalous and in some 
 respects inconvenient *—the scheme was also framed to meet the 
 changed circumstances of the Engineer corps, on their amalgama- 
 tion with the Royal regiment, and in view to removing the objec- 
 tions which it was believed some members of the latter felt to our 
 departmental system. It was a part of the scheme that this mili- 
 tary branch of the Department should be filled only by Royal 
 Engineer officers, the Inspector-General being an officer of stand- 
 ing, and the Deputy Inspector-Generals regimental field officers, 
 and that all officers of the corps on first joining the Department 
 should be attached to this branch of it, and be transferred to the 
 civil branch only at their own request. The latter being much 
 the larger of the two, it would obviously be easy to arrange that in 
 the former the order of departmental precedence should correspond 
 with that of regimental rank, while in the latter promotion would 
 continue to be determined by selection only, as at present ; but since 
 the officers serving in the civil branch would do so at their own 
 desire, they could not object to the system maintained in it, while 
 the military branch would be large enough to contain the re- 
 mainder, and all parties would be employed on terms agreeable to 
 themselves. 
 
 The untimely death of Lord Elgin very shortly after this Me- 
 morandum had been submitted to him, combined with other cir- 
 cumstances to prevent this scheme being deliberately considered, 
 but the proposals are as applicable now as then, if in themselves 
 desirable. But while now drawing attention to it, I feel bound to 
 point out one very serious objection attaching. If, instead of an 
 indiscriminate distribution of the departmental staff among the 
 different posts to be filled, as now obtains, when consequently the 
 military charges are held indifferently by civil and military offi- 
 cers, the latter again being drawn from all branches of the army, 
 those charges are to be held entirely by officers of the Engineer 
 corps, the latter must obviously recede considerably from the share 
 they would otherwise hold of the civil appointments; and since 
 the civil works form unquestionably the better school of engineer- 
 ing practice, the change would inevitably be attended by a dete- 
 rioration in the professional accomplishments of the corps. The 
 barrack divisions, in fact, when the great buildings now under 
 construction shall be completed, will really offer no facilities for 
 acquiring experience except in the most commonplace routine of 
 ordinary building work. Whether the change would be desirable 
 as increasing the control of the Supreme Government over its 
 military expenditure is another matter, but regarded merely as 
 a corps question, and seeing how very seldom it is that cases of 
 regimental supersessions actually occur under the existing system 
 it would surely be a heavy price to pay for an idea. 
 
 Another objection to Indian system stated.—One more objection 
 
 * The governments of Madras and Bombay have a partial control over all the 
 military arrangements of the troops stationed in those provinces, but the remarks in 
 the text have reference more especially to the other eight provinces of India. 
 
 e* 
 
29 
 
 has been noticed, which, although relating to a point of detail, 
 appears to have been very strongly felt. I refer to the article in 
 the Public Works Code, which rules that departmental seniority is 
 always to regulate precedence,* so that in the event of a war- 
 rant or non-commissioned officer happening to be temporarily the 
 senior officer of a division, he would be entitled to assume charge 
 of the office, any commissioned officer of junior departmental rank 
 being relieved from departmental duty for the time. As one of 
 the persons principally concerned in the compilation of the Revised 
 Code, I may perhaps venture to say that I think this paragraph a 
 most unfortunate one. It is, I believe, perfectly needless, since 
 the case of a non-commissioned or warrant officer being a senior 
 departmental officer, or even an assistant engineer at all, is one 
 hardly likely to occur, and might at any rate have easily been 
 provided for otherwise, without inflicting hardship on anyone, and 
 without straining the principle of departmental precedence as this 
 does in an extreme degree, for the enforcement of a mere idea. 
 But were it understood what a sensible objection this clause now 
 constitutes to Indian service with many members of the corps, and 
 that really no one is interested in maintaining it, it is hardly 
 doubtful that the Code would undergo the needful modification. 
 Defects of Indian system. Insufficiency of Regimental Work.— 
 Having said so much regarding the advantages offered to the 
 Engineer corps by Indian service, a few remarks may usefully be 
 added regarding those conditions of it which appear defective, and 
 which are, moreover, I believe, readily susceptible of improve- 
 ment. Ifthe extensive practice in civil engineering in peace-time 
 offered by India be a good thing for the corps, on the other hand 
 there is undoubtedly a tendency to carry this mode of employment 
 somewhat too far, and to neglect to maintain the needful degree of 
 military preparation and training. With rare exceptions, a young 
 officer after a short tour of duty with the native sapper battalion of 
 his presidency is transferred to the Public Works Department, and 
 never returns to military duty again. It cannot but happen that 
 in course of time his military knowledge must grow rusty, and if 
 it be replied that officers suddenly called into the field after long 
 
