§ THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH, in presenting Petitions from Indian Officers, complaining of the Loss of Advantages sustained by reason of the Amalgamation of the British and Indian Armies, and praying for Relief, said, these officers alleged that the pledge which Parliament had given to them two years ago, that all the advantages of pay, pension, promotion, allowances and privileges of every description should be maintained to them in any plan that might be adopted for the amalgamation of the Indian army, had not been kept. The view which he took of that Act was that Parliament entered into an engagement for the protection of the interests and rights, not of the army as a body, but of every individual in the army; and that whatever advantages, in the way of promotion or otherwise, each individual might have possessed at the time of the passing of that Act he was still entitled to—that the Crown had taken the government of India subject to that condition, and that that must be faithfully adhered to in every particular. Economy could have no voice where the question was one of justice, and he trusted that that was the view of the question that would be taken by the Government and by Parliament. This preservation of the rights and privileges of the Indian officers and of the men serving in the Indian army would in no way con- 295 flict with the power of the Crown to reorganize the whole body of the Indian army. That power remained as it was. But consistently with that re-organization the Crown must maintain the interests and rights of the officers as they existed on the day the Act was passed. One of the petitioners stated that in 1838 a letter from the Court of Directors granted to all colonels in receipt of certain payments, now called colonels' allowances, who might be unemployed in India, all the advantages of Indian pay and allowances. These were claimed by the petitioner, who occupied this position. No doubt, he was quite covered by the words of the Act of Parliament. It was contrary to the spirit and the words of the Act that he should not be allowed these advantages. There was another case of a somewhat different nature. An officer said that he was now eighth on the list of Engineer colonels, and that by the old arrangement on becoming fifth on the list he would have received a higher allowance; but according to the new arrangement he would not be entitled to receive that allowance till he was fourth on the list. That would appear at first sight to be a case of hardship, and contrary altogether to the Act of Parliament. But he understood that that officer had, in consequence of the very arrangement now complained of, been advanced from the rank of lieutenant-colonel to that of colonel; and had been in receipt for some time of colonel's allowances. Now, while this officer was undoubtedly entitled to all the advantages which attached to his position when the Act passed, it was not consistent with justice that he should derive all the advantages of the reorganization, and then have compensation for any accompanying loss which he might have sustained. The only proper mode of dealing with such a case was to take into account both the advantages and the disadvantages to which that officer had been subjected under the new system and then to effect a fair adjustment between him and the public. Other smaller matters might be mentioned, but the real question which interested the whole army not employed on the staff was the question of promotion. The complaint made was that the promotion of the officers of the army had been in three several ways impeded by the reorganization. They complained that they were not, according to ancient right, permitted to succeed to every vacancy created by retirement. When, in Febuary, 1861, the Government offered as 296 a bonus an additional annuity of £50 to field officers willing to retire from the service, it allowed that promotions should take place in the case of every vacancy so created. When, six months later, it was found that this offer produced only fifty-six applicants, the Government increased its terms so largely that in some cases the annuity offered was eleven times, and in no case was it less than four times, the amount first offered. But when that was done, although promotion was given in the case of captains and majors, it was refused in the case of one half of the lieutenant-colonels. However inconvenient it might be that the whole of these lieutenant-colonels should be replaced by officers coming forward by promotion, still he apprehended it was altogether inconsistent with ancient practice and the rights of the Indian army, and the Act of Parliament which maintained those rights, that they should not have enjoyed the whole of the promotions opened up by the retirement of these lieutenant-colonels. There was another grievance which was complained of under the head of promotion. It was complained, that promotion was not granted in the case of the transfer of officers from the former regiments—from the European regiments to the new regiments that had been formed. These regiments were called by the petitioners "new regiments," whilst the Government denominated them "representative regiments"—a kind of regiment of which he had never before heard— and considered them as representing the old. Formerly there were in the Company's service nine regiments of infantry, and six or four of cavalry. For these were now