GENERAL PEELIn the notice which I gave of my intention to ask the Secretary for War, if any decision had been arrived at in regard to the Reserved, Fund, I purposely reminded the House that its attention had been specially called to this fund, in the Report of the Committee on Military Organization; and, I did so, in the hope that hon. Members would refer to the report and the evidence on which it was founded, for the purpose of obtaining some information about it. On looking at it, however, I do not think that either the Report or the evidence conveys a sufficiently strong impression of the importance of this fund as affecting the system of purchase in the army. The Committee express no opinion of their own as to the propriety of continuing this fund, they leave it entirely to the decision of the House. They quote the opinion of the then Secretary for War, Mr. Herbert; but as there may be many Members who have not read the Report, and others who having read it may have forgotten it, I will take the liberty of reading three short paragraphs from page 12 of the Report.
The Secretary of State contends, that in practice this fund is of eminent advantage both to the army and to the public. He argues, that it stimulates promotion, and relieves the dead weight without any charge to the public. He admits, however, that Parliament, in the strict sense, is not cognizant of the existence of this fund: it is not voted; no account is rendered; no constitutional checks are imposed; the Secretary of State may apply it to any purpose he thinks fit; and Mr. Herbert says "that in principle there is no doubt the existence of this fund is wrong." Your Committee have endeavoured to discharge their duty by calling the attention of the House of: Commons especially to this subject, It will be for the House to determine whether a large sum of money, raised by the sale of the commissions, shall be applied even to useful purposes at the: present moment, without Parliamentary sanction or direct Parliamentary knowledge. If this Reserve Fund be permitted to continue for the sake of the useful purposes to which it may be applied, at least an account of the receipt and expenditure should be laid before Parliament every year, when the Army Estimates are presented; and this account should be submitted year by year to an independent official audit.Of this I think there can be no doubt, but ! the question still remains —Shall this 975 fund be continued? Are the purposes to which it is applied so useful as to justify the continuance of a fund, which its warmest advocate admits to be wrong in principle? I think the objections to the principle may be obviated by the adoption of the recommendations of the Committee. I do not object to the existence of the fund, or to the purposes to which it has been applied; my objection, and it is a very strong one, is to the manner in which the fund is raised. There is very little in the evidence taken before this Committee to show how this fund originated, or to what purposes, until recently, it has been applied. A much fuller account of it is given in the evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the system of Purchase and Sale of Commissions, that sat in the year 1856–7. From that it appears, that up to the year 1825, his Royal Highness the Duke of York, who was then Commander-in Chief, and it is believed his predecessor, Sir David Dundas, was in the habit of occasionally directing an Ensigncy to be sold, for the purpose of making a charitable donation to the widows and orphans of officers who had died in the service. If the amount given was less than that produced by the sale of the commission, the balance was paid to a small fund entirely under the direction of the Commander-in-Chief. He gave no account of it to anybody, and it was used solely for charitable purposes. In the year 1825 another fund was created. In consequence of the great reduction that had taken place in the army after the peace in 1815, the half-pay list, or dead weight, was exceedingly heavy, and there had been great stagnation in the promotions in the army, in consequence of officers being brought in from the half-pay list, when opportunities occurred of doing so. It was, therefore, decided to permit the officers on half-pay who wished to retire from the service to do so; receiving a commuted allowance for their half-pay. This was effected by selling their half-pay commissions; and the difference between the sums paid to the officers as commuted allowance, and that produced by the sale of their commissions, amounted to £80,000. This is the first occasion on which the Government derived any apparent advantage from the sale of commissions. I say apparent, because the officers who purchased these half-pay commissions were so much younger than the officers who retired that it was substituting younger 976 lives for the half-pay annuity; and in the following year, 1826, the sale of half-pay commissions was put an end to, and the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, who was then temporarily Commander-in-Chief —it may not be known to many Members that, amongst the numerous offices which the noble Lord has filled with so much credit to himself and advantage to the public is that of Commander-in-Chief— directed that this sum of £80,000 should be paid over to the Treasury, and it was placed to the credit of the Consolidated Fund. Lord Hardinge, when Secretary at War, made many attempts to recover this sum from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in order to make use of it for army purposes. But we all know the difficulty of recovering money from a Chancellor of the Exchequer. You might as well attempt to get back the taxes you paid last-year; and, of course, Lord Hardinge failed. The money was appropriated to the public service, and there was an end of that fund and the system by which it was created. A new plan was adopted with regard to the half-pay