 * The article (chap. iv. see.1. art. 34) is as follows :—No Public Works officer of any 
 grade shall be deprived of the advantages of his position in the department by reason 
 of the superior military rank of any departmental junior. But a commissioned 
 officer cannot be compelled to serve under a warrant or non-commissioned officer, nor 
 a warrant officer under a non-commissioned officer ; and in any case where a warrant 
 or non-commisioned officer takes charge of an office by virtue of a departmental 
 seniority, any commissioned officer of the division may consider himself relieved from 
 departmental duty. Likewise a warrant officer may consider himself relieved when 
 a non-commissioned officer takes charge. But no commissioned officer can refuse to 
 serve under his departmental senior, being his junior in the army, and also a com- 
 missioned officer; no warrant officer under his junior in the army, being also a warrant 
 officer, no non-commissioned officer under his junior in army rank, being a non-com- 
 missioned officer or soldier. No commissioned, warrant, or non-commissioned officer 
 can refuse to serve under his senior in the department, being a civilian, nor can any 
 civilian refuse to serve under his senior in the department, of whatever military rank. 
 Tt will be the duty of chief engineers to arrange so as to the best of tkeir ability to 
 prevent the possibility of any commissioned or warrant officer being thrown tempo- 
 rarily out of departmental employ under the above rules. 
 
30 
 
 absence from the regiment as a matter of fact acquit themselves 
 creditably, and that, therefore, the plans work well in practice, 
 the rejoinder is obvious that they would do still better if afforded 
 the opportunity of undergoing a periodical military training, or at 
 any rate of occasionally exercising themselves in military technical 
 subjects. On this point there can hardly be any reasonable doubt, 
 and although some men may prove on such occasions superior to 
 circumstances, systems are not required for men of genius, and the 
 majority of those who have found themselves in such a position 
 would probably frankly confess their deficiencies, and admit that 
 whatever might have been their success, it was achieved in spite 
 of, and not because of these. 
 
 It may be replied that the condition of things here objected to 
 is, after all, only similar to what obtains in the British esta- 
 blishment of the corps, in which officers, although nominally 
 employed in a military capacity, are often detached during their 
 whole period of service from the engineer soldiers, and employed 
 on duties which have no bearing on their military education, nor 
 tend to enhance their usefulness for purposes of war. This may 
 be so, but the difference in the two cases is that in the British part 
 of the corps a strong nucleus is always retained on purely military 
 duty, the officers of all grades attached in succession to the Chatham 
 establishment alone being sufficiently numerous to leaven the 
 whole regiment, while in India the military element is practically 
 wholly wanting. The Sapper corps in no way answers the purpose, 
 as there is no place with them for any but juniors, and only a few 
 of these. The Bengal Sapper battalion has certainly of late years 
 been placed on an improved footing, a special staff of instructors 
 having been appointed to it; but besides the subalterns there is 
 only one first and one second captain doing regimental duty, and not 
 a single field officer. The commandant of the Madras and Bombay 
 battalions is an engineer officer, but the companies are officered 
 from the line, and the staff consists of an adjutant and quarter- 
 master, also usually line officers; in this respect they are even 
 worse off than the battalions of native infantry, for these have each 
 four staff officers. Altogether only four engineer officers above 
 the rank of lieutenant are employed in a military capacity, out 
 of 336 borne on the Indian establishment.* 
 
 To meet this defect it was proposed in the Memorandum already 
 referred to (by Colonel Strachey and the present writer), that the 
 strength of engineer soldiers stationed in India should be con- 
 siderably increased, the three native Sapper corps being placed on 
 an improved and more efficient footing, and a Commanding Royal 
 Engineer for India with staff appointed. It was also suggested 
 