substituted nine regiments of infantry, and three of cavalry in Her Majesty's service; and it was offered to the various companies and men to volunteer into these regiments, it having been understood that without the volunteering of these men, these regiments could not be formed, inasmuch as the Queen's regiments were available for general service, whereas the Company's regiments were for local service. Thus there was both the representative thing and the thing represented; there was no conversion of whole regiments into representative regiments or anything like it. The complaint was that promotion was not so rapid as it ought to be, in consequence of the transfer of these officers into the new regiments not being followed by the promotion of officers in their room. He could not say he took a very decided 297 view on that subject. He desired that a Commission or a Committee might be appointed, with power to search the records of both services to look for precedents and discover, if possible, any precedent for the conversion of old into representative regiments, or any conversion at all resembling it—so that by direct precedent or analogy they might be guided in their opinion on the subject. It was a subject that required deliberate inquiry, and he could not at present give an opinion on it. But the great grievance of all, the complaint in which the officers were most interested, was that which they made on account of the formation of the Staff Corps, which was a new regiment, or what they called a new regiment. The transfer of no moderate number, some 1,300 officers to the Staff Corps, gave them, as they held, a right of promotion in the place of the officers so transferred. He did not take altogether the view adopted by the petitioners on this subject; and on this ground, that these gentlemen who were now called the Staff Corps, although they did not by any means all be-belong to the staff of the army—on the contrary, many of them held political or civil and administrative appointments, or posts in the commissariat and elsewhere connected with the army — yet these offices always were held by these officers, and there was no new grievance in this respect. It was true that these officers often returned to their regiments at periods very disadvantageous to the public service, when their rank enabled them to take the command although having no military experience; but this had been a standing subject of complaint for the last forty or fifty years. The position of the petitioners was not, therefore, in this respect worse since the day when the Act was passed; and the grievance was not created by the re-organization of the army, or its transfer to the Crown. What the petitioners said, was that these officers were relieved from regimental charges altogether. They did not subscribe to the mess or the band, and they did not contribute to the fund for buying out officers at the head of regiments. They were, however, subject to rules, which the Government said regulated, but the petitioners said retarded, promotion. One of these officers, having attained a higher rank through the more rapid promotion in the Staff Corps, might be sent back to take the command of his regiment over his seniors, 298 and while his name appeared in the roll of the regiment as a subaltern. It had been arranged that officers of the Staff Corps should obtain promotion according to the number of years they had served, and thus they obtained promotion a great deal sooner than others. Now, no one who was conversant with the feelings of officers could fail to know that the most galling thing to them was supersession, and yet it was a necessary consequence of the system that those officers who remained with their regiments should be superseded, and that the Staff Corps should be much more rapidly promoted. Another inconvenience attached to the system was that, detached as these officers were from their regiments, they did not contribute either to the band or mess, and the consequence was that it became difficult to maintain either the one or the other. This tended to disorganize or unregimentalize a regiment and to destroy its esprit de corps. Some parts of the prayer of the petitioners it would, no doubt, be difficult, if not impossible, to grant. The petitioners complained, that whilst they existed together as a regiment, and before the establishment of this Staff Corps, the officers now employed on the service nominally called the staff used to contribute their quota in order to buy out their senior officers for more rapid promotion. All that had been contributed for this purpose was now utterly thrown away. This was no doubt a great hardship, but the Government were of opinion that it was out of their power to remedy it, and indeed, he understood, a legal opinion had been given to the effect that such a contribution was similar to the buying of an office, which was illegal, and therefore that money paid for this purpose could not be recovered. But there were means, he thought, of alleviating these grievances. The rules of the Staff Corps with regard to promotion gave an unusual and unreasonable advantage to officers of that corps. The Government, having contracted with these officers, must comply with the terms they had offered, and give them substantive rank; but there was nothing to prevent the Government from extending the privileges already given to the Staff Corps to the infantry and cavalry, after a certain number of