officers, and those who were permitted to retire were brought upon full pay, when clear vacancies occurred, and sold the full-pay commission. If they had received the difference on going upon half-pay, they were called upon to repay it; and these repayments formed a fund which was under the control of the Commander-in-Chief, and was employed in cancelling half-pay. It never could have been of any great amount, because in 1841, when Lord Hardinge (more fortunate in rescuing the fund from the Commander-in-Chief than he had been from the Chancellor of the Exchequer) directed that it should be paid over to the Paymaster General of the Forces, it only amounted to £3,090. In 1851 Lord Panmure, then Secretary at War, took possession of the Fund, and it has remained ever since under the control of the Secretary at War or Secretary for War, both offices being held by the same individual. A far more extended operation, however, has been given to this fund —an extension by no means to be measured by the amount of £160,000 which it had arrived at when the Committee inquired into it, because that only represents the difference between the sums paid to officers who have retired and the amount produced by the sale of their commissions, a difference which varies in every instance, according to the length of the services of the officer who retires. A 977 practice has sprung up of giving to officers who have not purchased their commissions, an allowance of £100 a year for their services, provided the sum given in no instance exceeds the price of the commission they hold. The commission is sold; and if the officer's services do not entitle him to the whole amount, the balance is paid over to the fund: for instance, if a captain of twelve years' service retires, his commission is sold for £1,800, he receives £1,200, and the remaining £600 goes to the fund, When this practice commenced, or by whom it was originated, nobody appears to know. It appears to me to have been the very ingenious suggestion of some civil officer of the War Department for the purpose of raising this fund, for on no other grounds can it be accounted for. His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, when examined before the Committee, said, he could not conceive why it was given. His answer would imply even something more for the Chairman, Sir James Graham, says—Q. 3920. "Your Royal Highness, from the answer which you have just given, would raise a doubt whether that gift of £100 a year is founded in equity, or not?—A. I never could understand why it was given.By the regulations of the service, which have been in force since the reign of Queen Anne, and are founded on an Act of Parliament, an officer who has not purchased is not entitled to sell his commission until he has served twenty years, or to go upon half-pay until he has served twenty-six years. This practice of giving £100 a year entirely overrules the Act of Parliament, because an ensign of four and a half years' or a lieutenant of six and a half years' service, may retire and receive the whole price of his commission.The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Coventry, who had himself been Secretary at War, and knew more of the regulations of the service than anybody, remarked—
Q. 4007. "But, it is now clearly only a matter of indulgence to the officer, arid he has no right to this allowance on retirement" —A. (Duke of Cambridge:) "I think, that if an officer had not misconducted himself, and did not get it, he would consider that he was an injured man; I should consider that he had as much right to it as thatThe Secretary for War, Lord Herbert, acknowledged the right in still stronger terms, for in answer to a remark of mine—Q. 6800. "But every officer you compel to purchase, will afterwards have the power of selling, will he not?He says—And so also will officers who do not purchase.978Q. 6801. "Not until after a certain number of years' service? —A. Yes, they may sell, and get a hundred pounds for each year they have served.The right, however, is clearly recognised by a general order from the Horse Guards issued in the course of the present year, to which I shall allude presently; and if the practice is to be discontinued, it will be necessary to give notice to those who may consider themselves entitled to this allowance. Now, let me call the attention of the House to the very unfair distinction that this creates between the officer who has purchased his commission and the one who has obtained it without purchase. This is shown by the questions put by the Chairman to His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, from Question 3894 to Question 3905; but as the result is summed up in the latter, it will only be necessary for me to read the first and last—I will take the case of an ensign serving for four years, who bought his commission, and the case of an ensign to whom a commission was given, also serving for tour years; their qualifications and services being exactly the same. The difference therefore is, that the one officer who has purchased his commission receives only £72 a year for his four years' service, and the officer to whom a commission is given, receives £190 a year?—Certainly, there is no doubt of that.That is the accurate state of the account between the two?