 * From the latest army lists available the engineer officers attached to the Sapper 
 corps appear to be as follows: 
 Field Officers Captains Subalterns 
 Bengal ‘ - : 2 
 Madras ‘ 4 ; 1 4 
 Bombay . ; : 2 
 ] ‘Be 15 
 
 oe 
 
31 
 
 that every officer on promotion to captain and field-officer should 
 be required to return to regimental duty for a season. It is 
 indeed not a little remarkable that in a country where our military 
 supremacy is avowedly based on the quality rather than the 
 quantity of our troops—the artillery being wholly European, and 
 maintained at an exceptionally high strength, and our European 
 infantry armed much better than their native comrades—-even 
 the usual contingent of engineers considered needful in European 
 armies should be altogether wanting. The establishment of an 
 adequate European engineer force for India is, however, a larger 
 question which could not be conveniently followed up here,* and 
 the introduction of a roster of military duty to be taken up by 
 each officer on promotion might be attended with practical diffi- 
 culties, which there is not room to discuss in this paper. But the 
 rest of the scheme might be easily carried out. Already some- 
 thing has been done in this direction by the new organisation of 
 the Bengal Sappers already referred to, and the formation of a 
 company of Europeans at the head-quarters of each corps.f <A 
 similar organisation for the Madras and Bombay battalions still 
 remains to be carried out, as well as the establishment of a regi- 
 mental head-quarters and staff for the whole corps in India. 
 
 As regards this last proposal, and the appointment of a Com- 
 manding Royal Engineer, it seems sufficient to observe that the 
 seven battalions of the corps stationed in India are at present 
 absolutely without any local head, or any medium of communica- 
 tion with the authorities in England, and that there is not a single 
 officer in that country, save the comparatively junior men at- 
 tached to the native Sappers, responsible for any military duties 
 which may arise in time of peace, and for the preparations ne- 
 cessary that the corps should take the field in a state of efficiency 
 on the outbreak of war. As to the first point it needs hardly be 
 said that in a country like India questions connected with military 
 engincering must constantly arise, but at present there is no one 
 specially responsible for dealing with them, as the professional 
 adviser of the Commander-in-Chief. Should the question arise, for 
 example, of the construction or alteration of a fortified postin any 
 part of the country, the superintending engineer of the circle, upon 
 whom, under present arrangements, would devolve the needful 
 preparstory measures, may possibly not be an engineer, or even a 
 soldier. The Inspector-General of Military Works, an engineer 
 officer of standing, is no doubt charged with a general supervision 
 in such matters, but his action comes in as that of final referee and 
 adviser of the Government, more particularly as regards cost. 
 There is no one specially responsible for ¢nitiating proposals con- 
 nected with the defence of the country, or for advising the military 
 authorities that the fortified posts throughout it are maintained in 
 a state of efficiency. 
 
 * An extract from the Memorandum is given as an Appendix. 
 
 + This company is however a mere depot, ostensibly kept up to feed the subordinate 
 ranks of the Public Works Department, and usually consists merely of recruits and 
 the non-commissioned staff. 
 
32 
 
 Nor is it anyone’s business to see that the needful engineer 
 equipment is forthcoming for military operations. When the 
 army takes the field all the engineering arrangements have to be 
 improvised; at any rate the officer selected to be commanding 
 engineer is not responsible for the state in which he finds the 
 equipment.* He is not even responsible for the choice of officers 
 to serve under him. The practice usually is on such occasions 
 for the Commander-in-Chief to indent (through the Military 
 Department) on the Public Works Department for the required 
 number of officers, the selection of them being left to the latter ; 
 and it is to be feared that this is sometimes determined rather 
 with reference to the interests of the public works than with 
 regard to military requirements. No doubt in a general way 
 men of known military capacity have been taken for field 
 service, but in some cases those have been chosen who could 
 best be spared, while on other occasions (within my own know- 
 ledge) a difficulty has been raised about supplying the full 
 number of engineers asked for, and their places have been taken 
 by line officers, presumably less qualified for the particular work 
 to be done.t To lose sight thus of the primary object for which 
 the corps exists, and to subordinate its military to its civil charac- 
 ter is surely most objectionable. It is also, I venture to think, a 
 short-sighted policy, even from a departmental point of view, be- 
 cause, to say nothing of the gain to the corps in prestige and there- 
 fore efficiency by distinction in the field, if we take into account 
 the numerous casualties constantly occurring in so large a de- 
 partment from furloughs and sickness, the absence of a few 
 additional officers on field service should not cause much incon- 
 venience. But were there a responsible head to the corps, he 
 as a matter of course would select the officers to accompany him 
 on field service, and the principle would be more clearly kept in 
 view, that military duty has the prior and unquestionable claim on 
 their services, which are merely lent to the civil service in time of 
 peace. 
 
