W^mim^
 
 f 
 
 THE BRITISH ARMY 
 
 IN 
 
 1868. 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR CHARLES E. TREVELYAN, K.C.B. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 1868.
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BT 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQXTAEK 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The first part of this pamphlet is a summary, care- 
 fully revised up to the present date, of the proposals 
 originally made by me to the Purchase Commission 
 in 1857, and brought forward a second time in the 
 beginning of last year. The last part deals with the 
 remainder of the subject which had not previously 
 been treated by me, and especially with the funda- 
 mental questions of the term of the soldier's service 
 and the constitution of the army of reserve. 
 
 It has been my aim to make this last part a just 
 statement of the result of the ample discussion which 
 this branch of the subject has lately undergone ; and 
 there are few of the able writers who have helped to 
 form a sound public opinion upon it who will not 
 recognise some of their proposals built into the system 
 which I have ventured to recommend. I wish more 
 particularly to acknowledge my obligations to Major 
 General Riddell, C.B., R.A. ; Lieut. -Col. Acland, 
 M.P., Devon Rifle Volunteers ; Colonel Adair, Suffolk 
 Militia Artillery, A.D.C. to the Qiieen; Colonel A. C. 
 Robertson, Major Bannatyne, Lieut.-Col. Reilly, R. A., 
 Major Leahy, R.E., Captain Phipps, R.A., Major J. 
 Bevan-Edwards, R.E., Lieut.-Col. G. Ashley Maude, 
 
 A 2
 
 IV 
 
 C.B., R.A., and two other military writers who have 
 given no clue to their names. So much, however, is 
 apparent, that the reform of the army is chiefly pro- 
 ceeding, as it ought to do, from the only two corps 
 which have as yet had the advantage of a thorough 
 professional education. 
 
 If my labours on this subject should be productive 
 of any public benefit, it will be chiefly due to the 
 extremely kind and never-failing assistance I have 
 received, since I was first called upon to give my 
 evidence before the Purchase Commission, from one 
 of my oldest and best friends. Colonel Haliday, now 
 Commandant and Inspector-General of Musketry. It 
 has been my practice to submit all my proposals to 
 his criticism before finally adopting them ; and a more 
 experienced and judicious adviser it would have been 
 impossible to have. 
 
 The order in which the difi'erent parts of the sub- 
 ject are treated is : — 
 
 I. 
 
 How to make our Army in a true sense popular, and, as regards 
 recruiting, self-supporting .... pages 5-13 
 
 II. 
 
 Retirement and promotion . . . . . . 13-24 
 
 III. 
 Probable amount of the compensation for the abolition of pur- 
 chase, and of the current charge of the Army under the 
 revised system ....... 25-44 
 
 lY. 
 
 Term of the soldier's service and constitution of the army of 
 reserve ^ .....,, . 44-6G 
 
 uiucr
 
 THE 
 
 BRITISH ARMY IN 1868, 
 
 o^^c 
 
 Lord Bacon remarks, in his ' Regimen of Health ' — 
 ' Beware of any sudden change in any point of diet, 
 and if necessity enforce it, fit the rest to it ; for it is 
 a secret both in nature and in State, that it is safer to 
 change many things than one.' The practical'wisdom 
 of this maxim deserves the attention of those who 
 object to army-reform because the proposed new 
 state of things is inconsistent with some of the con- 
 ditions belonging to an existing old one. 
 
 I. 
 
 HOW TO MAKE OUR ARMY IN A TRUE SENSE POPULAR, AND, 
 AS REGARDS RECRUITING SELF-SUPPORTING. 
 
 The armies which laid the foundation of our military 
 reputation at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, included 
 a middle-class element in the yeomen-archers, to 
 whom those victories were chiefly due. The army 
 which secured the liberty of England and conquered 
 Ireland and Scotland, was eminently a middle-class
 
 army. Upon this followed a great reaction, under 
 the influence of which our military system was re- 
 moulded in the form which it retains to this day. 
 The model adopted was the strictest type of the 
 feudal system. The preux chevalier was translated 
 into ' officer and gentleman/ and the humble retainer 
 became the ' common soldier,' while the inter- 
 mediate classes had no place whatever allotted to 
 them. The feudal prejudices, which have yielded 
 everywhere else to the feelings induced by a happier 
 state of society, survive in full force in the army. 
 Between the officer and the private a great gulf is 
 lixed,* The distinction is essentially one of caste. 
 
 * In the programme of a lecture recently delivered at the United 
 Service Institution by a regimental commanding officer, on ' The Appoint- 
 ment and Promotion of Regimental Officers,' it was laid down as a primary 
 condition, ' That there should be a great difference between the social 
 position of the officers and privates of the army.' Contrast with this the 
 following description of the relative position of the officers and men of 
 the French army, extracted from the Moniteur du Soir of the 5th March 
 last: — 
 
 * Chez nous, les cadres sont homogenes du premier echelon de la hier- 
 archie jusqu'au dernier. Du caporal au marechal de France les grades 
 vont se succedant, sans demarcation infranchissable ; d'un degre a I'autre, 
 point de brusque enjambement, de grands sauts a franchir. Le sergent- 
 major echange facilement ses galonsd'or contre I'epaulette de sous-lieu- 
 tenant, et meme il est un grade intermediaire, celui d'adjudant, qui donne 
 droit au port de I'epaulette, et dont les titulaires, pourtant, ne sont que 
 sous-officiers. 
 
 ' C'est un lien entre deux categories de grades. 
 
 ' Plus haut, le capitaine n'est pas tres-loin du commandant, et enfin 
 un colonel est bien pres d'un general. 
 
 *I1 en resulte une entente admirable entre tons les grades, une sou- 
 plesse extreme dans le jeu du service, une emulation tres-vive et tres- 
 precieuse ; enfin pour les grades jnferieurs, ces liens honorables qui les 
 rattachent de si pres aux grades superieurs, inspirent a ceux qui les occu- 
 pcnt une fiert^ legitime et un fier sentiment de dignite. 
 
 'Chez nous, !es sous-officiers sont aux sept dixiemes officiers, selon 
 I'heureuse expression du general Ambert. Entre eux et leurs officiers
 
 It is true that many young men of the middle class 
 enter the army, but they are incorporated at once 
 into the upper stratum as officers. They chiefly 
 belong to the new families created by our industrial 
 system, and their object is to take rank officially as 
 'gentlemen.' It is also true that a few exceptional 
 promotions are made of non-commissioned officers, 
 but these only receive a good-natured toleration, and 
 their uncomfortable position illustrates the present 
 utter want of harmonious relation between the status 
 of the officers and men of the army. 
 
 The object to be aimed at is to make the army a 
 true representation of the nation. It should be 
 neither more aristocratic nor more democratic than 
 the rest of English society. The upper, the middle 
 and the lower classes cordially co-operate in every 
 other public and private undertaking, and why should 
 the army be the solitary exception ? Since the be- 
 ginning of the century the middle class has enor- 
 mously developed; the present flourishing state 
 of the country is chiefly owing to their exertions; 
 and they have twice within the same period shown. 
 
 existe ime familiarite respectueuse, deferente et reconnaissante, sans envie 
 chez les premiers, affable, pateruelle et pleine de sollicitiide cliez les 
 derniers : et cette familiarite, qui produit sur le champ de bataille et dans 
 les cas dilRciles des miracles de devouementj ne niiit en rien a la discipline ; 
 dans le service et dans le rang, I'obeissance est absolue. 
 
 ' Enfin, chez nous, la croix d'honneur qui brille sur les uniformes les 
 plus modestes est un trait d'union entre tous : c'est I'eg-alite devant la 
 gloire. 
 
 ' Enfin, I'avancement chez nous est ouvert a tous, et Ton compte plusieurs 
 mareehaux de France qui ont tire leur baton de commandement du fond 
 de leur giberne de soldat. 
 
 'Nonibreux sont les generaux qui ont porte le havre-sac'
 
 8 
 
 by voluntarily organising for the national defence, 
 that they do not yield to any portion of the commu- 
 nity in military spirit and capacity. When this class, 
 taken in its widest sense, shall be included, our army 
 will come up to the full standard of the strength, the 
 intelligence, and the moral qualities of our population ; 
 and, from being in its plan and design a purely aris- 
 tocratic institution, the British army will become 
 emphatically a popular army, and our recruiting 
 difficulties will be at an end. 
 
 In the rest of Europe this object is secured by 
 compulsory conscription, but it may be still more 
 perfectly attained by voluntary enlistment. The 
 voluntary principle is based upon the craving of man- 
 kind to improve their condition; and, if the army 
 were properly regulated, abundant means exist of 
 gratifying this natural desire without creating a single 
 new appointment or making any further addition to 
 the pay of the soldier. While in other lines of life 
 the rewards have been increasing, and it has become 
 easier to rise to fortune and distinction, the monopoly 
 of office in the army has remained as close as ever. 
 A change for the worse has consequently taken place 
 in the class of men who enter the ranks, and for some 
 years past there has been an increasing difficulty in 
 finding among them men qualified to be non-com- 
 missioned officers. 
 
 An indispensable preliminary to all improvement 
 is to abolish purchase, and to increase the pay of 
 officers of every rank sufficiently to enable them to 
 live upon it in a suitable manner. The State might
 
 then reasonably require that no person should receive 
 a commission who had not prepared himself to enter 
 at once on the effective discharge of his duties. 
 
 In every well-constituted army there are only two 
 modes of admission to the rank of officer, based upon 
 two different kinds of experience. 
 
 The first of these is through a military college, 
 which answers the double purpose of weeding out 
 the incompetent and ill-conducted, and of teaching 
 the rudiments of military science. The entrance to 
 the college should be by competition, and the cost 
 should be entirely defrayed by the parents, who 
 might fairly be expected to spend, in completing the 
 general and professional education of their sons, a 
 portion of the sums now paid by them for commis- 
 sions. 
 
 The other mode of admission is promotion from 
 the ranks. This offers two great advantages. Every 
 candidate must have acquired practical knowledge of 
 the duties of privates and non-commissioned ofiScers, 
 and of their ways of thinking and feeling, before he 
 can be placed in a position of command ; and his 
 character and capacity must be so completely known 
 to his superior ofiicers, that there can be no mistake 
 as to his fitness. Commissions should be given on 
 the ground of fitness only, claims on other grounds 
 being otherwise rewarded, so that young men who 
 possess qualifications for the military profession, may 
 hope to be promoted to a commission after a short 
 period of service. Necessary educational attainments 
 should be tested by examination, and proper means
 
 10 
 
 of instructing the junior officers and men in military, 
 administrative, and sanitary science should be provided 
 by the improvement of the regimental schools, and 
 by the appointment to each regiment of a captain- 
 instructor who has passed at the staff college, as re- 
 commended by the late Sir Thomas Franks and by 
 Sir William Mansfield. What follows is from Sir 
 Thomas Franks' examination before the Purchase 
 Commission : — 
 
 ' 3342. What opportunities lias an officer in the English army 
 of acquiring any knowledge of his profession except purely regi- 
 mental knowledge ? — I do not think they have opportunities 
 sufficient ; there ought to be in each regiment a captain or sub- 
 altern capable of assisting the junior officers, if so inclined, in 
 their professional studies. He might also superintend, with 
 great advantage to the non-commissioned officers and privates, 
 the regimental adult schools ; but for this he should, of course, 
 receive extra pay from the Government. Such is, I believe, the 
 system in the French and Prussian armies.' 
 
 Sir William Mansfield wrote as follows in a letter 
 to myself: — 
 
 * The Staff College would furnish captain-instructors for regi- 
 ments. 
 
 ' The duties of such functionaries should by no means be con- 
 fined to the mere supervision of the cadets. They would, of 
 course, take charge of the regimental schools, both of adults and 
 children, with the regulated staff of schoolmasters, &c. &c. 
 
 ' The lectures they would give, and their practical instruction 
 in surveying, and so forth, would be open to the more advanced 
 of the men, as well as to all the officers, and would enable those 
 of the former who chose to qualify, to aspire, under certain con- 
 ditions, to direct commissions, or to be admitted to the class of 
 cadets. It would be their business also to assist young officers 
 studying for the Staff College. - 
 
 ' I attribute an immense importance fco this suggestion — viz. 
 affording the means in the regiment of instruction, lectures, &c., 
 to the young officers and the men. At present the public scolds
 
 11 
 
 the officers for wasting their time. But no practical means and 
 stimulus are afforded them, and the soldiers stand greatly in need 
 of a more official recognition of their studies and of larger 
 encouragement than can be given by the non-commissioned 
 schoolmaster. 
 
 ' In short, the institution I contemplate would, I think, be the 
 binding medium of the system you propose, and finally weld in 
 one mass the officers and men, and thereby democratise the army. 
 By this I mean inviting the people to the army according to 
 broad principles of utihty, and the motives by which men of all 
 classes are induced to choose their lines of life. This I con- 
 ceive to be the object of your proposals. I am sure that until it 
 is effected by some means or other, we shall go on patching at 
 our old, worn-out, and, in a certain sense, discreditable insti- 
 tutions, without getting at the heart of the nation for military 
 purposes,' 
 
 In the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian armies, cadets 
 ( ' aspirants,' or, as they are called in Prussia, ' volun- 
 teers,') perform all the duties of privatdfe, and are 
 promoted in the ordinary way to be non-commis- 
 sioned officers, before they become eligible for com- 
 missions. In the French army there are no cadets, 
 but the best of the non-commissioned officers are 
 promoted to commissions. Of these two arrange- 
 ments, the French is to be preferred, because, by 
 opening the military career to the whole nation, it 
 offers a strong inducement to a superior class of men 
 to enlist, and extends the choice of officers to the whole 
 army, instead of confining it to a few young men 
 who had previously been appointed cadets. In prac- 
 tice, however, the two plans would have a great deal 
 in common, for as soon as an assured prospect ap- 
 peared of obtaining a commission through the ranks, 
 young men of fair education, force and activity 
 of character, and decided military tastes, but with
 
 12 
 
 no aptitude for the examinations and course of 
 study at a military college (such young men abound 
 in the militia and volunteers), would enlist expressly 
 with a view to the higher promotion, and would 
 associate, as comrades, with each other and with the 
 best and most intelligent of the privates who en- 
 listed from the ordinary motives, until they were pro- 
 moted to be non-commissioned officers. 
 