years' service. Thus, brevet rank would, after a certain number of years, be conferred upon officers remaining with their regiments. Thus what he believed to be the main grievance 299 would be done away with. There was nothing, also, to prevent the Government from supplying regiments, which were deprived of the subscriptions of their absent officers, with funds for the maintenance of their bands and mess. He had endeavoured to look at the whole question calmly and dispassionately, and he was sure their Lordships would agree that in all transactions with men the only honourable course, and with soldiers the only prudent course, was that of strict justice; and he would remind their Lordships of what the Duke of Wellington said, that in dealing with soldiers you must not only be just, but make them understand that you were so.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, that the speech of the noble Earl had greatly relieved his mind. He had anxiously considered whether the grievances of the officers of the Indian army were just, and he had come to the conclusion that there was no shadow of ground for the complaint that the guarantees of the Act of Parliament had been violated. It was a serious question whether the Government had fulfilled the intentions of the Legislature and the promises made by Parliament and the Crown, and had kept faith with the officers of that noble service to which England and India owed so much. He agreed also with the noble Earl that the Legislature ought not to look simply to the question of economy in considering the interpretation of a Parliamentary guarantee. He could not, however, help remarking that in almost every case of individual complaint the noble Earl had made some important qualification, implying that the guarantee given by Parliament had not in that particular case been violated. He spoke of the guarantee in general terms, but their Lordships should understand exactly what that guarantee was, and the circumstances under which it had been given. The guarantee to which the noble Earl adverted was, he believed, that known as the Henley Clause in the Act transferring the government of India from the Company to the Crown. This Act declared that the officers of the Company should be under the same obligation to serve Her Majesty as those under which they had served the Company. They were bound to serve within the same territorial limits, on the same terms, at the same rate of pay, pension, and allowance, and were to enjoy the same privileges as regarded promotion as if they had continued in the service of the 300 Company. This was not a guarantee that they should all remain exactly in the same position, though substantially he admitted that in any reorganization of the Indian army it amounted to a promise that the Government would not put these officers in a worse position than they were before. The guarantee, for example, was not to prevent the Government, in its new form, from adopting any measure which it would have been competent and natural for the Government in its old form to take,—or to preclude it from any policy which in an Imperial point of view might be desirable for reducing the army and economizing the resources of the State; but the guarantee was that in carrying out any such reforms care should be taken to protect the interests of the officers of the army. Now, he would not only say that this guarantee had been absolutely fulfilled; but he was prepared to say that in reorganizing the Indian army the officers of the old Company had been dealt with in a large and liberal spirit. The Government determined to effect a large reduction of the native army. The spirit of the implied guarantee was, that such reduction should be carried out on the same principle as the old Company would have carried it out. Now, he need not ask the illustrious Duke the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army what the effect upon each individual officer would be of a determination to reduce the British Army. Their Lordships all knew, that while the men would be disbanded, every single officer in the disbanded regiments would be reduced to half pay; and no one knew better than the illustrious Duke, that if he went to the Chancellor of the Exchequer or to the Government to ask that these officers should receive not only their full pay, but also their pensions, such a request would be little likely to be complied with; yet this was the course which had been followed by the Indian Government in regard to every one of the Indian officers. Take the case of the Bengal army. When the mutiny broke out, the great army of Bengal consisted of seventy-four battalions. When the mutiny was suppressed, of these seventy-four battalions only eleven remained with their arms in their hands—only eleven had remained faithful to the Government. After the mutiny it was determined to reduce the battalions from seventy-four to fifty-two in number. Every one of the officers in the reduced regiments was put, not upon half pay, but full pay, with large allowances. 