 As to the expense of the measure, considering that a field officer 
 is allowed to nearly every battery of artillery, a single officer of 
 that grade to represent the purely military element of the engi- 
 neer branch of the service would surely not be a very extravagant 
 
 * A small park and pontoon train are certainly kept up at the head-quarters of the 
 Bengal Sappers, under the superintendence of the commanding officer, but the respon- 
 sibility here is of a very indefinite kind, because whenever the military operations 
 undertaken are on so extensive a scale as to call the Sapper head-quarters and park 
 into the field, that officer is invariably superseded by some senior as commanding 
 engineer, and falls back on the subordinate post of commandant of Sappers, the 
 control of the park passing out of his hands. Besides, in many cases military opera- 
 tions have to be undertaken at a distance from the Sapper head-quarters, where its 
 park is not available. On such occasions, until the officers selected for employment 
 are actually called from their desks into the field, it is no one’s buisness to see that 
 the needful arrangements are made. 
 
 + The Umbeyla campaign is a case in point. In this instance the requisition did 
 not come from army head-quarters, but from the Punjab government, which was 
 charged with the preparation of the expedition. Engineer officers not being supplied 
 by the Public Works Department to the extent asked for, the Revenue Survey Depart- 
 ment was bad recourse to for the needful reconnaissance. - 
 
 oe 
 
33. 
 
 allowance, even if the peace duties to be performed were not very 
 onerous. But, beside what has been indicated as an outline of his 
 probable duties, the supervision and inspection of the three Sapper 
 corps, and the equipments attached to them, would be an important 
 occupation. The material of these regiments is unanimously 
 admitted to be excellent, but a proper organisation of the Madras 
 and Bombay battalions has yet to be carried out; and with regard 
 to all three, the formal inspection of divisional generals might 
 obviously be supplemented with advantage by some professional 
 control. | 
 
 The Commanding Royal Engineer would also naturally be the 
 custodian of the plans of all fortified posts throughout the country, 
 for whom no one authority is at present responsible. The com- 
 mandant of Bengal Sappers certainly has an office for such 
 records, but his duty on this head is merely to keep the plans 
 which may be entrusted to him; it is no part of his business to 
 say what those plans shall be. What may be the arrangements in 
 Madras and Bombay I do not know, but I believe the records of 
 this kind are everywhere very incomplete. When the siege of 
 Delhi had to be undertaken no plan of the works was to be 
 found. The records of the local engineer’s office had of course 
 been destroyed, and no duplicate plans had been reeorded any- 
 where. Eventually, some very imperfect plans found their way 
 into camp, I believe from the Quartermaster-General’s office. If 
 the siege of Calcutta or Gwalior had now to be undertaken under 
 similar circumstances, precisely the same thing would probably 
 happen again. But it seems needless to pursue the argument. 
 It is plain that the engineer element of the Indian army is during 
 peace time reduced to a condition quite indefensible in a military 
 point of view, and utterly inconsistent with the complete efficiency | 
 and organisation aimed at in all other branches of the service. 
 The only doubt would appear to be whether the very moderate 
 scheme of improvement suggested is adequate to the case. 
 