 In order to give such reasonable prospect of pro- 
 motion, contingent upon qualification and character, 
 as would attract well-educated young men into the 
 service, and influence their conduct when they are in 
 it, and to prevent the door of promotion, which is 
 opened wide in times of need like the Peninsular and 
 Crimean wars, from being again shut when the 
 exigency has passed, a fixed proportion of the com- 
 missions falling vacant in each regiment should be 
 assigned to the non-commissioned officers, provided 
 a sufficient number of qualified candidates of that 
 rank are forthcoming . In his examination before the 
 Recruiting Commission of 1859-60, his Royal High- 
 ness the Commander-in-Chief three times expressed 
 his opinion (Questions 5267-8) that there could be 
 no objection to this arrangement.^ 
 
 * Question 5267. A number of commissions are given to persons from 
 tlie ranks. Is it tlie opinion of your Royal Highness that if a certain pro- 
 portion of all the death vacancies were so given^ it would be an induce- 
 ment to recruiting ? At present a great number are given, but there is 
 not a definite proportion ? — There would he no harm in that. There is a 
 difficulty in making it definite, because it must depend so much upon the 
 number of vacancies. Of latter years" the vacancies without purchase 
 have been very large, and the consequence has been that we have given 
 a great many more^than usual to the non-commissioned officers. In 
 years of peace the numbers are very limited, and we must apportion a
 
 13 
 
 The reorganisation of the civil departments of the 
 army now in progress, is based upon the principle of 
 selecting the members of the administrative corps 
 from the officers, non-commissioned officers, and pri- 
 vates of the army. This will give nearly five hundred 
 civil appointments of a kind peculiarly suited to our 
 industrial middle class. 
 
 After these arrangements have been made, the 
 army may be accepted by all classes of our popu- 
 lation as a national establishment in which they have 
 a new and peculiar interest, because, whether they 
 have a turn for business or for a purely military life, 
 they will find in it a corresponding career, with liberal 
 rewards to encourage them. 
 
 II. 
 
 RETIREMENT AND PROMOTION. 
 
 It is, I believe, generally admitted that the regi- 
 mental ranks should be confined to four — lieutenant, 
 captain, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel; the ensigns 
 becoming lieutenants, the majors lieutenant-colonels, 
 
 certain number for the cadets at Sandhurst. Of course we divide the 
 others among the non-commissioned officers and that reserved list which 
 1 have for commissions without purchase, which is very limited. There- 
 fore it must be a give-and-take arrangement, and I do not exactly see 
 how you could lay down any very specific proportion. You might lay 
 doion a proportion to the number of vacancies ; there can he no ohjectimi to 
 that ; but I do not think that it would increase the recruiting, because I 
 think the soldiers are now convinced that whenever they have a good 
 claim it will always be considered ; I think that there is that feeling 
 throughout the service. Question 5268. The suggestion is not as regards 
 soldiers, but to induce persons to enter who do not know the rule ? — / 
 see no objection to that arrangement.
 
 14 
 
 and the lieutenant-colonels commanding regiments 
 colonels. But, although the two ranks of field-officers 
 would be included in the regimental establishments, 
 they should be army ranks. In other words, the 
 colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and captains should be 
 placed, in order of seniority, on general lists ; and the 
 promotion to the lieutenant-colonelcies should be made 
 from the whole of the captains belonging to the same 
 branch of the army who have served a certain fixed 
 time, and the colonels should, in like manner, be pro- 
 moted from the lieutenant- colonels. One of the ad- 
 vantages of making the field ranks army ranks is, 
 that officers may then be posted, on their promo- 
 tion, either to their former or to new regiments, as 
 circumstances may render desirable. It is often ex- 
 pedient that an officer should commence his career as 
 a field-officer in a difi'erent regiment from the com- 
 rades with whom he has associated familiarly as 
 lieutenant and captain, and this is especially the case 
 when his promotion has not been according to 
 seniority.* If these changes were made, the other 
 branches of the army would be assimilated to the 
 Artillery and Engineers so far as regards the number 
 and designation of the ranks and the making of the 
 promotions on general lists down to the rank of 
 captain. The difference that would remain would 
 be, that there would be an element of selection in 
 making the promotions in the other branches of the 
 
 * The objections whicli formerly existed to transferring field officers 
 from one regiment to another have been much diminished by the in- 
 creased facilities of communication, and by the much smaller proportion 
 of the armv now stationed in the colonies.
 
 15 
 
 army instead of the pure seniority of the scientific 
 corps ; and the plan of promoting on general lists 
 would stop at the promotion from captain to lieu- 
 tenant-colonel, instead of going a step further down. 
 I am aware that in theory the Artillery and Engineers 
 are regiments, but they have long since outgrown 
 the regimental character and must now be considered 
 as separate branches of the army. 
 
 There is a fixed establishment of 272 general officers, 
 of whom 150 receive stipends varying from £1,000 
 to £2,200 as titular colonels of regiments, and the 
 remainder are paid at the uniform rate of £455 bs. 
 a year. There is a striking inconsistency in these 
 scales of remuneration, and the smaller of the two is 
 a poor reward for officers who have given their entire 
 service to the public, besides having paid heavily for 
 their steps. They cannot live upon it in a manner 
 suited to their rank if they have not also private 
 means. As a prospective arrangement, the aggregate 
 fund should be redistributed in stipends suited to the 
 respective grades of major-general, lieutenant-general, 
 general, and field-marshal. General officers would 
 then be paid only as such, and the nominal rank of 
 regimental colonel would merge in that of the colonel 
 actually commanding the regiment. 
 
 As the State will now have to provide suitable 
 means of retirement for officers of every grade, it has 
 become necessary to determine what rules should be 
 laid. down with this object in the ranks below that of 
 major-general. Considerable progress has been made 
 in the solution of this question by the excellent
 
 16 
 
 report of Mr. Childers' Committee on the system of 
 retirement in the Artillery and Engineers ; and what 
 we have to consider is, how far the proposals of the 
 Committee must be modified to make them equally 
 applicable to every branch of the army. 
 
 The indispensable conditions of military efficiency 
 are physical activity in the lower, and intellectual 
 ability in the higher ranks. The rules of retirement 
 ought, therefore, to be so framed as to secure the 
 highest possible average of these qualifications. This 
 is a case in which we cannot act by individual selec- 
 tion. All that can be done is to lay down such rules 
 as will operate in the direction desired, and secure a 
 general result in our favour. 
 
 The circumstances of military service, especially in 
 the British army, which has so large a share of 
 foreign service, are not favourable to married life; 
 and they become less so as children increase, and 
 their education has to be provided for. Besides this, 
 as officers advance in age, their bodily energies flag ; 
 they feel more and more inclined towards a settled 
 home, with all its comforts and advantages ; and they 
 have to consider whether their personal tastes, their 
 attainments, their professional reputation, their pro- 
 spect of being selected for the higher honours and 
 rewards, make it expedient for them finally to cast in 
 their lot with the army. The inducements to retire 
 should be brought to bear upon the period when 
 these motives are at their maximum. This is required 
 in the interest both of public economy and of the 
 officers themselves. The current will be more rapid
 
 17 
 
 if the sluice is opened where the waters are already 
 prepared to flow; and as the expense of maintaining 
 the necessary circulation will under any circum- 
 stances be heavy, our resources ought to be made to go 
 as far as possible. The practical question, therefore, 
 is in what manner pensions should be adjusted to 
 length of service. 
 
 Ofiicers were formerly allowed to retire on perma- 
 nent half-pay after twenty-one j^ears' service ; but 
 since 1861 the qualifying period has been extended to 
 twenty-five years. After thirty years^ service, ofiicers 
 are eligible to retire on full pay. 
 
 The scale recommended by Mr. Childers' Committee 
 for the Artillerv and Kngineers, is as follows : — 
 
 Number of 
 
 
 
 Probable Value 
 
 Years' 
 
 
 Probable 
 
 ol: 
 
 Service 
 
 
 Age 
 
 Annuity 
 
 
 £ 
 
 
 £ 
 
 22 
 
 250 
 increasing by £25 an- 
 nually to 
 
 42 
 
 3,270 
 
 25 
 
 325 
 
 45 
 
 4,080 
 
 28 
 
 400 
 
 48 
 
 4,780 
 
 30 
 
 450 
 increasing by £15 an- 
 nually to 
 
 50 
 
 5,050 
 
 35 
 
 525 
 
 55 
 
 5,400 
 
 40 
 
 600 
 
 60 
 
 5,510 
 
 I am inclined to think that the existing rule fur- 
 nishes the sounder basis, and that Mr. Childers' scale 
 would be improved if it were confined to its three 
 middle terms — that is, from twenty-five to thirty 
 years' service, with an intermediate advance at twenty- 
 eight years. Taking the average of military ofiicers, 
 their general efiiciency, even for regimental and ordi- 
 
 B
 
 iiaiy staff purposes, goes on increasing until they are 
 at least forty-five years of age. Numerous retire- 
 ments will always take place at an earlier age — 
 partly of young men of fortune, who only intend to 
 pass a few years pleasantly and profitably in the 
 army, and partly of those who, having acquired ex- 
 perience and reputation in the military profession, 
 are tempted out of it by offers of public or private 
 employment — but the State cannot be expected to 
 make any sacrifice to induce its officers to resign at 
 the most valuable period of their service, before they 
 have rendered a full return for the training they have 
 received. The object is the promotion of junior 
 officers in regular succession; and this may be more 
 equably and constantly attained, and in a manner 
 more conducive to a high standard of efficiency, by 
 the retirement of seniors than by the occasional 
 elimination of a junior. These principles have been 
 successfully applied to the Civil Service. The circum- 
 stances there are such that the period of discretionary 
 retirement can be postponed to sixty years of age, 
 previously to which no pension is allowed except for 
 ill-health. 
 
 Assuming that the officers of the army will be 
 recruited 2:)artly from young men who, after having 
 received a liberal general education, will learn the 
 rudiments of their profession at a military college, 
 and partly from non-commissioned officers specially 
 selected at any period of their service for their fitness 
 to bear Her Majesty's commission, the time spent at 
 a military cqllege or in the ranks of the army should 
 be allowed as part of the qualifying period for pension.
 
 19 
 
 The interval of five years between 25 and 30 years' 
 service would give officers ample time to consider 
 whether they would retire from the service or follow 
 it to the end. This alternative ought to be presented 
 to them in the most explicit manner. Any pro- 
 spective increase of pension would defeat the object 
 of the whole arrangement, by bribing officers to 
 remain whose retirement was demanded by the in- 
 terests of the public service, of the officers below 
 them, and, in a majority of cases, of the officers them- 
 selves. Mr. Childers' Committee was aware of the 
 importance of this consideration, for they remarked 
 that the pension 
 
 should be so graduated as to give an officer, after thirty years' 
 service, little or no inducement to remain in the corps*solely on 
 account of any prospect of better retirement at a greater age. At 
 fifty, an officer should practically have to make his election 
 between seeking the higher commands in the corps, or (if his 
 qualifications or circumstances unfit him for them) retiring from 
 the service ; 
 
 but the practice of the Committee was inconsistent 
 with their principle, for they proposed to continue 
 the graduated increase of pension up to forty years' 
 service or sixty years of age. It is true that the 
 annual increment of pension recommended by the 
 Committee drops after thirty years' service from £25 
 to £15; but, if it reall}^ be desirable that officers 
 should at fifty years of age have to elect between 
 seeking the higher commands or retiring from the 
 army, without being induced to remain by ' any 
 prospect of better retirement at a greater age,' why is 
 that prospect proposed to be held out to them?
 
 20 
 
 I shall not enter on the question of rates of pension, 
 because they cannot be determined until the rates of 
 pay have been settled. When appointment and pro- 
 motion by purchase, and retirement by sale shall be 
 abolished, the present complex and inadequate * pay 
 and allowances ' must give place to consolidated rates 
 adjusted on the principle of enabling officers of every 
 rank to live in a suitable manner on their pay. 
 
 The policy of offering special facilities for com- 
 muting pensions for immediate payments is open to 
 much doubt. The permanent interest of the State is 
 on the side of paying pensions rather than on that of 
 giving their equivalents in capital sums. The com- 
 mutation of soldiers' pensions to enable them to settle 
 in Canada ended in utter failure ; and it would be 
 scarcely less damaging to the credit and popularity of 
 the service if there were frequent instances of old 
 officers reduced to penury by the failure of the specu- 
 lations for the sake of which they had sold their 
 pensions. Officers can always raise money on their 
 pensions at the market rates, and anything beyond 
 this would be a bonus given to officers, at the expense 
 of the public, to induce them to take their retired 
 allowances in the shape of single lump sums. This 
 case has nothing in common with that of the sums 
 received by officers for the sale of their commissions, 
 the transaction there being the recovery from other 
 private individuals of a previous actual outlay. 
 
 The Committee recognise the principle that there 
 should be ' a limit of age for compulsory retirement 
 from active'duties,' but thej only propose that every
 
 21 
 
 colonel should be placed on a reserved list at the age 
 of sixty. The principle is, however, at least as appli- 
 cable to the lower as to the higher ranks ; and an age 
 ought to be fixed in reference to each rank at which 
 officers should retire as a matter of course, unless, for 
 some special reason, the Commander-in-Chief should 
 require their services for a further period. 
 
 With these modifications the system of retirement 
 recommended by Mr. Childers' Committee should, I 
 think, be applied to every branch of the army ; and, 
 whatever the cost of it may be, the nation may feel 
 assured that its military service could not be efficiently 
 maintained on more economical conditions. 
 
 The difficulties which have beset the subject of 
 promotion have chiefly arisen from the inequalities 
 which have been the consequence of a lax system. 
 But it is now proposed that, previously to receiving 
 their commissions, all candidates should be tested and 
 brought up to a good standard, either by a course of 
 professional instruction in a military college or by 
 actual service in the ranks ; and it will therefore only 
 be necessary, in making promotions, to deal with cases 
 of marked divergence. 
 
 Regimental seniority may safely be adopted as the 
 rule of promotion from lieutenant to cajjtain,* with 
 
 * Promotion is one of several points of view in which our mili- 
 tary system will be rendered more manageable, by merging the rank of 
 ensign in that of lieutenant, and the rank of major in that of lieutenant- 
 colonel. This was noticed in Colonel Robertson's lecture at the United 
 Service Institution on the system of promotion to be substituted for 
 purchase, in which the use that might be made of specific qualilications 
 as tests of fitness for promotion was pointed out.
 
 22 
 
 an exception against misconduct and incompetency, 
 and in favour of eminent merit. 
 
 The next step would be from captain to lieutenant- 
 colonel. This is the 'strait gate' of the army, 
 because the lowest rank of field officers is to the 
 highest rank of company officers in the proportion of 
 one to six. It is essential that field officers should be 
 selected from the rank of captain with reference to 
 their fitness for the command of a regiment. No new 
 test is necessary for this purpose. Officers who have 
 been for some time in command of a company or troop 
 have passed their noviciate, and their character and 
 qualifications are perfectly well known to their military 
 superiors. The extracts given below from the chapters 
 of the Queen's Regulations, entitled ' Half-yearly In- 
 spections and Confidential Reports,' and ' Interior 
 Economy of Corps,'* show that if the existing system 
 is properly acted upon, those who may be periodically 
 
 * ' 189. Preparation of Confidential Reports. — The queries in the 
 conJiJential reports are of so j^recise a nature as to require few detailed 
 directions for JiUing them up. The following general instructions, it is con- 
 sidered, will be sufficient for the purpose, and inspecting General officers 
 are enjoined to be guided by and to act up to them : — 
 
 ' a. They shoidd not he satisfied with brief replies in the negative or 
 affirmative; reports so draicn up do not furnish the Commander-in- 
 Chief with those partictdars relating to the officers of a regiment 
 which shoidd enable him ivith due discrimination to benefit the meri- 
 toriotis or to note the undeserving. 
 
