§ CAPTAIN STACPOOLEsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if a Captain of Cavalry who has purchased all his steps under the old Regulations wishes to exchange with a Captain of Infantry or to sell out of the Service, from what source he is to receive the difference between the price which he had paid and the present Regulation value of his Troop?
§ Mr. SIDNEY HERBERTin reply said, that the sum advanced by the officers was paid into the reserved fund, and they would receive any difference from that source.
The object of the warrant referred to by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Dickson) was to place the medical officers of a regiment in a position to give weight and authority to their advice and professional opinion when it was tendered. Changes of this kind were carried out with some difficulty at the time, but it was felt to be desirable by giving the surgeons a higher army rank to mark the status which the surgeon held in a regiment. [Colonel DICKSON: Will the warrant be retrospective?] Every officer now in the army dated back his seniority, and the same rule would apply in the present case.
In reply to the question of the noble Lord (Lord W. Graham), he had to state 193 that he had made an inaccurate answer to the noble Lord on a former occasion, in regard to the repurchase of a portion of the land. There could be no doubt of the legality of the sale. The land was not sold under the statute of Queen Anne, but under an Act passed in October, 1784. It was subsequently vested in the Ordnance Board under the provisions of the same Act amended. The power of the Ordnance to sell was undoubted, but the policy of the sale was a very different question. There was a great deal of truth in the opinion that the sale of this land was made without proper consideration and forethought as to the future value of the property. With respect to the railway extension adverted to by the hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Elphinstone), no doubt the Company had offered that the works should be destroyed in case of war or other necessity, but such promises were easy to make and very difficult to exact. The hon. Gentleman had recommended the appointment of a Commission acquainted with the value of land to inquire into the subject of the Government land at Portsmouth which it might be advisable to sell. It would, however, be necessary that such a Commission should contain Members acquainted with Ordnance. [Sir JAMES ELPHINSTONE: I would combine both; gentlemen acquainted with the value of land and gentlemen acquainted with the improved ordnance of the times.] That was, no doubt, an improvement in the hon. Gentleman's recommendation.