 Lastly, it may be just mentioned that ample occupation awaits 
 any officer with opportunity to undertake it, in the compilation of 
 a record of the various engineering operations undertaken in 
 former years, especially during the mutiny. It is lamentable to 
 think that all the experience gained on that oceasion, some of it 
 of extraordinary interest and value (as, eg., in the remarkable 
 mining operations at Lucknow), is rapidly disappearing for want 
 of such a record. In any other country it would have been com- 
 piled under authority, as a matter of course, but in India there is 
 no one professionally responsible for bringing the subject to notice, 
 and the officers employed in the Public Works Department are too 
 busy to undertake such a work. In a short time it will be too 
 late to make the attempt.” 
 
 Whether the duties thus indicated should be conducted with 
 the aid of a staff officer, or whether they might not be per- 
 
 * I doubt if anyone ever knows now what has become of the detailed journal of the 
 operations before Delhi, kept in the engineer brigade office. The book has I believe 
 been mislaid, and it is no one’s business to look for it. ; 
 
 0 
 
or oe 
 
 formed by an officer of standing attached as Deputy Adjutant- 
 General of engineers to army head-quarters is a matter of detail 
 which I will not venture to discuss; it may be just observed by 
 the way, that the latter arrangement would obviate any difficulty 
 arising out of the relative rank of this officer to that of the other 
 field officers of the corps employed in India. 
 
 Instruction of Officers on Furlough.—One obvious means of 
 maintaining the military efficiency of the corps would be to 
 require the officers employed in India to spend a part of their 
 furlough at the Chatham establishment. There would apparently 
 be no difficulty in arranging that this should be done in a systematic 
 way. Such a duty, if enforced, would probably be acceptable to 
 most, and would certainly be beneficial to all. 
 
 Reliefs.—This subject was referred to in the beginning of the 
 
 Memorandum as one which requires to be placed on a somewhat . 
 
 more definite footing than at present obtains. Officers now go 
 to India on the understanding that they shall be entitled to relief 
 every seven years. Were such reliefs to be carried out systema- 
 tically they would interfere seriously with the steady progress of 
 departmental business, since officers would be withdrawn from 
 India just as they were becoming thoroughly efficient and had 
 acquired some experience as divisional officers. It is understood 
 to be intended not to insist on the plan unless in cases where the 
 officer himself desires to be relieved, but it may be observed 
 that in every other branch of the army the minimum term of 
 Indian service is ten years. And considering the peculiar condi- 
 tions of engineer employment in that country, that a man becomes 
 useful just in proportion as his local experience increases, and 
 looking to the fact that, while those who have commenced pro- 
 fessional life there will, speaking generally, desire to remain in it, 
 those on the other hand, who are accustomed to English and 
 colonial service, will prefer to continue in the latter, it seems 
 worthy of consideration whether provision might not be now 
 specifically made for meeting these conditions, and offering to the 
 officers of the corps a distinct choice between the two lines of 
 service. This might be done without interfering with the organi- 
 sation of the corps, or the existing system of promotion, by 
 marking off the corps, by battalions, into two divisions, for 
 general and Indian service respectively. Thus, while promotion 
 would continue to run in one general list, an officer would be 
 appointed to a general-service or an Indian battalion, according 
 as the officer whom he succeeded belonged to one or other division. 
 This would in fact merely be to continue the practice already in 
 force with respect to all but the subalterns appointed since 1860, 
 except that the whole regiment would eventually belong to one 
 general list for the purposes of promotion. In this way every 
 officer would know exactly what his prospects were on first ad- 
 mission to the service, and would prepare himself for an English 
 or Indian career, according as he found himself posted to one 
 branch or the other ; while, if exchanges were freely admitted, it is 
 probable that every officer would practically be able to choose the 
 
 * 
 
35 
 
 line which suited him. best.* Further, it would be quite practi- 
 cable, if thought desirable, to carry the line of division still 
 further, by maintaining the four existing separate lists for purposes 
 of promotion, the subalterns of the present amalgamated list 
 being distributed to complete the establishinent of the three 
 former Indian regiments. There would be some obvious advan- 
 tages in such an arrangement, one being that officers distinguished 
 for service in the field might be advanced the sooner to military 
 command, since they would take precedence when the different 
 regiments came together, according to their army or brevet rank. 
 