 * b. It is not sufficient to state that a commanding officer has zeal, or 
 
 that he maintains a well-regulated discipline ; zeal may be un- 
 accompanied by talent for command, and the system of dis- 
 cipline may have been established by others. 
 
 y c. Amongst the field officers and captains there must be some superior to 
 others^ and they shoidd be specially brought to tiotice, and not all 
 be classed tin the same category. 
 
 ' d. All questions of importance should be specially and decidedly re-
 
 23 
 
 appointed to report on the promotions will have ample 
 materials for the formation of a safe opinion. Even 
 
 ported upon in a manner that shall place the Commander-in-Chief 
 in full possession of the actual state of a regiment as regards all 
 ranks ; and this can only be effected by General officers entering 
 into detail, and giving their answers fully, fearlessly, and con- 
 scientiously on every matter brought to their notice, or cording 
 under their actual observation, whether it be one requiring praise 
 or censure. 
 /190. Testh^tg of Captains and Subalterns tn Drill. — On the 
 inspection of corps the General officer is to call upon one or more of 
 the captains acd subaltern officers — provided the latter shall have been 
 doing duty for a reasonable period with the corps — the former to put the 
 regiment, and the latter a troop, battery, or company, through their exercise, 
 field movements, and evolutions ', such captains and subalterns to be selected 
 indifferently and without previous notice given to them or to the com- 
 manding officer, in order that it may he ascertained whether due attention 
 has been shoivn to the mstruciioti of every officer ; whether opportunities 
 have been afforded to them of becoming acquainted 7vith every part of their 
 duty, and whether they have availed themselves of such opportunities. 
 
 ' 191. Musketry Instruction to be attended to.— General officers 
 are to give their special attention to the musketry instruction of the 
 troops under their command, and are to be accompanied at their in- 
 spection, when practicable, by the District Inspectors of Musketry, for 
 the purposes referred to in Part III. pars. 27 and 28 of the Musketry 
 Regulations, 1867. When the General officer is not so accompanied, the 
 cause is to be explained in the Confidential report. 
 
 ' 192. All Available Men to attend Inspections. — Care should 
 be taken that every officer, non-commissioned officer, and man whose 
 absence from parade is not absolutely indispensable, be required to attend 
 at half-yearly inspections, in order that it may be satisfactorily shown that 
 the military efficiency of all ranks is properly maintained. 
 
 ^ 267. Conduct of Officers to be Reported in Certain Cases. 
 — It is the duty of a co7mnandmg o^cer to bring especially to the notice of 
 the inspecting general without favour or partiality any officers who may be 
 distinguished for attention to, and proficiency in, their duties ; as tvell as 
 those 2vho, from incapacity or habitual inattention, are deficient in a 
 knowledge of their duties, or who show an indisposition to a-jford the com- 
 manding officer that support which he has a right to expect from them ; or 
 who conduct themselves in a manner injurious to the efficiency and the 
 credit of the corps. The penalties attached to such misconduct and neglect 
 or ignorance of duty, will be suspension of promotion mitil a further 
 report shall declare the officer to have proved himself equal to the performance 
 of his duties, and free from any cause of censure: and removal from the 
 service in the event of continued incapacity or negligence.''
 
 24 
 
 so, however, every officer's claim should be considered 
 in the order of his seniority upon the list of captains 
 of his branch of the army, and the promotion of 
 those officers should be postponed whose fitness for 
 the rank of field officer is open to reasonable doubt. 
 It would, after all, be only the ' power of the veto ' 
 which His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief 
 told the Purchase Commission was ' much more easy 
 to exercise than the power of selection.' Fitness for 
 the command of a regiment is such a well-marked 
 qualification that some captains would never pass the 
 ordeal, and would remain with their regiments until 
 they either voluntarily retired or got beyond the age 
 at which they could serve in that rank. 
 
 If the promotions from captain to lieutenant- colonel 
 are faithfully made on recorded public grounds, there 
 will be no difficulty about those from lieutenant- 
 colonel to colonel, or from colonel to major-general. 
 Seniority should be observed as a general rule, to be 
 departed from only in case of proved incompetency or 
 misconduct on one hand, or superior ability or good 
 service on the other; the invariable principle being 
 that no officer should be promoted to a position 
 of higher command who has not exhibited unmis- 
 takeable qualifications for it.
 
 25 
 
 III. 
 
 PROBABLE AMOUNT OF THE COMPENSATION FOR THE ABOLI- 
 TION OF PURCHASE, AND OF THE CURRENT CHARGE OF 
 THE ARMY UNDER THE REVISED SYSTEM. 
 
 Besides the ordinary motives for corapeiisating 
 those who might otherwise suffer from the change, 
 the only effectual security against the revival of pur- 
 chase is to be found in a point of honour like that 
 which prevents its existence in the navy and the civil 
 service ; and a prevailing sense on the part of the 
 officers of the army that they have been justly and 
 liberally dealt with, is an indispensable condition of 
 the growth of such an honourable feeling. .It would 
 be well, both for our national reputation and for the 
 interests of all concerned, to take advantage of the 
 present time, when the subject would be gone into 
 with a full determination to satisfy every equitable 
 claim. We know from experience that the purchase 
 system collapses on the first breaking out of a serious 
 war. We do not know what view the coming demo- 
 cracy may take of a plutocracy which bars their way 
 to an open career in their own national army, which 
 is maintained by them at an expense of 15^ millions 
 a year. Some consideration is also due to the large 
 class of officers who, not having the means of pur- 
 chasing, suffer from the system of promotion by pur- 
 chase. Military discipline prevents them from openly 
 making complaints which would be displeasing to 
 their military chiefs, and the representatives of the
 
 26 
 
 army in Parliament belong to the fortunate class 
 
 who have profited by purchase. There is a fallacy 
 
 underlying the assertion so constantly repeated, that 
 
 even officers who have not the means of purchasing 
 
 their commissions are yet in favour of maintaining 
 
 the system of purchase. Some, no doubt, are influenced 
 
 by the hope that when they do at last, or by some 
 
 lucky chance, obtain a step of rank, they will thereby 
 
 realise capital in their new commissions ; but who 
 
 will pretend to assei t that officers are indifferent to 
 
 having their juniors promoted over their heads merely 
 
 because they cannot themselves produce a certain 
 
 sum of money ? A very slight knowledge of human 
 
 nature, and of the characteristic qualities of British 
 
 officers, will show the superior correctness of Lord 
 
 Clyde's view : — 
 
 Do you tMnk that the system of promotion by purchase has 
 an injurious effect upon the army, by dispiriting many excellent 
 officers, who find themselves passed over ? — As regards those 
 individuals who have been passed ove«r, certainly. I have known 
 many very estimable men, having higher qualities as officers 
 than usual, men of real promise and merit, and well educated, 
 but who could not purchase ; when such men were purchased 
 over, their ardour cooled, and they frequently left the service ; 
 or, when they continued, it was from necessity, and not from any 
 love of the profession.* 
 
 In the pamphlet published by me last year on the 
 purchase system I pointed out (page 61-3) that 
 the hardship to the non-purchase officers had been 
 much increased since the Crimean War by the Secre- 
 tary of State having himself engaged in the traffic of 
 t 
 
 ^ Evidence taken before the Purchase Commission ; Question and 
 Answer 3377.
 
 27 
 
 commissions on a great scale, by means of the Mili- 
 tary Reserve Fund : — 
 
 In order [I said] to assist the promotion of cavalry officers, to 
 save the public from an excessive increase of the half-pay list, 
 and to get rid of purchase in particular corps, the prizes, which 
 the less wealthy and more professional class of officers have been 
 accustomed to look forward to as the reward of long and good 
 service, are curtailed, and the purchase system is strengthened 
 and extended in a more complete manner throughout the army, 
 by a Government agency operating through a fund constantly 
 supplied by heavy payments from military officers or their 
 families. 
 
 Since that a Select Committee of the House of 
 Commons, of which Lord Hotham was chairman, has 
 made a report (a copy of which will be /ound in 
 the Appendix L, page 69) recommending that the 
 Military Reserve Fund ' should be wound up,' and 
 that ' all payments which may hereafter be made, for 
 purposes now charged on the Reserve Fund, be de- 
 frayed from monies appropriated to such purposes 
 by Parliament, and that any future receipts, together 
 with the balance at the credit of the fund, be paid into 
 the Exchequer.' The interests of the hard-working, 
 professional class of officers will thus be placed under 
 the immediate guardianship of Parliament, until, by 
 the abolition of purchase, professional advancement 
 shall become dependent only upon professional 
 claims. At present there is a positive official dis- 
 tinction between rich and poor officers ; and until this 
 is obliterated Parliament must interfere in cases of 
 more than usual hardship to protect those who, what- 
 ever claims they may have on the grounds of service,
 
 28 
 
 personal ability, and professional attainments, cannot 
 produce the prescribed money qualification. 
 
 In the same pamphlet I observed (page 68-9) that 
 the basis of the purchase system is quite unequal to 
 such a superstructure as the staff corps of the three 
 Indian Presidencies. According to a memorandum 
 recently issued by the Adjutant- General, officers 
 finally transferred to these staff corps are to receive 
 ' the exact sum such officers would have received 
 under War- Office regulations, had they retired from the 
 service by the sale of their commissions at the time 
 of joining the staff corps as probationers.^ This pal- 
 liative is applied, through the Military Reserve Fund, 
 at the expense of the regimental officers; for the 
 memorandum goes on : ' Promotions in succession to 
 vacancies caused by transfers to the Indian Staff 
 Corps will, in future, be by purchase mstead of 
 without purchase, as heretofore, when the officers 
 so transferred are entitled to receive the value of their 
 commissions.' 
 
 When Lord Grey was examined before the Pur- 
 chase Commission, he said : — ' My own conviction is, 
 if you touch the system of purchase at all, it would 
 be wiser to abolish it altogether;' and his Royal 
 Highness the Commander-in-Chief, still more em- 
 phatically : — 
 
 I am quite prepared to say this, that any change that is pro- 
 pounded should be a complete one, and not a partial one. ... I 
 should be sorry to see any partial change adopted. I think that 
 any change should comprise the whole question, so that there 
 might be security ^to the officers of the army, for any partial 
 change would lead to doubt and uncertainty.
 
 2y 
 
 There were solid grounds for these opinions. This 
 is not one of the cases in which ' half is better than 
 the whole.' On the contrary, the circumstances are 
 such that any partial operation must end in failure. 
 If purchase were only abolished above the rank of 
 captain, that rank would become in a peculiar sense 
 the stepping-stone to advancement to the higher 
 grades, and its early attainment would be the great 
 object of officers with money. The consequence 
 would be that larger sums than ever would be paid 
 for the successive steps of lieutenant and captain, and 
 the outlay which is now spread over four ranks 
 would be accumulated on two; or, if the rank of 
 ensign were abolished, on one. At present, field 
 officers recover a portion of the suras they •have paid 
 for their commissions by going on half-pay after 
 tAventy-five years' service, which captains could not 
 do, and their outlay would therefore be all lost to 
 them. According to a well-known natural law, if 
 traffic in any article is permitted at all, nothing can 
 prevent the full market value from being given. 
 Purchase may be altogether rooted out of the army, 
 as it has been out of the civil service, by an absolute 
 prohibition, known to have been given in earnest, 
 and backed by a prevailing public opinion both in 
 and out of the profession; but if the principle of pur- 
 chase has the sanction of authority to however limited 
 a degree, the practice will have an irresistible ten- 
 dency to increase, in spite of prohibitions and decla- 
 rations upon honour, until the whole service becomes 
 venal. The utter failure of the endeavours to check
 
 30 
 
 payments in excess of regulation, and to prevent the 
 extension of purchase to the adjutancies of Militia 
 and Volunteers, are cases in point. 
 
 Exaggerated estimates have been made of the com- 
 pensation which would have to be paid supposing the 
 entire abolition of purchase to be determined upon. 
 These calculations were based upon the return of 
 seven millions sterling in the appendix of the report 
 of the Purchase Commission, witliout adverting to 
 the fact that the whole seven millions could not be 
 called for unless the army was entirely disbanded. 
 The return showed the whole value of all the commis- 
 sions ; but, according to the regulations and custom 
 of the service, only officers who retire from the army 
 by sale recover the price of their commissions, while 
 those who remain in the army and are promoted to 
 be major-generals, or who retire on full pay, or take 
 civil appointments connected with the army, have no 
 such advantage. 
 
 The committee appointed by the Secretary of State 
 for War in 1857, to report upon the proposals made 
 by me to the Purchase Commission, framed their 
 estimate on the last-mentioned principle : — 
 
 According to a parUaraentary return (No. 2 of the Appendix 
 to the Report on the Sale and Purchase of Commissions), the gross 
 value of the commissions of officers then serving amounted to 
 j^7,126,030. But it is impossible to estimate exactly the number 
 of officers who would be disposed to avail themselves of the 
 opportunity of selhng their commissions to the public in pre- 
 ference to continuing to serve under the proposed arrangement. 
 We have, however, calculated the probable amount in the best 
 manner we are able, and have arrived at a total of £2,355,288,
 
 31 
 
 which would allow of about one-third of the whole number 
 retiring.* 
 
 This sum only includes the regulation prices, and 
 addmg one-third for the extra prices, the compensa- 
 tion amounts to £3,140,384. 
 
 There were 664 retirements by sale during the 
 twenty-four months which immediately preceded the 
 Crimean war. This gives an annual rate of 332 
 retirements, and £753,000 as the price of the com- 
 missions, including the extra price. According to 
 Hart's army list, the retirements by sale of commissions 
 were 399 in 1866, and 425 in 1867. Retirements 
 entitling to compensation would be largest in the first 
 year, because those who retired at once would re- 
 ceive the full value of what they gave up ; -whereas, 
 as time went on, promotions would take place without 
 purchase to fill the vacancies occasioned by these 
 retirements and by other causes; and the officers 
 who retired by sale at a later period, after having 
 been so promoted, would only receive the value of 
 the commissions to which they had attained up to the 
 date when the purchase system was abolished. There 
 would, therefore, be an increased tendency every year 
 to look forward to promotion or full-pay retirement, 
 instead of looking back to retiring with the value of 
 the commissions which had been acquired under the 
 purchase system, until the claims to retire on that 
 footing entirely ceased. Every additional advantage 
 
 * Parliamentary Paper '^Krniy {Purchase of Commigsions)/ 498, of 
 1858; pages.
 
 82 
 
 given to militaiy officers would diminish tlie amount 
 to be paid in compensation, by inducing a greater 
 number to remain> Promotion without purchase, 
 increased rates of ]3ay and improved conditions of full 
 pay retirement, would strengthen the motives for 
 continuing in the service ; and, although some officers 
 would retire, others would stay to succeed to the 
 vacancies. There would, therefore, be a self-adjusting 
 process which would have much influence in dimi- 
 nishiuiT the retirements. Eeo^arcled as a basis for 
 estimating the amount of the compensation, the 
 annual retirements by sale are liable to a considerable 
 deduction on account of commissions obtained with- 
 out purchase, upon which only the regulated rate 
 of £100 for every year of foreign, and £50 for every 
 year of home service, would be allowed. 
 
