ARMY ESTIMATES. (Hansard, 1 May 1821)

Mr. Bennet
expressed his intention, and that of his hon. friends, of discontinuing the discussions upon the different items of the estimates. After the ordnance estimates should be gone through, either himself or some hon. friend of his would move a series of resolutions upon the whole amount of our army establishment. It was impossible not to see that the House was tired of the discussions which had taken place, from the scanty attendances, and particularly that of last night. Therefore it was, that they intended to make their objections upon the whole sums, and to hold them up to the public, so that the country might see what votes the House were willing to grant. With all their efforts they had not been able to prevail upon the House to reduce one shilling upon the whole of the estimates. He was confident, however, that the country would never again see such estimates brought-down in a time of peace.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer
said, that the House had agreed to the present estimates without correction or diminution, because they were judged to be such as the existing circumstances of the country required. By such circumstances the estimates were always regulated, and were never considered as fixed and permanent expenditure. As to the resolutions of which the hon. member gave notice, on a general scale, when they were brought forward, would be the time to meet them.

Colonal Davies
rose to offer some observations on the subject of half-pay, which, he trusted, would meet with due attention in the right quarter. The number of officers on the half pay of the English and Irish establishments, was 8,616, and the amount annually expended in their 482 maintenance, 765,781l. with this long list, and the enormous burden their support was to the country, it would be thought, that it was the policy of government to do justice to those meritorious officers, by filling up whatever commissions were granted in their favour. But the fact was the reverse. From the 1st of Jan. 1816, to the 1st of July, 1820, the total number of new appointments was 1,105, out of which 54 only were made from the half pay list; all the rest, or the greater part of them, being filled up by favour. The injustice thus done to the public occasioned a great increase of expense, in being obliged to supply the support of the half-pay officer, who might have been removed to full pay, and the public relieved of his maintenance. In order to show the saving which would have been effected to the public, he would show what it would have been if only one-half of the commissions which had been filled up, had been taken from the half-pay. The total of his estimate was 206,353l., which was made upon a calculation of the amount of purchase money, which would have been required for life annuities for the number of officers who would, by this principle, have been removed from the half-pay list. With this view of the injustice done to the country and to the individual officers, he wished to give notice of his intention to move for an address to his majesty, which was a copy verbatim of one which passed that House in the year 1740, nem. con. "That an humble address be presented to his majesty, that for the present and future ease of his majesty's subjects, he would be graciously pleased to employ in his army such persons as now remain upon half-pay who are still qualified to serve his majesty."

§ Lord Palmerston
observed, that it was the anxious desire of the commander-in-chief, to relieve the half-pay list, and to satisfy the claims of the officers on that list by appointing to full pay from it, as far as was consistent with the interests of the country. From Jan. 1816 to Jan. 1821, there had been 1,105 officers commissioned. Of these, 508 had been without purchase, 114 were cadets from Woolwich, and 80 from the half-pay; the remaining 314 were appointed without purchase. On the average, therefore, 62 commissions had been given away every year, of which 38 were to cadets from the military college and to the half-pay list. If the whole of the vacancies in the army 483 were to be filled up from the half-pay list, it would close the army against all the various classes of civil life, and put an end to that connexion between the civil and military so essentially necessary, in a constitutional point of view, and so well calculated to diminish the objections which always existed to a standing army.

§ Mr. Hume,
after a few prefatory remarks, in which he observed, that the effect of the present system was, that only about an eighth of those who received commissions in the army were previously educated at the college, expressed his wish that the small number of ensigns and cornets from the half-pay placed on full pay, as compared with those who had never been in the army to whom commissions were given, might be stated on the Journals, for which purpose, he would move, as an amendment to the resolution, "That it appears by the returns before the House, that from the 25th Jan. 1816, to the 25th Jan. 1821, there were 1,105 first commissions granted by his royal highness the commander in chief, in regiments of cavalry and infantry of the line, to persons who had never before been in the army; of which 597 were by purchase, and 508 without purchase; that there were, during that period, cornets and ensigns on half-pay, from whom these 508 officers might have been selected, and which appointments would have afforded, at the same time, employment to officers of experience, and a saving to the public of about £.29,464 a-year, or a total charge, if taken at twelve years purchase, of £.353,568 to the country; that in these five years, only 54 cornets and ensigns have been brought on full pay, from the great number of 1,214 cornets and ensigns which now are on the half-pay of the army."

§ General Gascoyne
observed, that the hon. member's motion went to exclude all but military men who had already served from entering the ranks of the army; whereas he ought to take into consideration, that after the long contest the country had been engaged in, there must be many meritorious officers whose claims in behalf of their children were entitled to attention. The appointments that had taken place within the last five years were principally of that description, and, generally speaking, those who were upon half-pay at present had no wish to return to full pay Since 1816, from 250 to 300 annually had retired voluntarily from full to half-pay.

§ Sir H. Vivian
called the attention of the House to circumstances of great hardship under which officers of the rank of major-generals laboured in consequence of the existing regulations. He knew an instance in which the officer having expended 5,000l. in the purchase of his commission, was now placed upon a retired allowance equivalent to the half-pay of a lieut-colonel, and not equal to a life annuity which his money would have purchased.

§ Mr. Huskisson
said, that the amendment went directly to stop all promotion in the army, and to recognise the exclusion of all civil ranks of the community. The hon. gentleman was wrong in supposing that it was the general wish of half-pay officers to return to full pay. The deaths amongst the half-pay officers last year were eighty-seven, whilst the whole number of deaths which occurred in the army on active service at home and in every part of the world in the same year, was only sixty-one, which showed the description of the former to be that of worn-out soldiers, not anxious to return to active service.