§ Order for Committee (of Supply read;)
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
MR. M'EVOYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, in defending a recent appointment, had stated that it would be a cowardly and shabby thing if he were to pass over an officer who was perfectly qualified for the post in his gift, merely because he held a place at Court. He was now about to afford the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity of proving his ingenuousness in that remark. A practice had grown up of late years of giving an increased number of commissions to deserving non-commissioned officers, and the present Commander-in-Chief had done more in this respect than many of his predecessors. But, while men were thus promoted it was not fair that their new position should place them in circumstances of embarrassment. A man, after perhaps twenty-five years' service, on being promoted from the ranks, was not allowed to make this the ground of a claim towards a pension, though, by a rule of the War Office for which he could not find any authority, it was the custom to allow him to count half his previous service. So that a man entering the army at twenty years of age, and obtaining his commission at forty-five, would have to serve till he was sixty-five years of age, before he was entitled to retire upon full-pay. But a man at forty-five, after enduring all the fatigues and hardships of his profession, was in no condition to commence a new term of service before he could look forward to the enjoyment of a full retiring allowance. Quartermasters and paymasters —on what ground he was unable to say— were allowed to count the whole of their previous service. To the argument that the latter could not expect promotion, was to be opposed the fact that men ordinarily obtained their commissions at an age when they could not expect to rise higher than the command of a company. The sum produced by the half-pay of a captain and the investment of the price of his commis- 563 sion was insufficient to support him in the position to which he was entitled; and a case had come to his knowledge in which an officer who had received his promotion in the manner referred to, applied for the post of recruiting officer, for which he was perfectly eligible, but was unable to obtain it, because he was not allowed to count his former service. The cost to the State of the change which he advocated would be trifling; the aggregate amount would not, he believed, exceed the pay of one general officer.
§
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She may be graciously placed to order that those Officers in the Army who have been promoted from the ranks may be allowed to reckon their previous services in the ranks, in the same manner as is now permitted to Paymasters and Quarter-masters, so as to enable them to avail themselves of the 30th section of the Royal Warrant of the 14th day of October, 1858, which regulates the retirement of Combatant Officers in the Army and Ordnance Corps,'
§ —instead thereof.
COLONEL DUNNEseconded the Amendment, and said he was convinced that the sympathies of the House would be with those officers who, through their own efforts and because of distinguished service, had risen from the ranks. There was no army in which the expenses attaching to the position of an officer were greater than in the British army, and yet there was none in which the officers were treated more niggardly. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary at War would show good reason why the boon now asked for officers who had risen from the lower grades of the army should not be granted to them. It was not the rank which such men valued, but the money which would enable them to provide for their families and maintain them in the position which their good conduct had attained. The House had been told the other night of a naval officer who had refused the command of a vessel, because, as he said, he could not afford it; and he hoped that the men whose merits deserved promotion in the army would not be obliged to decline commissions when offered to them for a similar reason. Promotion ought certainly to be granted under circumstances which would render it a boon and not a punishment.
§ MR. SIDNEY HERBERTsaid, in answer to the question which had been put 564 to him by his hon. and gallant Friend, that he quite sympathized with him in his desire to do away with everything which was unfair to those officers who had risen by their merit from the ranks to hold commissions in Her Majesty's army; but he thought his hon. and gallant Friend did not draw a sufficient distinction between non-commissioned officers rising to be ensigns or lieutenants, as the case might be, and those who were selected to be quartermasters and paymasters. Those posts required peculiar qualifications, and very few of those who were promoted from the ranks to commissions would be found to possess those special qualifications. The peculiar advantages given to all officers who rose from the ranks should also be considered. He (Mr. Sidney Herbert) confessed that he was not certain that it was always a very great advantage to a man to be raised from the ranks; and experience had shown that although we should always keep that reward open, by which we might hope ultimately to attract a better class of men into the army, yet he believed that, in the majority of the cases, the officers so promoted regretted their promotion. Look, on the other hand, to what were the advantages which were given to a man promoted from the ranks compared with those of an officer who possessed a commission and had not been in the ranks. In the first place, a rigid examination was exacted from every officer who was preparing for a Queen's commission, and it was laid down that it must be certain that he was possessed of a certain amount of education and attainments. In the case of an officer promoted from the ranks, that rule was broken through entirely, for otherwise no man could be promoted from the ranks. Therefore, a great exception was made in favour of a man who was promoted from the ranks. When first he had the honour of filling the office of Secretary of State for War a man promoted from the ranks had out of nothing to purchase his whole outfit. A change had been made, and now £150 was allotted to every man who was promoted from the ranks in the cavalry, and £100 to every man promoted to an ensigncy in the infantry. A commissioned officer was allowed nothing. Here, again, was an advantage which the officers who had not risen from the ranks did not obtain. Further, the officer from the ranks had the advantage of being allowed to count two years in the ranks as one towards his 565 pension or retirement as a commissioned officer. [Mr. M'EVOY: On what authority?] He could not quote the authority; but it was their universal practice at the Horse Guards, in the case of officers who rose from the ranks, to allow two years in the ranks to be counted for one of commissioned service. Here, again, was a very great advantage. If, again, they referred to the case of paymasters and quartermasters, they would find that in that service, which, as he said before, was of a peculiar nature, the service in the ranks was not counted unless there were so many years' service with the commission. The difference between the two was not so great. An officer who rose from the ranks, if he wished to dispose of his commission, was allowed £100 for every year he had held it. That did not apply to the commissioned officers, but the rule was made in favour of men who had risen from the ranks. He did not see that they could safely extend the rule so as to allow noncommissioned service to count as commissioned service beyond what was already permitted. He thought they had gone as far as it was expedient, by allowing two years to count for one, and giving those other and great advantages which it was wise and politic to give to non-commissioned officers promoted from the ranks. It should be recollected there was a very great difference between non-commissioned and commissioned service. One was the service that obeyed, the other the service that commanded. The service that commanded required the higher qualifications; the whole distinction between the ranks rested on the additional value given to the officer above the man. He did not think he would be justified in holding out a prospect that any alteration such as had been proposed would be made.
