GENERAL LINDSAYasked the Secretary of State for War, If it is true, as reported in a Military Journal, that he has recently decided to make no alteration either in the position or in the prospects of the Officers promoted to the rank of Colonel for Distinguished Service in the Field during the Crimean War, and who have been deprived of their relative rotation in the list through the action of the Warrant of 1858.
SIR GEORGE LEWISsaid, that one of the last acts of his predecessor at the War Office had been to appoint a Committee to inquire into the subject to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman's question related. On that Committee were Lieutenant General Yorke, Major General Dalzell, Major General Eyre, and Major General Crofton, as well as the hon. and 263 gallant General (General Lindsay) himself. The Committee thus constituted agreed to a Report, which was dated the 25th of July, 1861, and in that Report occurred the following paragraph:—
The more we investigate the subject the more we feel convinced that to disturb the present order of the Colonels' list in favour of the officers in question would be unjust to others who are no less deserving of consideration, and would give rise to renewed confusion, while the general effect of such a proceeding upon the officers of the army would be to shake their confidence in the permanency of any existing system, and in the security of their own positions.The hon. and gallant Officer opposite, it was true, dissented from that paragraph, and made a separate Report; but he himself (Sir George Lewis) after having given the subject the most attentive consideration, had arrived at the conclusion that it would be impossible to disturb the decision at which his predecessors had arrived.