 Whatever the amount of the compensation may be, 
 it ought not to be exclusively charged to the existing 
 tax-payers. The compensation is the arrear caused 
 by the neglect of past generations, who have thrown 
 upon military officers the burden of providing their 
 own retirements, and all future generations will par- 
 ticipate in the benefits of the organic change by which 
 this defect in the constitution of the army will be 
 remedied. Equity therefore requires that, while the 
 current expense of the revised system should be de- 
 frayed by annual grants of Parliament, the cost of 
 making the change should, like the expense of the 
 fortifications and of the reconstruction of the public 
 offices, be spread over a considerable period. 
 
 It will be asked how far the ordinary current charge
 
 33 
 
 for the army is likely to be increased or diminished 
 by the proposed changes? 
 
 The charge for full pay retirements will, of course, 
 be increased, although not to the extent which has 
 been sometimes feared. The habit which distin- 
 guishes our English youth of the upper class, of 
 passing a few years in the army^ before they marry or 
 succeed to their estates, was not caused by purchase, 
 and is not likely to be diminished by the abolition of 
 it. Many officers would, therefore, retire before they 
 became entitled to a pension, while others would re- 
 main after they became entitled, in order to obtain 
 the higher professional rewards. Pensions are, after 
 all, applicable only to a certain limited class of offi- 
 cers who, after having passed twenty-five years in 
 the service, determine not to continue in it to the 
 end. 
 
 The rates of pay will be increased, but the annual 
 charge for pay and half-pay, taken together, will be 
 diminished. The proportion of officers to men in our 
 army greatly exceeds that in any other European army 
 and in our own corps of Eoyal Artillery,* and the time 
 to reduce this proportion will be when, on the one hand, 
 the average efficiency of our officers shall be raised by 
 increasing their pay, relieving them from the burden 
 of purchase, and requiring from them a previous pro- 
 fessional training, either at a military college or in 
 
 British arniy, ] 
 
 I officer to 28 men. 
 
 French „ ] 
 
 [ „ 33 „ 
 
 Austrian „ 
 
 L „ 40 „ 
 
 Prussian „ ] 
 
 L „ 49 „ 
 
 British Artillery-, ] 
 
 L „ 35 „ 
 
 C 

 
 34 
 
 the ranks, and, on the other hand, the educated and 
 respectable classes shall be attracted into the ranks by- 
 making the opening of the higher promotion coinci- 
 dent with the abolition of our indefensible system of 
 recruiting, and with such a degree of attention to 
 the character of recruits as will prevent the admission 
 of reprobates and deserters. 
 
 If the degree to which the public money is wasted, 
 and the standard of efficiency is lowered by the 
 absence of any proper arrangements to secure fully 
 educated candidates for commissions, and to give 
 them the necessary professional training, was generally 
 understood, there would be an imperative demand 
 for reform. This is a point on which I shall confine 
 myself to quoting statements which have been made 
 by military officers of high character, who will be 
 accepted as authorities on the subject. 
 
 Caiitain B. W. Phi^jps, Royal Artillery. 
 
 The candidate then enters the service as an ensign ; at first he 
 is treated as a recruit, and does no duty. When he does escape 
 from the yoke of the drill-sergeant he has very unimportant 
 duties to perform, and does no work except under a senior 
 officer. On an average, he passes about three years in this 
 capacity. ... As lieutenant, with little more responsibility, he 
 serves for about six years.* 
 
 Major-General Lord West, G.B. 
 2514. In point of fact, sjDeaking of the line generally and not 
 of the scientific branches of the service, is the professional know- 
 ledge which junior officers have an opportunity of acquiring in 
 time of peace, considerable or small ? — I think that junior officers 
 have no opportunity at all in the British army ; indeed, it is very 
 
 * Our Sham Army, and Jioiv to make it a Heal One. Longmans, 1868. 
 The extracts wbigh follow are from the evidence delivered before the 
 Purchase Commission.
 
 35 
 
 difficult to make them acquire even the commonest regimental 
 drill, till they have been three or four years in the service. 
 
 2515. You have had some practical experience of that in the 
 Crimea? — Yes. When I was commanding a regiment before 
 Sebastopol, from sickness and casualties the number of duty 
 officers became very small, and I then urgently requested that 
 some of a number of young officers, who were kicking their heels 
 at the depot, might be sent out to head- quarters forthwith. I 
 received 10 of those young officers in a batch, who did not know 
 their right hand from their left, and had never been drilled ; I 
 was obliged to send them to the trenches, to different points, in 
 command of parties of 30 or 40 men, much as I objected to leave 
 such parties under the command of such very young subalterns. 
 All that I could do with those officers was this : I sent the 
 adjutant on parade, and told him to show them how to march 
 their men off the ground. All that I could say to them was, ' If 
 the enemy comes on, hold your ground, and drive them back if 
 you can.' In such a case, much was left to the steadiness of 
 the non-commissioned officers and the old soldiers. 
 
 2516. In point of fact, those young officers had no more know- 
 ledge of professional duties than if they had been so many 
 civilians ? — Not a bit more. 
 
 2520. The purchase system has prevented a system of previous 
 military training before young men are advanced to the grade 
 and position of officers, and for this reason, that if the education 
 of those young men was protracted to a later period, with the 
 price of the first commission superadded, the expense would be 
 very heavy. 
 
 2522. (Mr. G. Carr Glyn.) You do not say that that is a con- 
 sequence of the purchase system, but that it is an abuse of it ? — 
 I think it is a consequence of the purchase system. The object 
 is to take boys as early as possible from school, and get them 
 into the army. 
 
 Colonel {afterwards Major-General Sir Thomas) Franhs. 
 
 3269. Have you given your attention to the system of pur- 
 chase in the army ? — Yes. 
 
 3270. Have you formed any opinions upon that subject? — My 
 opinions are very strongly against purchase. 
 
 3271. Will you state your reasons ? — Because I am perfectly 
 satisfied that as long as money is made the chief means of ad- 
 
 c 2
 
 36 
 
 vaticement in the army in place of merit, parents will not give 
 their sons so good an education as for other professions. 
 
 3284. What other objections have you to purchase, than that it 
 either interferes with the education of young officers or their 
 prospect of advancement in their profession ? — I think if parents, 
 as I said before, had the encouragement of merit being rewarded, 
 and also having the money which they lay out in the purchase 
 of commissions, it might be an inducement to spend that money, 
 and it would be spent in better educating young men previously 
 to entering into the service. 
 
 3300. In what way would you do away with influence ? — By 
 rewarding merit and merit alone. 
 
 3303. (Sir Harry D. Jones.) What would be your scheme for 
 promotion in peace ; by merit you mean, I presume, an officer 
 "who has distinguished himself in the field ? — No. In time of 
 peace an officer should be promoted who had prepared himself 
 for a time of war by education, and acquirements, and attention 
 to the service. 
 
 3304. (Mr. E. Ullice.) Do you think that a British regiment 
 of infantry is a much worse instrument than a .regiment of in- 
 fantry in any other service ? — I believe that in the field our in- 
 fantry is perhaps the finest infantry in the world when it has 
 gone through the ordeal of service ; but I think, on going into 
 the field at first, both our infantry and our cavalry, in consequence 
 of the ignorance of our officers, appear to a very great disad- 
 vantage. I am speaking generally of our young officers. 
 
 3318. Do you consider that officers who have purchased are 
 not so efficient as those officers who have noi purchased ? — Yes ; 
 I think if a man knows that with very little attention and a little 
 smattering of knowledge, and lots of money, he is certain to get 
 on, he is not likely to pay proper attention to his duties. 
 
 3319. (Mr. E. ElUce,) Did you find the officers who purchased 
 in your regiment inefficient ? — An officer who knows that very 
 little attention and a large fortune will enable him to rise regi- 
 mentally to the head of his regiment, is not likely to trouble 
 himself much about increasing his own professional knowledge. 
 
 Lord Clyde. 
 
 3392. With respect to entrance into the army, purchase being 
 abolished, upon what principle do you think officers should be 
 first appointed to commissions ?— There should be a higher 
 standard of education than is exacted at present. I presume
 
 37 
 
 that the parents or relatives who would take care to fit a youth 
 to pass the standard which I conceive would be necessary, would 
 have imposed upon them the necessity of keeping him at school 
 at least to the age of seventeen or eighteen, with very rare ex- 
 ceptions of remarkably quick boys ; but that implies, in my idea, 
 the possession of property, which I deem also of moment ; the 
 very fact of the relations of a boy being able to maintain a candi- 
 date at a college up to the age of eighteen, would ally him with 
 property ; and I think if you established a high standard of 
 examination you would then improve the officers in the army. 
 
 3393. Admitting the standard of education, how would you 
 select from persons equally educated for appointments ? — In the 
 same way as I presume they do at Woolwich ; those who pass 
 the best examination should be chosen for commissions. 
 
 3394. Then you would confine the first entrances into the 
 army to a competitive examination ? — Certainly. 
 
 3395. Having obtained the first entrance into the army, how 
 would you have the promotion go on in the subordinate ranks 
 before you came to field i^ank ? — I think there is one thing very 
 much wanted, that instead of at once appointing»a young man 
 who shall have passed such an examination as we are now ad- 
 verting to, he should be a cadet first, and he should learn all the 
 duties of a soldier and a non-commissioned officer, and that he 
 should not get his commission until he has proved himself fit for 
 it. When those young men first join a corps, the commanding 
 officer is very likely in India, and they are at the depot at home, 
 and those young men should go through that second education 
 before they had commissions, and the selection should be from 
 those young men who showed the greatest zeal, and had improved 
 themselves most in the knowledge of their duties so as to fit them 
 for officers. 
 
 3396. Who had in fact the greatest amount of professional 
 attainments ? — Yes ; and who had attained that during this 
 period. 
 
 More important in a merely financial point of view 
 will be the savings consequent upon a return to the 
 sound principle of promoting only to vacancies on a 
 fixed establishment, and upon the restoration of the 
 half-pay list to its original object of making a pro- 
 vision for reduced and invalided officers. The su[)plc-
 
 38 
 
 mentary line of promotion known as the ' unattached 
 list,' which has arisen from the necessity of compen- 
 sating both those w^ho have paid heavily for their 
 commissions and those who have been passed over for 
 want of the means of payment, has swelled the annual 
 charge for half-pay to £331,500 ; and, in its bearing 
 upon the interests of the officers, it has produced a 
 state of plethora and stagnation which could not be 
 exceeded in any non-purchase corps. There are 354 
 colonels, exclusive of India and of the Artillery and 
 Engineers; and, after allowing for deaths among the 
 colonels, and for retirements by sale of those who do 
 not choose to wait, the colonel last added to the list 
 cannot, at the rate at which vacancies occur on the 
 establishment of major-generals, be promoted in less 
 than twenty-five years. Indeed this is an understate- 
 ment, for a considerable proportion of the names on 
 the fixed establishment of general officers still belong 
 to the period of the great war, and when these are 
 succeeded by the much younger men lower down the 
 list, the annual casualties will be less than at present. 
 There is also a great redundancy in the ranks of 
 lieutenant-colonel and major. This excessive de- 
 velopment, intended originally to quicken promotion, 
 has ended in being a great obstruction to it, from 
 the impossibility of the increased numbers being 
 absorbed in the higher ranks within a reasonable time. 
 The inevitable tendency of these abnormal arrange- 
 ments is to cause an accumulation of field officers 
 quite disproportioned to the numbers of the lower 
 ranks, and all the grades — colonels, lieutenant-colonels.
 
 39 
 
 and majors — are choked and brought to a state of 
 stagnation. Then there is the prevailing impression, 
 which used to be quoted by high authorities as an 
 incontrovertible maxim, that as our officers pay for 
 their commissions more than they receive from them, 
 and provide for their own retirement, they are the 
 cheapest body of officers in Europe. From this 
 naturally followed tlie disposition to be lavish in the 
 use of that which could be easily, and, as it was 
 imagined, cheaply obtained. Officers of the three 
 field ranks are employed on the staff and in a great 
 variety of administrative and other situations at home 
 and abroad, with a profusion unknown to any other 
 system, and yet great numbers remain unemployed. 
 The large sums invested in commissions also stand in 
 the way of the reductions which ought to be made 
 according to the varying circumstances of the service, 
 a constantly recurring instance of which is the diffi- 
 culty experienced in disposing of the supernumerary 
 officers on the return of a regiment from India. We 
 have at this moment a striking example of the obstacle 
 which purchase opposes to the introduction of im- 
 provements into our military system. It has been 
 considered advisable that future appointments to the 
 regimental depots should be made only on a five 
 years' tenure, and the immediate effect of this ordi- 
 nary salutary rule upon this division of the com- 
 mission market has been to reduce the value of the 
 invested capital as follows : — 
 
 It [the War Office Circular of the 16tli December 1866] 
 pretends to preserve vested interests by permitting the officers
 
 40 
 
 now in the depot battalions to retain their present appointments 
 unaffected by the five years' tenure, which is to be applied to 
 their successors, and also to them on promotion. 
 
 But as no man can purchase with half-pay in five years before 
 him, and no man will exchange into them for the same reason, 
 it follows that 46 out of the 47 officers now in the depot 
 battalions have been practically deprived of the right of purchase 
 and exchange they enjoyed in the regiments they came from, 
 together with the hopes of promotion such privileges held out. 
 
 They entered the depot battalion service under these con- 
 ditions, and having been caught, they are robbed of the induce- 
 ments that made them leave their regiments. 
 
 The actual money value of w^hich the majors alone have been 
 deprived may be set down at £28,800. 
 
 The sum required to effect an exchange into the depot bat- 
 talion as major was about £600 ; the sum now required to get 
 out would be £1,000 ; multiply this £1,600 by the 18 majors, and 
 we have the sum of £28,800. 
 
 This is only another illustration of the familiar 
 truth, that it is bad economy for an employer to 
 endeavour to give less than the fair value of the 
 services he receives. In the end he always has to 
 pay more, and is worse served, than if he had begun 
 by taking care that his servants were properly paid. 
 
 If the Government accepts the obligation of re- 
 lieving its officers from the heavy mulcts to which 
 they are subjected by the purchase system, and of 
 giving them pay and retiring pensions sufficient for 
 their subsistence, the value of the British officer will 
 at once become apparent, and a desire will be felt to 
 improve such costly agency, and to make it go as far 
 as possible. A new spirit of economy will arise in all 
 that relates to the administration of the army. No 
 difficulty will then be felt in arranging that commis- 
 bions shall be given only to persons who have ]>roved
 
 41 
 
 their qualifications, either in the ranks or in a mihtary 
 college, and only in the numbers required for an army 
 voluntary in a true and high sense — not one got to- 
 gether by intoxication, cajoling, and bounty,* and 
 kept together by flogging and branding. The junior 
 ranks will then be in such just proportion to the 
 higher that promotion will proceed in a continuous 
 stream, and future obstruction will be prevented by 
 returning to the practice of promoting only to 
 vacancies on a fixed establishment, and of confining 
 the half-pay list to the object of providing for reduced 
 and invalided officers. 
 