 Kachanges.—But whatever plan be finally determined on, it 
 seems very desirable that exchanges be freely permitted between 
 engineer officers in all ranks. Until this is done it cannot be said 
 that the amalgamation has been fully carried out. There may be 
 a certain degree of difficulty in finding suitable employment for 
 officers of standing, who commence Indian service comparatively 
 late in life, but there are also manifest disadvantages in maintain- 
 ing the rule lately established, which limits the power of exchange 
 to the junior officers. <A field officer of the Indian branch, whose 
 health will not permit him to serve in India, can now only escape 
 from that country by retiring from the service, while the senior 
 officers of the British establishment of the Royal Engineers are the 
 only persons in Her Majesty’s army who are ineligible for undertak- 
 ing a tour of duty there. It seems a pity that the broad principles 
 of a great measure like the amalgamation should be infringed upon 
 merely for minor reasons, and in this sense I venture to think that 
 the rule lately introduced on this point might usefully be recon- 
 sidered. | 
 
 I will conclude by recapitulating the proposals which have been 
 indicated in this Memorandum, merely adding that if it has run to 
 a greater length than I intended to make it, the time spent in 
 writing and reading it will not be thrown away if there results 
 any benefit therefrom to the cause of public works in India, and 
 to the welfare of the corps to which I have the honour to belong. 
 
 I. To supplement the establishment of Royal Engineers now 
 serving in India by a transfer of as many officers from the British 
 establishment as can possibly be made available in all grades, to 
 meet the emergent demand now existing in that country for a 
 larger staff of engineers: this as a temporary arrangement, pending 
 final settlement of measures for permanently maintaining the pro- 
 portion of military officers in the Public Works Department at the 
 established figure. 
 
 II. A more complete recognition of the claims of Indian ser- 
 
 vice as a primary duty of the corps, and in this view either— 
 
 a. Abolition of the practice of seconding officers in the Public 
 Works Department. Those employed out of the regular 
 line of the department, and who are now hors cadre, to 
 be borne as supernumerary, not as seconded. 
 
 * It is proper to add that this scheme is not an original one on the part of the 
 writer. It has been proposed by a very high military authority. 
 
36 
 
 b. The formation of separate permanent rosters for India and 
 other parts of the world, promotion however running in 
 one list; or 
 
 c. Formation of separate lists for the two services. 
 
 _ JI. In any case exchanges to be freely permitted in all 
 orades. 
 IV. Removal of a certain paragraph from the Public Works 
 Code. (See page 29.) 
 
 V. Appointment of a Commanding Royal Engineer for India, 
 with a staff officer, or to hold himself the post of Deputy Adjutant- 
 General. 
 
 VI. Development of the use of the Chatham Establishment for 
 officers returning on leave from India. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 re 
 
 Extract from Memorandum regarding the employment of the Royal Engineer 
 Corps in India, submitted to His Excellency the Viceroy and Governor 
 General. By Colonel R. Strachey, R.E., and Major G. Chesney, R.E. 
 September, 1863. (See p. 31.) 
 
 All considerations, therefore, both departmental and military, appear to point 
 to the conclusion that a radical change of system is required in the organisation 
 of the engineer troops servingin India. In order that the men taken away from 
 the regiment should be really picked men, and that the regimental discipline 
 and its efficiency as a military body should not suffer by this drain on it, it 
 appears essential that the European engineers should be considerably strength- 
 ened. To give sixty or seventy overseers a year to the Public Works Depart- 
 ment, to supply other casualties, and to remain in an efficient state of discipline 
 notwithstanding this drain, a force of 600 men will probably be admitted to be 
 the very smallest that ought to be maintained in India. 
 
 We have so far only considered the case of the men, but it is very desirable, 
 or rather it may be said essential in a military point of view, that a part of the 
 Royal Engineer officers serving in India should be always employed on military 
 duty with their men. 
 
 It may certainly be affirmed that the principle on which the Corps of 
 Engineers has hitherto been employed in India, as military engineers in war, 
 and as civil in peace, is unquestionably a sound one. The technical part of 
 purely military engineering science as now practised is soon acquired, and once 
 learnt, there is little use in continuing to practise it for a length of time after- 
 wards; and the practice of civil engineering is infinitely more useful than 
 ordinary military duty, in developing those qualities which are required 
 of an engineer officer on actual service, as teaching ingenuity, readiness of 
 resource, and the power of overcoming difficulties. On alate enquiry instituted 
 by the Secretary for War in England the unanimous testimony of all the ablest 
 officers of the Royal Engineers was given in this direction. 
 