—Yes; that is the practical working of that system.Bad as this makes the case appear for the purchasing officer, I deny that it is an accurate statement of it; because in the calculation by which this result is arrived at, there is only deducted interest at the rate of 4 per cent on the amount vested in the purchase of the commission; but it must be recollected that the officer is risking the capital all the time. If he were to die, the money would be lost to his family; and a further deduction, therefore, ought to be made, of whatever would be required to insure his life for an amount equal to the price of his commission; and this would reduce his receipts to less than one third of those of the non-purchasing officer. It appear, therefore, that this fund is raised by the sale of commissions contrary to the regulations of the service, in order to carry out a practice, the effect of which is to create a very unfair distinction between officers who have purchased, and those who have not. Now, let us look at the purposes to which the fund has been applied. One has been to reduce the regulation price of cavalry commissions to that of infantry, and it is effected by paying to the cavalry officer, 979 on his retirement, the difference between the old and new prices out of the fund; but unless you can reduce, not the regulation price, but the actual or selling price, the only effect of this will be, to put into the pocket of the cavalry officers a sum of money raised at the expense of infantry officers, for I will venture to say that 99 per cent of this fund has been raised by the sale of infantry commissions, the holders of which ought to have obtained them, or at all events, might have obtained them without purchase. If the cavalry officer can still obtain the sum of £4,000 or £5,000 for the troop which has only cost him £1,800, instead of the old regulation price of £3,225, it is evident that you are giving him a great advantage at the expense of the fund. The value of his commission, like everything else for sale, is not what was given for it, but what it will fetch. Now, I freely admit that the reduction of the price for cornetcies from £850 to £450 had a very beneficial effect, and enabled you to fill up the numerous cornetcies that were vacant. Officers were induced to purchase at the lower price, and a first commission is never sold for more than the regulation price, because nobody knows who will be appointed to it; and therefore no bargain can be made for it; but if these cornets are obliged to pay the old selling prices for their lieutenancies and troops, they will be no gainers in the end—they will have to pay for these so much more than the regulation. Now, that more than the regulation is paid is matter of notoriety. The Royal Commission, at page 21 of their Report, say—The practice, therefore, of paying sums exceeding the regulation price must be considered to be an accompaniment of the purchase system, which it appears impossible to prevent.And at page 23—The regulation price of commissions is a fiction, and the large sums which officers are compelled to pay for promotion aggravate the evil effects of the system.But if a more recent proof be required, it is furnished by the evidence taken before that extraordinary Court Martial that has recently been held in Dublin. It appears in that evidence that the senior lieutenant was not for purchase—that is, he was not prepared to give that price beyond the regulation without which nobody would sell; but no sooner did it appear probable that a captain would be compelled to send in his papers and sell his 980 commission for the regulation price, than he instantly returned his name for purchase, and thus put an end to the arrangements made by the senior purchasing lieutenant. It is clear, therefore, that the selling price of cavalry commissions is not yet reduced. Another purpose to which this fund has been applied is that of purchasing up the commissions in the corps of Gentlemen at Arms and Yeomen of the Guard. These are no longer to be purchasing corps; and the appointments, for the future, are to be given to half-pay officers. A third purpose, and one by which the country is more directly the gainer, has been that of purchasing half-pay commissions, by which, I understand, a saving of £8,000 a year has been made.Now, I think my noble Friend, Lord Herbert, having this £160,000 to dispose of, did very wisely in getting rid of it by these means. There was the Report of the Committee hanging over it, and the precedent of its being transferred to the Treasury, and the sooner he made use of it for army purposes the better; but if he had not had the fund in hand, I do not think he would have been justified in selling a single commission to carry out any one of these purposes. I do not see why an infantry commission should be sold to pay a cavalry officer, or why the system of purchase in the army should be extended in order to put an end to it in the corps of Gentlemen at Arms and Yeomen of the Guard. There are, besides, conditions attached to the appointments to these corps, which deprive many officers of any chance of obtaining them. A subaltern officer is not eligible, and then every candidate must be so many feet so many inches high. A little hero (and there are many of them) has no chance. As to purchasing up half-pay commissions, I consider you have no right whatever to sell a commission for the purpose of doing so. The practice of giving £100 a year to officers who have not purchased has extended the system of purchase to every commission in purchasing regiments. If an officer has purchased, he has a right, or, at all events, a strong claim, to sell; if he has not purchased, his commission is sold to pay him the £100 a year. When the Government became dealers in commissions, and sold those that were not naturally for sale, as in the case of first appointments in 1854, and the commissions of the officers who had not purchased. The system of purchases was extended, as I have shown, to 981 every commission. This was not only not denied, but was defended by the Secretary for War (Mr. Herbert). He was asked by the hon. and gallant General the Member for Westminster (Sir De Lacy Evans), Q, 6,804, whether the practice of giving £100 a year to the non-purchasing officers did not extend the system of purchase; and he answered, "Not the system, but the action of the system." And in answer to Q. 6,802, he stated it as his opinion, that as long as you have the system of purchase, you should make the most of it. As long as officers buy, others must sell.