 Another class of savings combines pecuniary eco- 
 nomy with increased simplicity and facility of ad- 
 ministration. Of this description is the consolidation 
 with the proposed higher rates of pay, of numerous 
 miscellaneous allowances in money or kind, the issue 
 of which in a separate form increases the complication, 
 expense and delay of military administration, without 
 conferring any benefit on the officer ;f and the discon- 
 
 * * We get our men, with difficulty, by every kind of cajoling and in- 
 ducement we can devise ; and, in our necessity, descend to those means 
 which men do not have recourse to till they think all others are exhausted.' 
 — Sidney Herbert. 
 
 ' The present system of recruiting rather seeks to inveigle young men 
 into the army than, by a fair representation of military service, and an 
 honest and open declaration of the advantages which a military career 
 presents, to hold up the army as a profession, of which a fair proportion 
 of those who are capable of bearing arms might well avail themselves.' — 
 Lord Dalhousie, Lord Eversley, the Adjutant- General Lord W. Paidety and 
 the other Comtnissionirs for inquiring into the Recruiting of the Army ^ 1867. 
 
 t This remark does not apply to the colonial money allowances given 
 in addition to regimental pay in certain colonies where provisions, forage, 
 house-rent, &c., are much more expensive than in the United Kingdom 
 or at other stations.
 
 42 
 
 tirmance of all official connection with the army agents 
 (the authorised brokers and stakeholders of the pur- 
 chase system), who are paid £41,000 a year for doing 
 in duplicate what must under any circumstances be 
 done in a more simple and direct manner by the 
 public establishments. At this heavy annual charge 
 we purchase double accounts, complication, delay, 
 and insecurity. On the other hand, if ' a band of 
 music is essential to the credit and appearance of a 
 regiment,^ as stated in the Queen's Kegulations, the 
 public and not the officers should pay for it; and 
 when forage or other allowances in kind are neces- 
 sary, they should not be made the subject of con- 
 stantly-recurring money transactions, but they should 
 be given free, and their average value should be 
 deducted in fixing the new rates of pay. A more 
 important reform would be the substitution of a net 
 rate of soldier's pay for the ' stoppage system,' the 
 last excuse for which has ceased with the creation of 
 a body of supervising officers, one of whose duties it 
 will be to verify the numbers requiring the issue of 
 rations. The consolidation of ' beer money ' with pay, 
 both in the regular army and the militia, would 
 efface a degrading reminiscence of a bygone state of 
 manners. 
 
 Lastly, if the modifications of the existing system 
 advocated by me are adopted, bounty-money, levy- 
 money and bringing-money may be discontinued, and 
 the expense of recruiting may be limited to providing 
 proper places in each district for the reception of re- 
 cruits, and to the free kit and uniform which must,
 
 43 
 
 under any circumstances, be given. The expense of 
 the ' administration of martial law/ the details of which 
 are shown in a note,* will also be greatly diminished 
 when we get rid of the handful of confirmed tipplers 
 and irreclaimable scamps who make a trade of desert- 
 ing, and are repeatedly committing offences which 
 lead to their trial by courts martial and to their passing 
 a considerable portion of their service in prison. 
 The loss of service during desertion and imprison- 
 ment, as well as the further loss caused by escorts, 
 guards, and frequent courts of enquiry and courts- 
 martial, will be saved ; the men will be ' effective ^ 
 in a much greater proportion than at present; and 
 the expenditure on hospitals and medical attendance 
 will be reduced in more ways than can be pj-operly 
 described. Intemperance and vice — not climate and 
 hard service — are the principal causes of sickness, 
 
 Pay, &c., of Establishment of Judge 
 Advocate General .... 
 
 Contingencies of Establishment of Judge 
 Advocate General .... 
 
 Allowances to Acting Judge Advocates, 
 and otlier expenses of Courts Martial 
 
 Pay, &c., of Establishments of Military 
 Prisons 
 
 Contingencies of Military Prisons . 
 
 Subsistence, clothing, stores, and expenses 
 for men confined in Military Prisons. 
 
 Expenses of confinement of men in Civil 
 Gaols 
 
 Expenses of confinement of men in Bar- 
 rack Cells 
 
 Expenses incurred in the apprehension 
 and conviction of Deserters, &c. 
 
 1868-G9 
 
 1867-68 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 5,125 
 
 5,000 
 
 1,050 
 
 1,000 
 
 2,000 
 
 2,000 
 
 23,113 
 1,156 
 
 23,194 
 1,260 
 
 24,139 
 
 23,646 
 
 4,000 
 
 4,000 
 
 14,860 
 
 15,000 
 
 13,270 
 
 88,713 ^ 
 
 12,270 
 
 87,370
 
 44 
 
 mortality, and invaliding in the army, and the greatest 
 saving of all will be the substitution of the elevating 
 influences connected with a short term of service and 
 a reasonable prospect of j)romotion, for the depressing 
 and corrupting influences associated with our dis- 
 graceful system of recruiting and the protracted 
 bachelorhood of our long terms of service. 
 
 On the whole, I am confident that, provided the 
 readjustments properly consequent upon the abolition 
 of purchase are made, the actual army grant of 
 £15,455,400 will more than sufiice for defraying the 
 current charges of the revised system. 
 
 TERM OF THE SOLDIER'S SERVICE, AND CONSTITUTION OF 
 THE ARMY OF RESERVE. 
 
 1 have now come to the end of that part of our 
 military system which has been heretofore treated by 
 me, and I would gladly stop at this point. But 
 ' necessity ' has ' enforced a change,' and we must ' fit 
 the rest to it ' ; for this is evidently one of the cases 
 in which ' it is safer to change many things than one.' 
 If the abolition of purchase is the preliminary con- 
 dition of any real reform of our army, the reduction 
 of the term of service of our soldiers, and the re- 
 moulding of the militia so as to make it a suitable 
 body for the reception and assimilation of the time- 
 expired men, arc its indispensable complement. 
 
 A very sma^ll proportion of the Duke of Wellington's
 
 45 
 
 army, ' which could go anywhere and do anything,' 
 was composed of men of more than five years' service ; 
 and a man who had served two campaigns was con- 
 sidered an old soldier. In Napoleon's early successful 
 days, his corps (T elite were composed of soldiers old 
 by experience of war rather than by age ; but, 
 as he approached his downfall, he was forced to look 
 to quantity rather than to quality, and great efforts 
 were made to retain old soldiers, who had become too 
 old, and to multiply young soldiers, who were sent to 
 join the army before they had been properly trained. 
 According to General Trochu,* French soldiers reach 
 their maximum efficiency for active service after from 
 two to four years' experience ; and although the non- 
 commissioned officers may with advantage be* some- 
 what older, regiments should undergo a gradual process 
 of renovation, so that their spirit and traditions may 
 be preserved by a small number of old soldiers. 
 Service in the French army has been reduced from 
 seven to five years, with a further period of four years 
 in the reserve. The term of service in Austria is six 
 years in the line, three in the first reserve, and the 
 same in the second. The line and the first reserve 
 form the field force. The second reserve is intended 
 for garrison duty, but, if necessary, can be sent into 
 the field. Men of education may serve as one year's 
 volunteers, and if able to pass an examination, they 
 
 * See the chapters, ' Jeunes soldats et vieux soldats,' and ^ Les 
 grognards du premier empire,' in Trochu's charming treatise, L'ArmSe 
 Franqaise en 1867. This is Kinglake's * Colonel Trochu, the officer 
 understood to be entrusted by the Emperor with the function of advising 
 at the French headquarters.'
 
 46 
 
 may be appointed officers of reserve. Every Prussian 
 serves three years in the regiment,* four in the reserve 
 of the regiment (the man remaining on the rolls 
 liable to be called on for active service, if required), 
 and five in the first class of the landwehr; the two 
 latter bodies being only called out for occasional drill 
 in time of peace. Volunteers who wish to follow other 
 professions may serve a year in the ranks, after which 
 they pass into the landwehr. 
 
 According to the evidence delivered before the 
 Recruiting Commissioners of 1861 and 1867, a soldier 
 begins to fall off after twelve years' service, and is 
 generally worn out after sixteen or seventeen. The 
 highest estimate gives eighteen years as the limit of 
 efficiency for active service. The Duke of Cambridge 
 says, ' The best soldier is a man after three years' 
 service, and from that to about twelve or fourteen 
 years' service, and I think even to sixteen.' Colonel 
 Fitz-Wygram, commanding the 15th Hussars, would 
 ' like to see every man go at the end of twelve years.' 
 In his regiment he had not a single man of fourteen 
 years' service who was at his duty. ' Cavalry regi- 
 ments get no good work out of their men after four- 
 teen years' service:' ' men get nervous about riding,' 
 and ' after that time they will get into any berth, in 
 order to get out of riding.' The position in which 
 
 * The following testimony was borne by Colonel Walker, C.B., 
 Military Attache at Berlin, in a recent lecture on the battle of Konigs- 
 gratz : ' I was much struck with the cheeriness with which these young 
 soldiers went into action for the second time. All 7'ecridts fight well in 
 their first battled ; those who afterwards brave death and wounds with 
 cheerfuhiess are soldiers.^
 
 47 
 
 our army has been placed by the re-enlistment, in the 
 face of this evidence, of 30,000 ten years' infantry, 
 and twelve years' cavalry men, requires no comment. 
 The rapid disintegration of the regular army in the 
 first active campaign, and the consequent necessity 
 for increasing in still larger proportion the large re- 
 cruiting which always accompanies the breaking out 
 of war, must seriously aggravate the difficulties of 
 the crisis. 
 
 But bare, abstract military efficiency is by no 
 means the only, nor, all things considered, the most 
 important point of view. During the first few years 
 of his service the recruit gains more than he loses, 
 even with reference to the qualifications for civil life. 
 His physique rapidly improves under the influence of 
 good food, clothing, and lodging. Drill and gymnas- 
 tics give him suppleness of limb and an erect, manly 
 demeanour. He acquires a sense of duty and a just 
 appreciation of the value of character, and he learns 
 both to obey and to command. Foreign service and 
 a variety of society give him knowledge of the world, 
 such as the youth of the upper classes obtain by 
 means of the universities and foreign travel. If he 
 returns to civil life within a reasonable time, before 
 the stiffness grows upon him which characterises those 
 who have long borne arms, he has no difficulty in 
 resuming industrial habits, and he is certain to be in re- 
 quest for a great variety of occupations implying trust 
 and method. The inordinate length of the first term 
 of service is the only real obstacle to the employment 
 of time-expired men in large classes of subordinate
 
 48 
 
 appointments in the Customs, Inland Revenue, and 
 various other public departments, besides the metro- 
 politan, municipal, and county police, the Irish con- 
 stabulary, and the great railway establishments, for 
 all which there could not be a better training than a 
 few years' service in the army.* It is superfluous to 
 point out how full of advantage to the recruiting of 
 the army, to the good conduct and educational im- 
 provement of the men, and to the efficiency of our 
 public and quasi-public establishments, the systematic 
 employment of time-expired seven years' men would 
 be. An army which receives annually a portion of the 
 population, and restores an equivalent number trained 
 as I have described, is a powerful instrument of 
 national education in a large and high sense. It 
 would be to the body of the people much more than 
 our universities are to the upper class. 
 
 I will not complete the picture by describing the 
 sort of character usually formed by prolonged barrack 
 life, the bad example of old soldiers, and the absence 
 of those natural influences which maintain the healthy 
 tone and self-respect of the ordinary social state. 
 There is a remarkable paragraph in the report of 
 Colonel Henderson, R.E., the Inspector- General of 
 Military Prisons, for 1865:— 
 
 * Great as have been the benefits which our nation has derived from 
 the military qualities of the Irish people, we have yet to see the effect 
 upon the efficiency of the army and the consolidation of the empire of 
 really offering a military career to a race which has freely shed its blood 
 in the service of Spain, France, and, more lately, of the United States 
 of America, and of accustoming them to regard enlistment in the army 
 as a means of ultimately attaining to an honourable aud comfortable 
 position in their beloved native country.
 
 49 
 
 The statistics of tlie prisons show a considerable increase over 
 the two previous years in the number of prisoners in confine- 
 ment : during the year 18G5, there were 6,390 as against 5,470 
 in the previous year. The principal increase is among soldiers 
 whose services were from seven to fourteen years, of whom 2,166 
 were sentenced in 1865 against 1,325 in the preceding year; 
 indeed, it may be remarked that the increase of commitments, 
 among this class of soldiers, has been steadily progressive from 
 335 in 1859 to 2,166 in 1865. It might, perhaps, be desirable 
 that some investigation into this great increase in a particular 
 class should be made. 
 
 The phenomenon is explained by the causes to 
 which allusion has been made. When a soldier 
 has nothing more to learn, and is no longer in- 
 fluenced by the prospect of returning to civil life, 
 he generally loses heart, and begins to deteriorate. 
 Those men only should be allowed to bind themselves 
 to military service as their profession for life who are 
 actuated by real professional motives, and are well 
 qualified to perform their part in the non-commis- 
 sioned or commissioned ranks. 
 
 A correct general impression of this state of things 
 prevails throughout the country, and hence the strong 
 objections held by respectable working men to enlist 
 except under the influence of some disappointment, 
 and the extreme dislike with which respectable pa- 
 rents regard the enlistment of their sons. Twelve 
 years appear a lifetime to a young man of eighteen. 
 To enter into an engagement for twelve years is, in 
 his view, selling himself into bondage — and truly so 
 it is, for the period is sufficiently long efl'ectually to 
 detach him from the habits and associations of ordinary 
 life, and to recast liim in a peculiar mould from which
 
 50 
 
 he can never escape. If we desire to make the army 
 popular, and to attract a better class of recruits, we 
 must reduce the term of service. 
 
 But the greatest benefit of short service has yet to 
 be mentioned. No degree of administrative skill can 
 make a general permission to marry compatible with 
 military efficiency,* and the long periods of service 
 hitherto in vogue have therefore made our army a 
 school of immorality, the evil effects of which have 
 overflowed upon our civil population. A happy 
 change would take place if the first term of service 
 were reduced from twelve to seven years. Entering 
 the army at eighteen or nineteen, our young men would, 
 In that case, generally leave it at twenty-five or 
 twenty- six, which is the best age for marrying ; and 
 the few picked men who would be retained should all 
 be allowed to marry, as one of the advantages of their 
 position. Soldiers seldom marry in the earlier stages 
 of their career. Between twenty and twenty-five 
 years of age, only about 10*4 per cent, are married, 
 so that the present regulated proportion, including 
 that authorised for the non-commissioned officers, 
 would suffice for the reduced term of service. After 
 that the proportion of married men to age in our 
 army is as follows: twenty-five to thirty, 24*8 per 
 cent. ; thirty to thirty-five, 37 per cent. ; and above 
 forty, 48*3 per cent. This state of things is, as an 
 ordinary condition of service, totally incompatible 
 
 * This will be abundantly evident from the articles from the Queen's 
 Regulations and Orders for the Army in the Appendix (II., page 74). 
 It would be difficult to match the portentous naivete of the marginal 
 description of the first article. * Marriages to be discouraged.'
 