 And here it is as well to call to mind that on the amalgamation of the Indian 
 with the Royal Corps of Engineers, the tacit undertaking on the part of the 
 British military administration has been, that as many engineer officers should 
 be supplied for the wants of the Indian Government as have heretofore been 
 available from the local corps. Her Majesty’s Government must be understood 
 to have decided that the occupation of Royal Engineers on the duties till now 
 performed by the Indian Engineers, was suitable, and further that the detailed 
 arrangements under which they were to serve should be regulated by the 
 Government of India. On the other hand it must equally be conceded that the 
 Government of India is bound so to regulate the duties of the Royal Engineers 
 under its orders that their capacity for military purposes shall not be injured, 
 and that so far as is consistent with proper economy and the true interests of the 
 Indian Administration, their employment in connexion with other branches of the 
 army shall not be opposed to the legitimate views of the military authorities, 
 or the general military system of the British Army as a whole. 
 
 But it cannot be denied that under the old regime, the laxity that grew 
 up in other branches of the military administration extended to the engineer 
 branch also, and that the employment of the military engineers in India on 
 civil works has been carried too far, and the military part of their duty too 
 
38 
 
 * 
 
 much lost sigbt of. After a few months’ duty with the sappers, often without 
 it, the engineer officer is posted to the Public Works Department, and usually 
 remains in that Department for the rest of his service, except when called away 
 in war time. The Indian engineers have certainly no cause to feel ashamed of 
 the part which their corps have taken in the numerous fields of Indian warfare ; 
 still, after a long civil career, a man’s military knowledge must needs grow 
 somewhat rusty, and every officer who takes an interest in his profession must 
 regret that the military element of it is put so much on one side. But at present 
 there is absolutely no place for more than two or three officers in each presi- 
 dency with the sappers (excepting the junior subalterns) ; as matters now stand, 
 an engineer officer must either take employment in the Public Works Depart- 
 ment, or do nothing. Therefore the location of a few companies of the Royal 
 . Engineers in India with which the officers serving in that country should do 
 duty in turn, would be most advantageous to the whole body. 
 
 And on purely military grounds, the necessity for a proper organisation of 
 our military engineers does certainly seem to be imperatively called for. In 
 fact the present state of the Indian Army in this respect is most extraordinary 
 and anomalous. We have a very strong force of infantry, artillery, and cavalry, 
 and yet through the whole breadth of the land, there is not a company of 
 European sappers and no trace of a superior Kngineer organisation. This is the 
 more remarkable, because India is essentially a country in which military 
 operations tend to be involved in the attack and defence of fortified posts. It 
 is sufficient to refer to the annals, recent or early, of the British wars in India 
 in proof of this assertion, and it may confidently be said that the engineer 
 element of the army ought to be strong rather than weak, as compared with 
 the state of other armies. 
 
 That European engineer soldiers were not maintained in a recognised way 
 prior to the amalgamation of the armies is of course mainly due to the fact that 
 the Royal Artillery and Engineers were both excluded from Indian service, but 
 the artillery in India has now been thoroughly reorganised and placed on a 
 complete and efficient footing, and it is surely time that the wants of the 
 engineer branch of the service came under consideration. 
 
 If the foregoing remarks are admitted to be conclusive, it will probably be 
 admitted that a force of six companies of engineers, or 600 men, is, on all 
 grounds, the very smallest that ought to be maintained on the Indian Establish- 
 ment. And this is also the smallest force which has been shown to be necessary 
 on purely departmental grounds. 
 
 The nucleus on which four companies might be formed already exists in 
 the men now attached to the Sapper Corps,* who, as has been stated already, 
 are not now formed in any sort of organisation. All that would be necessary 
 would be to make up their complement to the full strength, and to send out two 
 more companies from England. 
 