301 He had, therefore, a right to contend that the spirit as well as the letter of the guarantee had been complied with. Not one single officer had been deprived of any of his pay or of any advantage he had possessed before. They were kept on full pay, and in many instances enjoyed staff appointments besides. So far, too, from the change being carried out in a manner injuriously affecting the prospects of the officers, it very largely increased and accelerated their promotion. An offer was made to every field officer in the Indian army, and to half the captains, to retire on full pay, with an estimated value for the prospect of promotion and full terms for allowances. How many officers took advantage of that proposal? Why, not less than 270 officers accepted those conditions. They, of course, were not entitled to complain, and they were, in fact, perfectly satisfied with the liberality of the Government. Their Lordships would not fail to see how enormously the retirement of this large body of officers had accelerated the promotion of the rest. Many officers had gained from forty to fifty steps in the army thereby; and yet many of the petitioners complained of the great stagnation of promotion. No doubt after such an amount of promotion artificially produced, what he might call the annual crop of retirement and promotion was for a time retarded, but only because it had been in fact anticipated. He had taken the trouble of referring to The Army List, and seeing what had been the position of an individual officer who had presented one of these petitions, and he found, that so far from his being injuriously affected by any measure which the Government had taken, he had gained, by their liberality and by the offer they had made for these new retirements, not less than forty-seven steps, and was brought nearer to his promotion by some three or four years. So much with regard to the question of reduction. He maintained that the Government had a perfect right to reduce its military force, although, of course, that reduction ought to be conducted in a manner as little detrimental as possible to the interests of Indian officers. That, however, he contended had been done the promotion of those officers having been accelerated, and advantages having been even conferred on that army to which it had no strict claim. Then he came to the question of the Staff Corps, the point on which almost all the petitions principally 302 dwelt. Their Lordships were probably aware that it had been the practice of the old Indian Government to administer the affairs of India largely by the aid of officers of the Indian army. Those officers had been employed in the discharge of every kind of duty—purely civil and purely political — as well as of duties half civil and half military. They were taken promiscuously from different regiments, according as the individual officer was thought fit for each particular appointment. Every one of these officers was, nevertheless, continued on the strength of the regiment from which he was chosen. That system was supposed to have injuriously affected the discipline of the regiments from which these officers were withdrawn, and one of the very last acts of Lord Dalhousie's Government was to direct the attention of the Home Government to the serious influence which their abstraction had, and was likely, if continued, to have on the Native army; because it should be remembered that it was not merely that a regiment was deprived of a certain proportion of its officers, but its best officers were regularly picked out and sent away to other employment. That was an evil which would have been equally felt, whether there had or had not been a transference of the Government of India from the Company to the Crown, and whether what was called the Amalgamation Bill had or had not been passed. What, then, had been the remedy proposed? It had been urged by Sir Henry Lawrence, and indeed by a general concurrence of opinion in India, that there should be a separate body formed, from which, and from which alone, these staff officers should be taken. But as fears had been expressed that under the new system it would be difficult to get officers to devote their lives to the service of India as had previously been the case, it had been recommended that considerable inducements should be held out to English officers, whether of the Queen's army or otherwise, with a view to overcome that difficulty. A new code of regulations and conditions was accordingly drawn up for the Staff Corps, which regulated promotion on terms which offered some advantage over regimental service. But no man had a right to complain of this. The Parliamentary guarantee was, that the position of no man should be made worse by the changes effected; it was not a guarantee that no man's position should be made better. But if we gave new ad- 303 vantages under new conditions, it was in the nature of things that only a certain portion of that army would be able to avail itself of them, and, no doubt, those who could not do so might consider themselves prejudiced by the arrangement. That, however, did not flow from the amalgamation, nor from any violation of the Parliamentary guarantee, but from a great measure of policy for the general benefit of the empire. Alternative remedies had been suggested by those officers. One was that all the officers who went upon the Staff Corps should be removed from the strength of the regiments, and that promotion should go on in the regiments, filling up the vacancies thus created. It should be observed that the evil they complained of was that the advantages of the new system were unequally distributed. Look at the remedy they proposed for that. In the Bombay army what would be its effect upon two regiments — for example, the 4th and 5th Native Infantry? It so happened that in the first of those regiments