 51 
 
 with military efficiency, but it is not unsuited to the 
 plan of permitting a few first-rate soldiers, chiefly 
 non-commissioned officers, to re-engage with a higher 
 rate of pay, a pension on retirement, and unlimited 
 permission to marry. 
 
 The following return, which has been kindly fur- 
 nished to me by the Registrar- General, has a grave 
 significance in connection with this part of the sub- 
 ject :— 
 
 England and Wales. 
 Proportion of husbands to 100 males living in 1861 of all 
 
 conditions. 
 
 
 
 
 AGES. 
 
 
 
 AGES. 
 
 15—20 , 
 
 •5 
 
 
 40 45 . . 82-6 
 
 20—25 . 
 
 22-3 
 
 
 45—50 . . 83-1 
 
 25—30 . 
 
 587 
 
 
 50—55 . . 81*0 
 
 30—35 . 
 
 75^5 
 
 
 55—60 . *. 78-9 
 
 35—40 . 
 
 81-7 
 
 
 
 
 See Census 
 
 Report 
 
 ofl861, vol. iii. p. 118. 
 George Graham, 
 
 General Kegister Ofl 
 
 fice, 
 
 
 Kegistrar-G-eneral 
 
 Somerset House 
 
 > 
 
 
 
 16 June 
 
 1868. 
 
 
 
 These, therefore, are the proportions in which 
 soldiers of the different ages would marry if they 
 were allowed to follow their natural instincts and 
 affections. 
 
 The deteriorating effect of prolonged military ser- 
 vice is also shown by the fact that while, under 25 
 years of age, the mortality in the army is lower than 
 it is among the male civil population, above that age 
 a change for the worse takes place, and the mortality 
 increases with the advance of years in a much more 
 rapid ratio than in civil life, although soldiers' lives 
 
 D 2
 
 52 
 
 were orio;inally all picked lives, tlie recruits having 
 been subjected to a careful medical examination before 
 they were passed into the service. A comparison of 
 the latter steps in the folloAving scale has a painful 
 sio*niiicance to those who are accustomed to the 
 
 o 
 
 examination of such statistics : — 
 
 Annual ratio of Deaths per 1,000 living: (1) among troops 
 serving in the United Kingdom, 1859-65; (2) among the civil 
 male population of England and Wales by English life table ; 
 and (B) among the male population of the 63 Healthiest Districts 
 of Eno-land and Wales 1849-53 :— 
 
 Ages. 
 
 Average Annual Rate op Mortality. 
 
 Of Troops serving in 
 
 the United Kingdom 
 
 1859-65. 
 
 Of the Civil Male Of Males in 63 of the 
 
 
 Population of England Healthiest Districts of 
 and Wales by England and Wales. 
 
 
 English Life Table.* 1849-53.t 
 
 1 
 
 Under 20 
 
 307 
 
 6-89 
 
 5-83 
 
 20 — 25 
 
 5-80 
 
 8-68 
 
 7-30 
 
 25 — 30 
 
 7-99 
 
 9-55 
 
 7-93 
 
 30 — 35 
 
 1203 
 
 10-56 
 
 8-36 
 
 35 — 40 
 
 15-89 
 
 11-94 
 
 9-00 
 
 40 and ups- 
 
 18-94 
 
 13-96 
 
 9-86 
 
 * For the 17 years 1838-54. 
 
 t There is good reason to believe that the death-rate of the most 
 Healthy Districts, in 1849-53, represents the present mortality of the 
 population living in tlie healthy parts of England. 
 
 George Graham, 
 General Register Office, Registrar-General. 
 
 Somerset House, 
 
 4th .Tnly, 1868. 
 
 Our pot-honse system of recruiting, the soldier's 
 long term of service, and the restrictions upon his 
 Tnarriage, act as a direct encouragement to drunken- 
 ness and debauchery in a great national establishment 
 which might, tinder different arrangements, be con-
 
 53 
 
 verted into a popular training school of the highest 
 intellectual and moral value. 
 
 The charge for soldiers' pensions for 1868-9 is 
 £1,218,200. Pensions are not offered for the first 
 term of twelve years' service, and they are therefore 
 not likely to enter into the calculations of the recruit. 
 They are practically given, like the second bounty 
 and free kit, and the extra penny a day, for the sole 
 purpose of tempting the twelve years' men to re-inlist. 
 These old soldiers are induced to re-engage, and hold 
 on for pensions, at an annual cost per man which, 
 including the value of the pension, is about double 
 that of young soldiers, and ten times that of reserve 
 soldiers. According to the annuity tables in the 
 Postal Guide, the liability which the country incurred 
 on account of the future pensions of the 30,000 re- 
 engaged men is equal to a payment of £600,000 a year 
 from the date of their re-engagement, in excess of 
 the charge which appears in the estimates while they 
 are serving. If we adopted the opposite course of 
 largely reducing the period of compulsory service, and 
 of requiring all to leave the army at the end of their 
 first term except men of superior character and sol- 
 dierlike qualifications — offering to all time-expired 
 men the alternative of being enrolled in the reserve, 
 with a liberal retaining fee — the whole of this great 
 expenditure in pensions, and bounty, and extra pay 
 (a free kit would be required for the recruit who 
 would replace the old soldier) would be saved, except 
 the pensions which would ultimately be given to the 
 few men of highest character and greatest efiiciency,
 
 54 
 
 who would be retained as a favour. With such a 
 saving as this we could afford to make the reserve 
 army for home defence all that it ought to be. 
 30,000 young soldiers for general service and 30,000 
 time-expired men for home defence — or 60,000 in all 
 — might be maintained for less than the annual sum 
 which we pay for our 30,000 re-engaged men. 
 
 It may perhaps be thought that the requirements 
 of India and the Colonies are inconsistent with this 
 line of action. It is, however, a mistake to suppose 
 that the foreign service which so largely enters into 
 the system of the British army is unfavourable to 
 recruiting. It may deter some, but to the majority 
 of young men it is a decided attraction. The love of 
 travel and adventure is by no means confined to the 
 upper class, and our military service would not be 
 what it is to our people if Canada and Abyssinia, 
 Australia, India, China, and Japan were struck out of 
 the account. The increased knowledge of foreign 
 countries consequent upon the spread of national 
 education has at once stimulated curiosity and calmed 
 apprehension. Colonial service, with the exception of 
 Canada, has been reduced within narrow limits, and 
 it may be still further contracted. Indian service is 
 decidedly popular. Nowhere is the British soldier so 
 liberally treated. His pay is higher, his rations are 
 more varied and abundant, and his facilities for 
 marrying are greater, on the Indian, than on any 
 other station ; and there is a large class of appoint- 
 ments in the Ordnance, Public Works, and other 
 departments in India for which soldiers of good cha-
 
 55 
 
 racter and fair education are eligible. The case of 
 India is exceptional, and its exigency may be met by 
 exceptional action on the part of the Government of 
 India. There are grave political objections to re- 
 turning to the plan of having a separate army for 
 India, but these do not ajDply to that of holding out 
 local inducements to the soldiers serving in India to 
 renew their engagements. Even now, on the return 
 of regiments from India, half the men volunteer for 
 further service with regiments which remain, and 
 this proportion might be increased without any in- 
 crease of charge, because, for every man who is in- 
 duced to stay, the expense of two passages is saved 
 — of the man who would otherwise return home, and 
 of the man who would otherwise have to be sent out 
 to relieve him. We need not scruple to encourage 
 Indian re-eugagements, for not only is the soldier 
 himself t)enefited, but these soldiers and their descend- 
 ants, in the capacity of settlers, largely contribute to 
 the industrial and religious progress of India; and 
 all their weisrht is thrown into the scale with the Eno^- 
 lish connection. 
 
 The engagement with the time-expired men at home 
 should, I think, be for ten years, which would give 
 seventeen years military service in all — seven in the 
 regular army, and ten in the reserve. At the end 
 of that period they should retire, as a matter of 
 course, unless they are invited, on account of special 
 qualifications, to serve for a further term, in which 
 case they would become entitled to a pension on 
 retirement. Prudent men, who hoped to obtain
 
 56 
 
 regular civil employment, might, however, object to 
 place themselves under an absolute engagement for 
 ten years to be absent from their homes and work for 
 a certain number of days in each year. Unwilling 
 service is not of any real value. Our object should 
 be to make every branch of the army popular, and to 
 reduce the number of desertions. For these reasons 
 it may be advisable that the men should be able to 
 release themselves from their engagement to the 
 reserve by giving six months' notice. They should 
 be at liberty to join any regiment of the reserve, and 
 if they changed their residence, they should be trans- 
 ferred to another in their new neighbourhood. 
 
 If these changes were made, time-expired men 
 from the regular army would annually become avail- 
 able in considerable numbers, and the next question 
 is, how they could be most advantageously disposed 
 of. The obvious course would be to incorporate them 
 with the militia, whereby both classes of soldiers 
 would be combined under one organisation and com- 
 mand, and the militia would be strengthened 
 by a leavening of thoroughly trained soldiers. A 
 large proportion of the time-expired men might be 
 expected to join the militia, but experience shows 
 that few will voluntarily undertake the obligation to 
 return to the ranks, with the liability to distant and 
 prolonged foreign service, to the complete disruption 
 of domestic ties and local occupations. The induce- 
 ment to retire from the army, when the excitement 
 of youth and the passion for novelty and adventure 
 have been satislied, is the desire to enter on a settled
 
 57 
 
 life, with all its natural enjoyments, its family affec- 
 tions, and the scope which it furnishes for the ordi- 
 nary pursuits of peaceful industry. 
 
 There are also reasons for believino^ that a chano;e 
 must be made in the constitution of the militia which 
 would render it, to a far greater extent than at 
 present, a suitable body for the reception of the 
 time-expired men. If a man be once well trained, 
 a very short annual exercise suffices to keep him 
 serviceable, but the militiaman never arrives at this 
 status. The time allowed in any one year is barely 
 sufficient to carry him, even in the most superficial 
 manner, through the many necessary branches of 
 instruction. All that can be done in the time is 
 to teach the militia regiments to move in* a body. 
 Proper musketry instruction, which can only be 
 given individually, is out of the question. The in- 
 troduction of arms of precision, by giving the charac- 
 ter of a skilled profession even to the position of the 
 private soldier, and making it necessary for him to 
 acquire, by an elaborate process of teaching, the art 
 of protecting himself and destroying his enemy, has 
 rendered the existing conditions of militia service as 
 / obsolete as the rude weapon with which they were 
 originally ar:sociated. The want of proper training 
 in the officers is still more apparent. Indeed this 
 valuable old constitutional force has fallen so Ioav 
 that officers are not to be had in the requisite 
 number. In the militia, officers are as deficient as 
 they arc redundant in the line. Nearly two-fifths 
 (1, 060 out of 3,485) of all the commissions in tlie
 
 58 
 
 militia are vacant, and, while some regiments are 
 without any subaltern at all, many have only two or 
 three. Let us not deceive ourselves. It would be 
 the height of rashness and cruelty to place the militia, 
 as it now exists, in the line of battle against troops 
 armed and exercised as regular troops now are. Our 
 national security rests on a totally unreliable founda- 
 tion, so far as it depends on the militia. 
 
 But if, instead of six weeks in the first, and a 
 month in every subsequent year, every militiaman was 
 trained for an entire year at the beginning of his service^ 
 a few days in each year would keep him in practice. 
 His first engagement should be for one year, after 
 which he should be invited either to enlist in the 
 regular army for seven years, or to join the militia 
 for a term of ten years, terminable at six months' 
 notice. A sufficient number of these recruits should 
 be kept constantly embodied at the head-quarters 
 of the regiment, to supply the vacancies in its ranks, 
 with a liberal margin for those who would be likely 
 to enlist in the line after their year's training was 
 over. Besides the adjutant and musketry instructor, 
 and the non-commissioned officers for teaching drill, 
 a captain instructor should be selected from the 
 regular army for each regiment of militia, whose 
 duty it would be to instruct both the officers and men 
 of the embodied portion of the regiment in the 
 science and practice of their profession. Candidates 
 approved by the Lord-Lieutenant for commissions 
 in the militia should serve at the head-quarters 
 of the regiment until they were certified to be
 
 59 
 
 qualified for the duties of a subaltern officer, and 
 promotion to be captain and field officer should be 
 made upon suitable tests of qualification. The ex- 
 isting volunteer officers of each district should be 
 encouraged to go through a similar course of instruc- 
 tion at the head-quarters of the militia regiment, and 
 in future the honour of a commission in the volunteers 
 should only be conferred upon those who have pre- 
 pared themselves for the efficient performance of the 
 duties.* The depot battalions should be broken up, 
 and the depots of the respective regiments of the line 
 should be placed in the same town as the head- 
 quarters of the militia regiments with which they are 
 most intimately connected, and every practicable step 
 should be taken (such as giving them th*e same 
 number, colours, and uniforms) to strengthen the re- 
 lations between particular line and militia regiments. 
 They would daily associate in military and athletic 
 exercises, and would go through the same course of 
 instruction and attend the same lectures under the 
 captain-instructor. In short, the county militia regi- 
 ments should, as far as possible, take the position of 
 second battalions to the county line regiments, and 
 the county yeomanry cavalry and volunteer force 
 should be connected both with line and militia by a 
 liberal relation of comradeship and mutual help. 
 When these or other similar arrangements have been 
 made, the time-expired men from the regular army 
 
 * These suggestions do not, of course, apply to officers who receive 
 commissions in the militia or volunteers after having served in the regular 
 army.
 
 60 
 
 may be incorporated with the inihtia under the same 
 conditions of service as the men eidisted directly into 
 the miUtia.* 
 
 This would be a homogeneous system, all the parts 
 of which would work towards a common end. Instead 
 of the line and militia competing for recruits, as at 
 present, they would give each other mutual support. 
 The militia would pass on young soldiers to the line 
 without impairing its own efficiency, and the line would 
 return mature soldiers, still in the vigour of life, to 
 reinforce the militia. A real and useful connection 
 would be estabHshed between the different branches 
 of the military force of the country, and young men 
 volunteering into the line from the militia or volun- 
 teers would feel that they were going to serve among 
 neighbours and friends. Contrary to the practice of 
 the other European nations, our reserves are fresh, 
 untrained men, while our regular army is chiefly 
 composed of old professional soldiers. What I pro- 
 pose is to reverse this — to encourage the young un- 
 married men to enlist in the regular army, and to till 
 the reserves with trained men who have arrived at an 
 age to settle down in civil life. Line, militia, yeomanry, 
 and volunteers would be organised in a simple and 
 convenient manner under the general commanding the 
 division ; and the whole body would be so penetrated 
 with the spirit and experience of the regular army, 
 that the divisional military and administrative staff 
 (which might be strengthened to any necessary ex- 
 tent) could freely operate in support of it. 
 
 * For rurtlicr cxplunations ol' these prupotjuls; see Appendix 111.^ p. 75.
 