 It may be assumed that four companies would always be stationed in Bengal, 
 and one each in Madras and Bombay. The four Bengal companies would pro- 
 bably be stationed at Roorkee, the present head quarters of the regiment. The 
 - companies should be organised exactly on the Royal Engineer system, and 
 would be relieved by fresh ones, like all other troops, according to a regular 
 roster every ten years. While in India they would be maintained in a thorough 
 state of military training, and during the hot season would undergo a course of 
 careful in-door instruction. Once a year the best of the candidates for employ- 
 ment in the Public Works Department would be selected to the extent of the 
 vacancies to be filled up, their places being filled up by recruits from the depot 
 at Chatham. 
 
 It may be noticed that this scheme does not provide for the Royal Engineer 
 companies being actually employed upon the construction of public works in 
 India. It is believed that every one who has considered the subject will admit 
 
 * Strength of Europeans, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers attached to Sapper 
 Corps, from latest returns available. 
 
 Bengal . F weLLO 
 Madras . ‘a Seon 
 Bombay . : A ait ee: 
 
 Total. - dol 
 
39 
 
 this to be impracticable. There are no works upon which European engineer 
 soldiers could be profitably or healthily employed, working together in military 
 organisation, while to scatter the men over an extended work, or line of works, 
 as supervisors of workmen, would greatly interfere with discipline. 
 
 It is understood to have been this conviction on the part of the Government, 
 and the opinion that they were a very costly force, which led to the withdrawal 
 of the four companies of Royal Engineers which came out in 1857, but there 
 appears really to be no reason why it should be held as a necessary condition of 
 maintaining an engineer force, that it should always give an equivalent service for 
 its cost in peace time. No one looks for this from the artillery, cavalry, or in- 
 fantry : provided these are maintained in a state of efficiency in peace, and ready 
 for war, it is assumed that they are fulfilling properly the functions required of 
 them ; but because the engineers are often made use of in peace as well as war, 
 the fact appears to be lost sight of that even if they were not thus useful, still it 
 would be just as necessary to maintain them as it is to maintain other branches 
 of the army in peace time. If, then, only the very smallest force necessary for 
 the military requirements of the country is maintained, (and six companies would 
 not be more than this,) and if that force is maintained as an efficient military 
 body, and as a training school in military duties for both officers and men, it 
 would be surely as unreasonable to complain that such a body was not defraying 
 its own cost by executing civil works, as it would be to allege the same of the 
 artillery or any other branch of the army. 
 
 It is obvious to remark that, considered as an element of European force in 
 the country, the engineer companies would take just the same place as any 
 other infantry ; thus if there were four companies at Rookree, a wing of a line 
 regiment would no longer be needed there. While as regards the supposed high 
 cost of the engineers, it may be pointed out that the expense for quarters, 
 hospitals, transport, and commissariat, is precisely the same for them as for any 
 other troops, and these are the items which make up the main cost of the army ; 
 the only excess vf expense on their account would be in the pay, and perhaps a 
 trifle in clothing, but these are not formidable items. On the whole, any addi- 
 tional charge caused by the addition of the six companies of Royal Engineers 
 to the Indian Establishment might at once be met by a corresponding reduction 
 of troops of the line, not only without objection, on the ground of a diminution 
 of the total armed force, but with a certain increase of strength, from the addi- 
 tion of an element to the British Army, which, in the estimation of every 
 soldier, must be regarded as essential, and which at present is altogether 
 wanting. If there be an axiom in military science, it is that the power of an 
 army is based not on mere numbers but on the completeness of its organisation. 
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BY 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
~ 
 
 Pog oa A ee hf 
 AE Hae soi 78 
 ou ME tg 4 4 
 
 , re 4 im, | 
 sterties, ge ad 
 
 inapichinchh Sic‘ 
 ee aise 
 
 fee Chal 
 
 \ he avi ; 
 
 to #ty ia B itt rer tyke or 
 aD cdr Re at Wee Malt iene ; ah 
 
 ip ee it. ASAT Pe TREAT 4 vel Sia _ = 
 
 4240" orepe ih. Baga! pera 2 A 
 
 Hal Snip Bits Drage ayy" 
 : irs eh if sich iM p ging 7 A sit 
 
 Li nb ree al ‘RAST GRIT Aas shines 
 
 ie he, A a ea eR 
 
% bes. fr 
 faker ee 
 
 i 
 -, 
 
 *