only four or five officers had volunteered into the Staff Corps, while in the second fourteen or fifteen had done so, all of them being captains. What, then, would be the result of removing these names from the strength of the regiments and allowing promotion to go on as suggested? Why, in the 4th Native Infantry it would have very little effect, four or five men going a stop upwards; whereas in the 5th Regiment one of the junior lieutenants would be immediately promoted to the rank of major, and after about nine years' service he would thus be placed over the head of men who had been fourteen or fifteen or twenty years in the army? The other alternative suggested was that special promotion to the Staff Corps only should cease. Now, that was a question of general policy, and no man was entitled to complain, as a personal grievance, that it had been determined in a way to put others before himself. If it were desirable as a matter of Imperial policy to offer special advantages to officers of the Staff Corps, that certainly in no way infringed the Parliamentary guarantee given to the officers of the Indian army. Their position remained exactly what it had been before in respect to regimental promotion. He now came to another point mentioned in the petitions. When the number of regiments of the native army was reduced, of course the number of colonelcies had to be reduced also; and he did not see 304 that any man was then entitled by the guarantee to demand that his prospects in respect to the command of a regiment should remain precisely what they were before that reduction. At the same time, in order to meet the claims of those officers in a still larger and more liberal spirit, a new rule had very recently been adopted by the Indian Government, providing that all lieutenant-colonels, after they had served twelve years, should be in a position to become entitled to regimental allowances He did not know whether that would entirely meet the views of some of these officers, because he believed that many of them had extravagant expectations; but he maintained that the Government had not only faithfully adhered to the guarantee, but given it a large and liberal interpretation in their favour. He had a statement in his hand, showing the actual effect of the new regulations. The total number of officers in the Indian army on the 1st of January, 1861, exclusive of colonels of regiments, was 5,309. Of these, the number who had joined the Staff Corps was 1,333. [The EARL of ELLENBOROUGH: Of whom 19 only were Queen's officers.] Just so; and therefore the whole of the rest were officers of the old Native army. The number who had been transferred to the British service—Artillery, Engineers, and new Line regiments—was 1,356. The number who had accepted annuities and retired was 270. The promotion which had been given in the Indian army as a consequence of these several measures were as follows: in the Staff Corps 22 officers had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, 342 to that of major, 301 to that of captain, and 4 to that of lieutenant, making together 669. By transfers to the new Line regiments the following promotions had taken place among the Indian officers: 3 to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, 17 to that of major, 63 to that of captain, and 15 to that of lieutenant. The officers who had received promotion in consequence of the retirements occasioned by the offer of extra annuities were as follows:—49 to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, 87 to the rank of major, and 103 to the rank of captain, making together 239. The total number of promotions made among 3,683 officers who remained in the Indian service was no less than 908—a very large proportion in a very short period. He had gone into these details because he was anxious to show that full faith had been kept with these officers, and that they had 305 no good ground of complaint whatever. It would have been cause of deep regret to the Government if any action on their part had given any just ground of complaint to the officers of a service to which we owed some of the most memorable days of our military glory, and which had rendered immortal services to the State.
§ THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHregretted that only nineteen Queen's officers had entered the Staff Corps, because that corps was hereafter to furnish officers for the whole of the Indian army, and it was only from the Queen's service that it could be recruited. If, therefore, up to the present time only nineteen Queen's officers had joined the corps, he must say that our hopes for the future were not very encouraging.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLasked to be permitted to add to what he had already stated that it was perfectly true that an officer who had been home on sick leave for four years was unable to enter the Staff Corps on his return to India. When the corps was first formed, it was composed of those officers who were actually at the moment engaged upon staff employment. It was subsequently employed under this condition: that officers seeking to enter should have been on staff employment some time during the previous three years. That regulation, however, in no way affected the prospects of the officer in question, in respect to staff employment, though it did effect his prospects in staff promotion.
§ THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGEsaid, he could not participate in the alarm with which the noble Earl (the Earl of Ellenborough) viewed the fact that only nineteen Queen's officers had volunteered into the Staff Corps. It was right their Lordships should remember the circumstances under which the Line officers were invited to enter that corps. The regulations of the corps were perfectly new, and one of the most essential was that all the officers should have a knowledge of the native language. For the acquisition of that knowledge a considerable amount of study was evidently required, and until the position and requirements of the Staff Corps became thoroughly known the Line officers, of course, did not attempt to qualify themselves for admission. The old Indian officers, on the other hand, were already qualified. Now, that the regulations were well understood and the advantages known, he had not the slightest doubt that the number of Queen's officers entering the 306 Staff Corps would prove amply sufficient for the object in view. It should be recollected, moreover, that at the first formation of the corps it was of the greatest importance that the old local officers should volunteer into it. The corps was not only a military corps: it was to supply the whole political and civil staff of India. For such employments the most qualified men at the present moment evidently were the officers of the old local service, who had been hitherto engaged in similar avocations, and who were merely transferring their services from their old regiments to the Staff Corps. With regard to the other grievance that after a term of service they would return to their regiments with a higher rank and supersede other efficient officers, the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) had answered this point so fully, that he had left nothing for him to say; and he would only observe that one of the chief objections to the old system in India was, that the return to his regiment, when on service, of an officer who had been engaged in some civil occupation often led to the displacement of a more efficient officer. Such was the very evil which the Staff Corps was formed to remove, and therefore it was not correct to attribute its formation to the outbreak of the mutiny, though its organization was doubtless accelerated by that deplorable event. Something had been said of the Native regiments, but, in point of fact, those regiments had ceased to exist. The cadres of officers were still in existence, because their perpetuation was necessary for the regulation of promotion; but the officers had no regiments, and therefore it was impossible that they could return to them in a higher grade from the Staff Corps. Here he might be referred to the Madras and Bombay armies; but though he was not aware whether the Government had come to any decision on the subject, he certainly understood that the new system adopted in Bengal was to be gradually extended to the other two Presidencies. He did not think the officers of the Indian army had any real grievance. In the Queen's army, if the number of regiments was reduced, the officers were asked no questions, but simply told their services were not further required for the present, and they were placed on half-pay; whereas, the Government had done its best to diminish the difficulties in the Indian service. He did not believe the officers had lost anything by the recent changes; on 307 the contrary, he believed that the greatest liberality had been shown to them, and he was very glad that that was so, for the position they were placed in was one of the most painful character, and one attributable in no way to the acts of the gallant gentlemen themselves. The noble Earl had remarked upon the declaration required from an officer when he retired from his regiment, to the effect that he would not accept more than the regulation price of his commission. A similar declaration formerly existed in the Line regiments, but it had long since been done away with, for the simple and sufficient reason that it was invariably evaded. He believed that the declaration required in India was given up about the same time; but its abandonment must not be taken as an acknowledgment that a bonus should be given to any officer to induce him to retire. All the other points raised by the noble Earl had been fully discussed, and he could only add that if at any time any considerable reduction should be made in the British Army, he hoped the same liberality would be shown by the country as it had exhibited in the case of the Indian officers. He did not think that any officer of the Indian local service had suffered by the change which had taken place; and he was very glad of it, because he agreed with the noble Earl and the noble Duke that our old Indian officers deserved to be treated in a large and liberal spirit. He was glad this question had been raised, because it had elicited a very clear explanation from his noble Friend (the Duke of Argyll) which he hoped would satisfy all the officers concerned that the Government was really anxious to do justice towards them.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLwished to add, that an order had been sent out to India that in no case should an officer be transferred from the staff to the command of a regiment in supersession of any other officer who had been doing regimental duty.
§ House adjourned at half past Six o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.