COLONEL DICKSONconsidered that the right hon. Gentleman had overstated the case against officers who rose from the ranks, but who did not fill the position of either paymaster or quartermaster. He denied that they required less qualification than either paymasters or quartermasters. On the contrary, they generally became adjutants, and that was a post which required not only the greatest qualification but the greatest tact and manner, because it was on such an officer that the efficiency of a regiment mainly depended. The £100 allowance spoken of was given in lieu of the right to sell out, but it in no way compensated for that right; for if, 566 for example, he held a lieutenant's commission for three years he got £300 for it on retiring, though its value was £1,100. The great advantage which the non-commissioned officer derived from his promotion was the value of the commission, and that advantage he should have the power of realizing to the fullest extent by being allowed to sell out like other officers.
COLONEL LINDSAYremarked that, as a general rule, the service wished to give an opportunity to non-commissioned officers, as far as practicable, to rise from the ranks into the position of commissioned officers. It might not be usual for noncommissioned officers to desire to obtain commissions, or that a very large promotion from the ranks was desirable; but he would leave it open to every man to have an opportunity of rising. What they wanted was that the officer should be allowed to count his service as a non-commissioned officer, in order that he might come with the greater rapidity to that position when he could retire on full pay. They also wished that service as a noncommissioned officer should be allowed to count towards the sale of the commission, that he might receive the full price of it for the benefit of his family if he had one; if he had not, the officer generally remained in the service till he advanced another step, and then retired on full pay. He thought this was a small boon to be asked for by those officers, and one that might be granted without any injury to the finances of the country. It was not likely they would ever have a larger infusion of such officers, but it was very desirable to give the opportunity of rising to as many as possible.
§ Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.
§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITHrose to call the attention of the House to the stoppage of a portion of a cavalry officer's pay for forage; and said that this point had been taken up by both the late and the present Secretaries at War, but that the Treasury had in each case refused to entertain the question. He condemned the practice as anomalous and contradictory. If the Government had refused to find forage for the horses of the cavalry altogether that would have been intelligible; but he could not understand with what consistency they first professed to give the forage and took back more than half the price by this miserable deduction. It was well known 567 that the officering of the cavalry had of late years become a difficult matter, as there were no fewer than thirty-six vacancies without applicants during the last year. There were several causes for this. In the first place, it was found that from the changes in the art of war, professional work was now demanded from the officers, so that gentlemen could no longer enter the cavalry as a mere source of amusement. The system of examination had also produced a discouraging effect. The next he was about to mention might appear a small matter, but he was satisfied it had its weight. Formerly it was only the officers of the cavalry that were allowed to wear moustaches, and hence moustaches were regarded as the badge of the aristocratic branch of the service; but now that all officers were allowed to wear them the prestige of the enjoyment of a particular privilege in that respect had gone from the cavalry service. Well, what was the course taken by the Government? They had taken certain steps in the right direction. They had reduced the price of commissions, and they had allowed officers to obtain their chargers from the regimental stud; but still there remained this great anomaly of which he complained. He had already mentioned that the objection to its removal came from the Treasury. He had always supposed that when "My Lords" of the Treasury decided on anything, it was at a real meeting of the Board with the First Lord of the Treasury at their head; and believing that he certainly had some difficulty in reconciling the narrow views expressed in the Treasury correspondence with that great knowledge of social life which the First Lord was well known to possess. But it lately came out, in the course of another discussion, that this Board, like some other Boards, was a mere fiction; that there was no meeting of "My Lords," and that the whole was done by the Secretary of the Treasury. That quite altered the case, for it was not surprising that a gentleman lately taken from commercial pursuits should be wholly unacquainted with the military service of the country. Some of his arguments were certainly very surprising. The Secretary at War stated that they had now to do with a less opulent class of officers, and it would be necessary, therefore, to reduce as much as possible their expenses. To this the reply was that the more the cost of the service was lowered the more the extra price of com- 568 missions would be enhanced, and that they must deal with this question on commercial principles. That showed a surprising want of knowledge of the world. Why, upon commercial principles no man would go into the army at all. His pay did not afford to him a reasonable annuity for the capital expended in the purchase of his commission, so that it might be said he served his country for nothing. A man went into the army for honour, for distinction, for status in society, for a few inches of ribbon or a medal, and the commercial principle was the last consideration that entered his head. He concluded by moving the following Resolution:—
That, in the opinion of this House, it is unjust to the Officers of Cavalry, and not creditable to the Country, that a stoppage should be made from their pay of 8½d. per horse per day for the forage supplied to the horses which they are required to keep for the performance of their regimental duty, and that it is expedient that such deduction should be discontinued in future.
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, that as the House had decided on the last Question, "that the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," it was not competent for the hon. Member to move another Motion. The Question was that he do now leave the Chair.