 61 
 
 The rapidity with which miUtia regiments have im- 
 proved after they have been embodied shows that the 
 year's previous training, followed by a week or ten 
 days' annual exercise, would give us the fruit of all 
 our expenditure of time and money — an efficient, 
 reliable militia — which cannot be obtained by any 
 number of repetitions of the existing annual exercises. 
 Our able-bodied youth would be economised and 
 turned to the best account, because the year from 
 eighteen to nineteen is the one which can best 
 be spared in the life of a young man, standing, as 
 he then does, on the edge of the labour market, 
 without having taken up his place in it ; and this 
 year spent under discipline and instruction at the 
 militia head-quarters would be well spent, ,even in 
 reference to success in civil life. Those who have 
 not completed their elementary education should be 
 required to attend the regimental school until they 
 come up to a prescribed standard; and the library 
 and reading-room, and the lectures given by the 
 military instructor and volunteer lecturers, should be 
 open to all. Every militia head-quarters would be- 
 come a military school, like those which have been 
 established by the Government of Canada at several 
 towns, under officers of the regular army, at whicli 
 candidates for commissions in their militia are trained 
 until they pass a certain examination, more or less 
 strict according to their rank. Our provincial mili- 
 tary schools, however, would be more efficient than 
 those of Canada, because, being based upon a small 
 but permanently embodied military force, they would
 
 62 
 
 combine practical with theoretical instruction ; and 
 once every year the entire regiment might be called 
 out for brigade and division manoeuvres with the 
 other troops of the district. Instead of the holiday 
 displays, which are not self-supporting even for a 
 single day, got up by collecting volunteer regiments 
 from distant parts of the country, the volunteers 
 included in each military division would assemble for 
 their annual exercise with the local line, militia, and 
 yeomanry regiments, and they would all be supported 
 by the local, military, and administrative staff, so that 
 the troops which might have to serve together in war 
 would acquire the habit of acting together under 
 circumstances most resembling those of war; and as 
 not merely the combatant ranks, but the entire military 
 machine^ would be periodically seen in actual opera- 
 tion, defects would be remedied without loss or dis- 
 credit, which, in the face of an enemy, might involve 
 untold sacrifices. 
 
 The efficiency of an army can only come up to 
 the level of that of its officers, and it is useless to 
 multiply militiamen and volunteers if the officers are 
 unfit for their position. Attention has hitherto been 
 almost exclusively directed to training the men, who 
 can be obtained in any number, and can soon be 
 rendered fit to take their places in the ranks, and we 
 seem to have forgotten for the moment that an army 
 must be officered as well as manned, and that officers 
 require a careful training, .^nd cannot be extemporised 
 in time of need. The right to command troops 
 of all arms (Conferred by the Queen's Regulations on
 
 63 
 
 militia, yeomanry, and volunteer officers will, if these 
 officers are not properly instructed, cause disgraceful 
 and dangerous confusion in the event of its being 
 necessary to take active measures of national defence. 
 The property qualification for commissions in the 
 militia, which is open to many of the objections to 
 purchase, and the practice of billeting the militia 
 upon the public-houses, which is very objectionable 
 on moral as well as on military grounds, should be 
 brought to a final close, and proper militia barracks 
 should be provided in every county; and as military 
 systems have a social as well as a professional aspect, 
 all the other arrangements will be facilitated by the 
 intercourse between the officers of the four forces — 
 line, militia, yeomanry, and volunteers — at th^ county 
 military club. 
 
 Entirely independent reasons exist for breaking wp 
 the depot battalions, 5nd returning to the plan of 
 regimental depots. The depot battalions are the 
 worst possible schools for the young officer and the 
 recruit; and there is hardly an officer of rank or 
 standing, except those on the staff of the depot 
 battalions, who does not dislike and condemn them. 
 Commanding officers of regiments complain that the 
 drafts sent to them are ill-trained, badly drilled, and 
 awkward, while the officers of depot battalions com- 
 plain of the non-commissioned officers sent to the 
 dep6ts. The interests of the officers are conflicting ; 
 and it is unwise to commit the first training of the 
 young officers and soldiers to men who, having no 
 connection with their regiments, cannot be expected
 
 G4 
 
 to take any real interest in them, and are not likely 
 ever to see them again after they have once left the 
 depot battalions to join their respective regiments. 
 
 The ' militia reserve/ authorised last year to be 
 raised to the extent of one-fourth of the quotas fixed 
 by law, hangs fire ; but even if the full numbers were 
 obtained, it is doubtful whether the plan would stand 
 the test of experience. It is a new principle to give 
 men all their advantages in time of peace, and to take 
 the chance of their being willing to encounter the 
 liardships and hazards of war at some future inde- 
 finite period, long after they have spent their bounty, 
 and have probably married, or entered into other 
 en2:ao:ements inconsistent with foreio^n service. Mi- 
 litiamen have always shown the utmost readiness to 
 join the line for active service; and if the term 
 of service is reduced, and the gulf which separates 
 the non-commissioned from the commissioned ranks 
 is bridged over, the regular army will become so 
 popular, and such satisfactory relations will be esta- 
 l)lished between it and the militia and volunteers, 
 that, although the latter will be enrolled only for 
 liome service, there will be no want of men ofi'ering 
 for the line from among those who happen, when 
 their country requires their services, to be free to 
 enter into new engagements. Payments in advance 
 for future contingent foreign service will fail to secure 
 men when we most want them. Our real reserve is 
 the spontaneous readiness which Englishmen have 
 always shown to join the ranks when there is a 
 prospect of active service; and building upon this
 
 65 
 
 fouTidation, we ought to remove the objections justly 
 felt by parents to the enlistment of their sons, and to 
 make the army more than ever an object of desire 
 to our youth. If any special inducement is necessary, 
 it should be given to those who actually come forward 
 to meet the emergency ; but I do not believe that it will 
 be necessary. In proportion as the home army is filled 
 with time-expired seven years' men, it will be safer 
 and easier to induce the recruits to join the general 
 service army. 
 
 According to the numerical returns of enlistments 
 submitted to Parliament by the Adjutant-General 
 during the years of war from 1805 to 1814, while 
 121,622 men were obtained by common recruiting, 
 113,409 were supplied by volunteers frojn the 
 militia. The real recruiting question is how the first 
 step to the military profession can best be got over : 
 
 The point of difficulty [Baron Dupin observed in his report 
 upon the military force of Great Britain], in recruiting in towns 
 or the country, is to draw a man from the spot of his birth, the 
 roof of his father, the ties of his infancy ; to tear him, amongst 
 entreaties, tears and imprecations, from all that he most loves 
 and reverences upon earth. But the young soldier who is 
 already formed by the regular militia service has assumed the 
 uniform and quitted his paternal habitation. He soon quits 
 also the vicinity of his birth-place ; he inhabits a barrack where 
 there are no associations but those of military life. Warmly 
 clad, comfortably lodged, and better fed than any other soldier 
 in Europe, his situation is, in every respect, very supportable. 
 There is awakened in the bosom of the militiaman the sentiment 
 of national honour and glory, the hope of promotion and the 
 desire of reward. 
 
 It is neither necessary nor desirable that the change 
 from the old to the new constitution of tlie militia
 
 should take place simultaneously in every part of the 
 country. All the counties might not be equally pre- 
 pared for it, nor could the regular army furnish at 
 once the requisite number of professionally trained 
 officers to act as musketry instructors and captain 
 instructors. The best way of making the change will 
 be by military divisions. The militia should not 
 again be assembled on the old footing in the divisions 
 selected for reorganisation. The general commanding 
 should consult with the lord-lieutenants to what extent 
 each regiment should be partially embodied under the 
 new terms of service, until all the men belonc^ino' to 
 it are trained by successive annual reliefs ; and every 
 necessary arrangement should be made to form the line, 
 militia, yeomanry, and volunteers of the division into a 
 single organised body, annually assembled for a few 
 days' exercise, and capable of taking the field at very 
 short notice, supported by a full proportion of military 
 and administrative staiF.
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 [See p. 27.] 
 
 REPORT OP THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON MILITARY RESERVE 
 
 FUNDS. 
 
 The Select Committee appointed to enquire into * The 
 origin of the Military Reserve Funds, the sources from 
 which they are derived, and the objects to which they 
 are applied,' have considered the matters to them re- 
 ferred, and have agreed to the following Report. 
 
 1. The Military Reserve Funds comprise what is generally 
 called the Army Reserve Fund and the Guards Fund. * 
 
 '2. The Army Reserve Fund appears, under the name of the 
 * Half-pay Fund,' to have been in existence sixty years ago. At 
 that time, and until about the year 1826, the Commander-in-Chief 
 carried to the credit of the fund portions of the sums paid for the 
 purchase of commissions (where the selling officers were not 
 entitled to receive the full amount) and occasionally the proceeds 
 of first commissions ; the fund being applied, partly to make up 
 the sums for which officers were allowed to sell on retiring from 
 the army, and partly to the benefit of families of deserving officers. 
 
 3. The accounts of the Half-pay Fund, to the year 1820, 
 signed by his Royal Highness the late Duke of York, are ap- 
 pended to the Report of the Commission on Army Purchase. 
 The fund was carried on until the year 1856 ; and by the account 
 signed by Messrs. Cox and Co., on the 11th July, the sum of 
 £217 13s. lOd. stood to its credit. But about the year 1826, the 
 sale of commissions for the benefit of the fund had ceased, and, 
 subsequently to that date, the receipts and payments were com- 
 paratively small. 
 
 4. Meanwhile a new fund appears to have been created by the 
 sale of half-pay commissions. At the death of the Duke of York 
 in 1826, this fund was in credit to the extent of i?80,000, and 
 soon afterwards Lord Palnicrston, who for a short time held the
 
 70 
 
 office of Commander-in-Chief, paid that balance into the Ex- 
 chequer. Between 1830 and 1841 sums amounting to above 
 ^40,000, and stated to have arisen from the ' Purchase and Sale 
 of Commissions in the Army,' appear to have been carried to the 
 credit of the paymaster-general, and applied in aid of army 
 services. 
 
 5. From 1841 to 1849, both the proceeds of half-pay commis- 
 sions, and the differences previously paid into the 'Half-pay 
 Fund,' appear to have been transferred to the paymaster- general, 
 and applied to army services.; but about the year 1850 the 
 Reserve Fund was constituted on its present basis by the then 
 Secretary at War. Since that time no balances have been paid 
 over to any public account, and until 1860 no return in regard 
 to the fand was rendered to Parliament. The present position 
 of the fund may be gathered from the account for the year 1867, 
 presented on the 13th February last. Including a balance from 
 1866 of ^5,357, the total receipt for the year was ^162,547 5^. 
 The expenditure was £78,531 18s. 4d; the balance, £84,015 6s. 8cZ., 
 being invested in Exchequer Bills to the extent of £65,000. 
 
 6. The sources from which the fund is fed are : 
 
 (a) The sales, in certain cases, of commissions in succes- 
 sion to officers retiring on half-pay. 
 
 Formerly an officer retiring on half-pay was required 
 to exchange with another, of the same rank, on the half- 
 pay list; and no promotion resulted, unless the latter 
 desired to sell, in which event the commissions in suc- 
 cession had always to be purchased. Under the regula- 
 tions now in force, an officer of twenty-five years' full 
 pay service is absolutely entitled to retire on half-pay, with- 
 out bringing a half-pay officer back ; the commissions in 
 succession being sold for the benefit of the fund, except 
 in cases where the retiring officer would probably have 
 attained the rank of major-general within a period of two 
 years, and where the officers next for promotion have, 
 from long and distinguished service, claims for favourable 
 consideration. 
 
 (6.) The differences between the purchasing price of 
 certain commissions and the amounts which the sellers are 
 entitled to receive. 
 
 The regulations provide (with unimportant modifica- 
 tions), that if an officer has not served for twenty years, he 
 can only receive the value of any commission obtained b^^
 
 71 
 
 purchase, together with a sum of £50 for each year of 
 home, and £100 for each year of foreign service, provided 
 the whole amount does not exceed the regulation price of 
 the commission he holds at the time he retires. The dif- 
 ference between the total sum payable to him, and that 
 received from the purchasing officer, goes to the fund, 
 (c.) The differences between the values of full pay and 
 half-pay commissions paid by officers who had received 
 that amount on going to half-pay. 
 
 (d.) The sales, in certain cases, of first commissions. 
 
 First commissions are usually given by purchase, ex- 
 cept in succession to vacancies caused by deaths, retire- 
 ments on full pay, successions to the major-generals' 
 establishment, and augmentations ; but even in these 
 cases they may be, and have been, sold. Thus, a con- 
 siderable number of first commissions were sold for the 
 benefit of the fund, on the augmentation of the Army in 
 1854. 
 7. The charges, borne by the fund, are of the following 
 descriptions : — 
 
 (e.) Officers retii^ng on half-pay, whether fronf the line or 
 the Ordnance corps, have been permitted to compound their 
 half-pay, for a sum equivalent (in the case of an officer of 
 the line) to the regulation price of the commission of the 
 rank from which he retired, less the difference which he 
 may have received between full and half-pay. These opera- 
 tions are called sales of half-pay commissions, but they are 
 only permitted when there is a large balance on the reserve 
 fund. 
 
 (/.) Cavalry officers, who entered previously to 1860, are 
 entitled, on their retirement, to receive from the fund the 
 difference between the old and new (regulation) prices of 
 cavalry commissions. These differences are, in the case of a 
 lieutenant-colonel, £1,675 ; of a major, £1,375 ; of a captain, 
 £1,425 ; of a Heutenant, £490 ; and of a cornet, £390. 
 
 (g.) In 1861 the corps of Yeomen of the Guard, in 1862 
 that of Gentlemen- at- Arms, and in 1863 the Military Train, 
 were respectively converted from purchase into non- purchase 
 corps ; ' compensations to existing interests ' being granted 
 out of the Reserve Fund. 
 
 (h.) Payments have also been made from the fund foi» 
 the purpose of absorbing commissions which became super- .
 
 72 
 
 numerary, in consequence of reductions in the regimental 
 establishments. 
 
 8. From returns laid before your Committee, it appears that 
 the sale of commissions, in succession to officers retiring on half- 
 pay, produced between the 1st April 1862 and the 31st December 
 1866, £338,678 ; and the differences between the sums received 
 by retiring officers and those paid by the purchasers, £109,379 ; 
 the total, £448,057, representing the sum received by the State, 
 during less than six years, out of the purchase money paid by 
 officers for their promotion in the army. 
 
 9. During the same period £204,881 was credited from the 
 fund to cavalry officers purchasing their promotion; £46,625 was 
 applied to the reform of the Corps of Yeomen of the Guard, Gen- 
 tlemen-at-Arms, and the Military Train ; and £311,599 was paid, 
 by way of composition of their half-pay, to half- pay officers of the 
 Line, the Artillery, and the Engineers ; relieving the half-pay 
 vote, but not to an amount equivalent to the composition. 
 
 10. The above charges vf ere in excess of the receipts of the 
 fund, and the balance has been mainly provided by the sale of 
 first commissions. 
 
 11. From the above statements it will be evident that the 
 receipts, and some of the payments of the fund, arise from regu- 
 lations of much importance and nicety, forming links in the chain 
 of the purchase system, which it will be impossible to deal with 
 satisfactorily without entering upon the merits of that system. 
 The reference to your Committee being limited to an enquiry 
 into the origin, sources, and objects of the Reserve Funds, they 
 are not prepared to give an opinion as to the extent to which 
 commissions, in succession to retiring officers, should go with or 
 without purchase ; as to the restrictions, subject to which officers, 
 who have obtained their commissions without purchase, should 
 be permitted to sell ; or as to the system under which first com- 
 missions should be granted. 
 
 12. It is true that the recent regulation, entitling an officer, 
 after 25 years' service, to retire, without bringing back another 
 from half-pay, has had the effect of increasing the flow of promo- 
 tion ; and the rule laid down by General Peel, when Secretary of 
 State, under which any difference exceeding £450 between the 
 regulation price paid to a retiring officer and that received from 
 his successor, should be applied to the grant of a first commission 
 without purchase, confers advantages on candidates for such 
 commissions. *
 
 73 
 
 13. On the otlier hand, it cannot be disputed that if, to a 
 greater extent than now, commissions, in succession to officers 
 retiring on half-pay, were granted without purchase, advantages, 
 at the expense of the fund, would result both to the retiring and 
 the succeeding officers. From information received by your 
 Committee, it appears that even under the recent modification of 
 the regulations senior officers of different ranks have been unable 
 to obtain their promotion without purchase in succession to 
 retiring lieutenant-colonels, although their period of service was 
 unusually long, and gave strong claims. 
 
 14. It appears, however, to your Committee that it is beyond 
 the scope of their enquiry to take evidence as to the sufficiency 
 of the present flow of promotion, whether by or without pur- 
 chase ; or as to what proportion of first commissions should be 
 sold. 
 
 15. But whatever opinion may be entertained as to the trans- 
 actions which have been carried on by means of the fund, your 
 Committee are of opinion that, in any case, the fund itself should 
 be wound up. 
 
 16. Its existence has enabled the Secretary of State to levy, 
 by his own authority, charges on persons seeking promotion or 
 first appointment in the army, and to apply the proceeds to 
 public objects, at his discretion. But no public monies should 
 be at the disposal of a Minister, except such as are annually 
 voted by Parliament, or charged on the Consolidated Fund ; and 
 ail sums received by public departments (unless otherwise 
 applied by law) should be paid into the Exchequer. 
 
 17. Your Committee do not doubt that the reformation of the 
 Corps of Yeomen of the Guard and Gentlemen-at-Arms, and of the 
 Military Train, has been beneficial to the public service ; but that 
 consideration does not appear to them sufficient to warrant the 
 application to such purposes, without the authority of Parliament, 
 of sums received from sales of commissions in other branches of 
 the service. The same objection applies to the payments which 
 have been made for the purchase of half-pay commissions in the 
 Artillery and Engineers. 
 
 18. Your Committee accordingly recommend that all payments 
 which may hereafter be made, for purposes now charged on the 
 Reserve Fund, be defrayed from monies appropriated to such 
 purposes by Parliament, and that any future receipts, together 
 with the balance at the credit of the Fund, be paid into the 
 Exchequer. Among these receipts would be included the jiur-
 
 74 
 
 phase money of a commission, where the seller is not entitled to 
 receive the whole ; but in this case the net amount only would 
 be payable to the Exchequer. 
 
 19. Your Committee are also of opinion that any regulations 
 for the composition of half-pay should only be made under the 
 authority of a statute. They would refer to the proceedings, in 
 1867, of the Select Committee on Retirement from the Non- 
 Purchase Corps, in evidence of the difficulties attending this 
 question. 
 
 20. Your Committee have not deemed it necessary to take 
 evidence as to the Guards' Fund. The receipts and expenditure 
 of that fund are given in the Appendix to the Report of the 
 Select Committee on Military Reserve Funds of 1867 ; and there 
 appears to be no reason why the former should not be paid into 
 the Exchequer, and the latter charged on Votes of Parliament. 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 [See p. 60.] 
 
 423. Marriages to be discouraged. — Commanding officers of 
 regiments, who have ample experience of the very great incon- 
 venience arising to the service, and to the public, from the im- 
 provident marriage of soldiers, are to discountenance such 
 connexions, and to explain to the men that their comforts, as 
 soldiers, are in a very small degree increased by their marriage, 
 while the inconvenience and distress naturally accruing there- 
 from are serious and unavoidable, particularly when regiments 
 are ordered to embark for foreign service. 
 
 424. Consent of commanding officer. — Every soldier, pre- 
 viously to his marriage, should obtain the consent of his com- 
 manding officer, and state the name and condition of the woman 
 he proposes to marry, and whether she be a spinster or a widow. 
 In granting their consent commanding officers should most care- 
 fully consider the claims of the soldier, as regards good conduct 
 and length of service, and when deserving soldiers cannot be 
 admitted on the strength of their corps as married men, their 
 applications should be registered, with a view to their wives 
 being taken on tht? strength as vacancies occur.
 
 75 
 
 425. Vacancies abroad; how filled. — Officers commanding 
 regiments on foreign stations are to specify in the returns wliich 
 they transmit to the depot companies at home, the vacancies 
 which occur in the regulated number of soldiers' wives, and are 
 to name those whom they may recommend to be sent out to fill 
 such vacancies. Soldiers' wives who have joined the regiment 
 without authority, or who may, by the permission of the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief (obtained through the Quartermaster- General), 
 accompany officers as servants in their families, and afterwards 
 quit such service, are not to benefit by being allowed at any 
 future time to fill vacancies on the establishment of soldiers' 
 wives, which vacancies must be reserved for those who have 
 waited at home for their turn to go out. 
 
 426. Sleeping out of quarters. — No soldiers are to be allowed 
 to sleep out of their quarters permanently, except those who are 
 borne on the strength of their corps as married men, or who are 
 married with leave, and together with their wives are of good 
 character. Married men who are allowed to mess and sleep out 
 of barracks for their own comfort and the benefit of their 
 families, must be regular in attending to their duties, orderly, 
 in their lodgings or quarters, exact in their dress, and never 
 leave their lodgings or quarters after tattoo except when on 
 duty or on leave. Any man not obeying these orders is to be 
 immediately brought into barracks. 
 
 427. Men married without leave. — In cases where a soldier 
 married without leave has any children, the commanding officer 
 may use his discretion in granting permission to the man to be 
 out of the troop, battery, or company mess, in order to support 
 his family. 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 [See p. 50.] 
 
 Most of the Regiments took the county denominations which 
 they now bear in consequence of a Royal order, dated 31st 
 August 1772, directing them to take the titles of certain counties, 
 so that in each case a connection and mutual attachment between 
 the corps and that county should be cultivated, in order to promote 
 the success of the recruiting service. Of the 109 intuntry regiments 
 of the line, besides the Rifle brigade, 87 are attached to counties,
 
 76 
 
 and 22 are unattached, of which nine are from the India esta- 
 bhshment. The unattached regiments should be connected with 
 districts with which regiments are not now associated. For 
 instance, Lancashire, possessing a population of 1,190,480, has 
 only one regiment attached to it. The different cavalry regi- 
 ments should in like manner be connected with the Yeomanry 
 Cavalry and the Light Horse and Mounted Rifle Volunteers 
 (two or three local corps to each cavalry regiment) ; the Royal 
 Artillery should be associated, for giving instruction and receiv- 
 ing recruits, with the powerful militia and Volunteer Artillery 
 force ; and the Royal Engineers with the Engineer Volunteers. 
 All officers of local corps should receive their commissions upon 
 condition of passing through a short prescribed course of instruc- 
 tion with the regular corps with which they are affiliated ; or, in 
 the case of the Yeomanry and Volunteer Cavalry, in a cavalry 
 school which will probably be established in connection with the 
 Military College. 
 
 The Recruiting Commissioners of 1867 report ' Strong evi- 
 dence has been laid before us, showing the advantages resulting 
 to recruiting from a local connection being maintained between 
 individual corps and certain localities. Men enlist much more 
 fi'eely in corps which already contain a number of their friends 
 and acquaintances, and such connections should therefore, we 
 consider, be in every way encouraged. Much may be done in 
 this direction, by strengthening the relations that exist between 
 particular corps of the Army and particular Militia Regiments, 
 whether arising from County denominations or other circum- 
 stances ; and the object might also be facilitated by the Line 
 Regiments supplying good non-commissioned officers to the 
 corresponding Militia Regiments, and by directing the volunteer- 
 ing from each regiment to one, or even two or three Regiments 
 of the Line.' 
 
 Illustrations of the advantage of local connections in recruiting 
 may be found in the practice of the Guards, of the Royal Artillery 
 before their recruiting was made general, and of particular 
 regiments of the line ; but the most remarkable instance is 
 the connection of the Royal Marines with Devonshire, where 
 the name of this corps is a household word, and service in the 
 Marines is so popular that there is a choice of recruits, and 
 strict enquiries are made into character. 
 
 Circumstances have so changed since the date of the following 
 memorandum, by the Adjutant- General, Sir Harry Calvert, that
 
 77 
 
 an exact comparison can no longer with advantage be made ; but 
 his plan and mine are based upon the same principles, and the 
 objects he desired to attain have been provided for by me in a 
 manner suited to the present time. The most important diffe- 
 rence is that, while the scheme of 1809 is partly based upon the 
 ballot, which is only another name for conscription, that of 1868 
 depends entirely upon voluntary service. 
 
 Tlan for Im,prmnng the Military Force of the Country. 
 
 Horse Guarbs, 
 
 February Gth, 1809. 
 
 I would propose that every Regiment of the Line, with the 
 exception of the 60th, should be composed of two battalions. 
 
 The first battalion should, according to its effective strength, 
 be on the establishment of 800, 1,000, or 1,200, and should, as at 
 present, be engaged for unlimited service, in regard to time and 
 place. This, if the plan succeeded, as I feel confident it would, 
 gives on an average a disposable force of 100,000 men. 
 
 The second battalion should be uniformly of the establishment 
 of 1,000, composed by men obtained by ballot, as the present 
 Militia, but officered by officers of the Regular service, forming, 
 in every respect, an integral part of the Regiment, passing in 
 their turn, according to rank, into the first battalion. 
 
 The services of the men of the second battalions, in considera- 
 tion of their being raised by ballot, must be limited to Great 
 Britain and Ireland, and the Islands in the Channel : this would 
 give us a force for home defence of rather more than 100,000 men — 
 a number, it is to be observed, inferior to that which was raised 
 for the Militia service during the late war, but possessing this 
 marked superiority over the present Militia, that it would be 
 commanded by officers of the Army, whose habits and feelings 
 would naturally introduce among their men a predilection for the 
 Regular service, and that its services would be equally applicable 
 to Ireland as to Britain. 
 
 I would recommend that the ten Royal Veteran Battalions 
 should be retained, with the power of placing such of their 
 officers as may, from time to time, become, through age and 
 infirmities, unfit for duty, on a retired pay, becoming their 
 respective ranks, and referring to their best years devoted to 
 their country. Without some such arrangement, it is evident, 
 from the nature of things, these respectable and highly useful 
 corps must become inefficient.
 
 78 
 
 I would place all the rest of the force of the country in Local 
 Militia, Yeomanry Cavalry, and Volunteer corps, the latter com- 
 posed of officers and men who are willing to enrol themselves in 
 corps of not less than 600, under engagements to subject them- 
 selves to such drills as may be deemed necessary to fit them to act 
 with Regular troops, to serve, in case of emergency, in any part 
 of Great Britain, and to support themselves entirely at their own 
 expense (arms excepted), till called out on permanent duty, when 
 they should receive military pay, and be in every respect amen- 
 able to martial law. 
 
 No officer of the two latter descriptions of force should receive 
 a hio-her rank than that of lieutenant-colonel commandant. 
 
 o 
 
 The Local Militia to be formed upon the same military principle 
 as the other parts of the Army. The numbers of the battalions 
 must depend on the extent and population of the counties to which 
 they belong ; but the strength of the companies and the establish- 
 ment of the battalions should, as far as circumstances will per- 
 mit, be equalised. The whole, or any part, should be liable to 
 be called out according to the exigency of the service ; but by 
 this arrangement their duties would become comparatively so 
 little burdensome, that it might be presumed the commissions 
 would be held by gentlemen of the first respectability in their 
 respective counties. 
 
 The amount of the force produced by this plan is as follows : — 
 
 Regular Infantry of the Line for general service 
 exclusive of Regular Cavalry, Foot Guards 
 and Veteran Battalions, and the six battalions 
 
 ofthe 60th Regiment* 100,000 
 
 Second battalions, balloted men, with officers of 
 the line, for service limited to Great Britain 
 
 and Ireland 100,000 
 
 Local Militia, at least 200,000 
 
 Volunteer Cavalry ...... 32,000 
 
 Volunteer corps, on a principle calculated to 
 render them really effective for general 
 service, probably not less than . . -. 100,000 
 
 The result would prove, I conclude, as follows : — The Militia 
 becomes what it ought constitutionally to be — the basis of our 
 
 ^>' This refers only to the numbered regiments. The West India 
 regiments, the garrison battalions, the foreign and provisional corps, 
 are not included in this computation.
 
 79 
 
 national force. The Local Militia assumes the uniform, colours, 
 and every other article of equipment of the Regiment of the Line 
 belonging to its county. In short, it adopts the County Regi- 
 ment as part of itself, and gives every encouragement to its men 
 to enlist into this corps. Let the men of the second battalion 
 receive the same encouragement to extend their services into the 
 first battalion, and their places be immediately supplied by volun- 
 teers at a low bounty from the Local Militia. I say, by volun- 
 teers, because I do not believe there would be found any difficulty 
 in filling up these vacancies ; but if, contrary to expectation, there 
 should be any, a ballot must be resorted to, because the very 
 essence of the plan I venture to submit for consideration is the 
 absolute certainty of the second battalions being kept complete as 
 long as their services are required ; and I humbly conceive that 
 a very little arrangement would be necessary to insure a large 
 proportion of the men repairing to their colours, in the event of 
 any sudden emergency calling for their services, at times when 
 they might not be embodied. 
 
 If I see the subject right, this would establish what has yet 
 been unsuccessfully attempted — a real and useful oennection be- 
 tween the different branches of the military force of the country, 
 and by these means actually connect the Regiment of the Line 
 with the county whose name it bears. 
 
 It would, by these means, present the fairest prospect of plac- 
 ing the recruiting of regiments on the most certain and respect- 
 able footing, without at all preventing their employing the means 
 now in practice, if they found it desirable. My opinion of the 
 eligibility of this, or of some plan of the same nature, has been 
 long formed ; and the experience of each year more and more 
 convinces me that every measure adopted for the increase of our 
 military force, which does not place it on an assured and |;er- 
 tnanent footing, is illusory and inadequate to the object. After 
 the long and repeated warnings we have had, it will be most un- 
 pardonable, if we are not prepared to repel the attack of our 
 enemy, by efforts commensurate with the difficulties and dangers 
 with which we are threatened, and the importance of the objects 
 for which we contend. 
 
 LONDON: PniNTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODK AND CO., NEW-STUEET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET
 
 mm