Why, this is what the officers themselves say who sell their commissions for more than the regulation. As long us the sys tern of purchase exists, make the most of it; buy in the cheapest market, sell in the dearest; or, better still, do not buy at all, and sell in the dearest; for every one of these commissions that have not been purchased are just as liable to be sold for more than the regulation as the commissions of the officers who have purchased. The officer who is going to retire knows who is the senior officer for purchase, and may say to him, "I will retire if can get so much money. I shall only receive so much for my services, and unless you make up the difference, I will remain." Now, I have always taken a different view of this question. I am not an advocate of the abolition of the purchase system, and I do not think it would be practicable, even if it was desirable; but I am totally opposed to the Government becoming a party to it. I do not deny that the operation of this fund has had the effect of stimulating promotion, but amongst those only who have the means of purchasing, to the total exclusion of those who have not, or that it has had the effect of relieving the dead weight, when applied to cancelling half-pay; but these officers who retire and get the allowance of £100 a year are not entitled to go upon half-pay. If it is thought that their services have entitled them to some allowance, the country, to whom those services have been rendered, ought to pay it, and not to throw the burden upon others. It is wonderful how generous we are at other people's expense, we give these officers an allowance of £100 a year for their services, but we make the purchasing officer pay it, and put something very handsome besides into our own pockets. It is exactly the same system as that adopted at Woolwich and Sandhurst. 982 We generously educate a certain number of orphans, sons of officers, free of all expense, and the sons of all officers at less than the absolute cost; but then we make the other cadets pay for it by charging them more than the actual cost. So long as this fund was used for only charitable purposes, to give to those who were dependent upon officers who had died in your service, but had themselves no claim upon the public purse, I do not think there would be any objection to a limited application of it, or that anybody would grudge having to purchase for such a purpose, but when it is raised for the purpose of relieving the public at the expense of individuals, it is Unite a different thing. A circumstance has occurred since the Committee reported, which renders the continuance of this allowance of £100 a year more objectionable than ever. Twelve non-purchasing regiments have been added to the British Army by the amalgamation with the Indian Army. Now, what do you intend to do with the officers who will hereafter be appointed to these regiments? Do you intend to give them this allowance or not? A general order has been issued from the Horse Guards which, in my opinion, leaves this very doubtful; but the right to the allowance of £100 a year in purchasing regiments is so clearly recognised (except in the case of misconduct), that so long as that order remains uncancelled any officer entering the service may fairly claim it. The order is—
GENERAL ORDER, "No. 807.Horse Guards, S.W., 19th February, 1862.With regard to the addition of twelve non-purchase Regiments of the Line to the British Army, His Royal Highness the General Commanding-in-Chief is pleased, with the concurrence of the Right Honourable the Secretaries of State for War and for India, to establish the following regulations:—1. In non-purchase Corps of the Line, no Officers can sell their Commissions.Those who enter from the Indian service retain their claim to Indian pension, and all others are entitled, with Her Majesty's approval, to retire on full or half-pay, according to the terms of Her Majesty's Warrants of the 14th October, 1858, and 28th March, 1861.2. An officer joining a purchase Regiment from the Indian Service will be placed on the same footing in all respects with the rest of the officers of tint Regiment.Having forfeited all claim to Indian pension, he will become entitled to retire on full pay or half-pay, under the Warrants above specified.Non-purchase Officers of such Regiments have the privilege of receiving, subject to the consent in each case of the General Commanding-in-Chief, and of the Secretary of State for War (which is 983 liable to be withheld if the retirement results from misconduct), an allowance, on retirement, of £100 for each year's service, whether in the British or Indian Army, provided the total amount does not exceed the price of the Commission resigned.—By Order of H. R. H. The General Commanding-in-Chief." "JAMES YORKE SCARLMTT, Adj. Gen.I was informed at the War Office where these orders are interpreted, that it was not intended to give the allowance to officers in those regiments. Now take the case of two cadets, both obtaining their Commissions by competitive examination at Sandhurst, one appointed to a purchasing regiment in this country, the other to one of these non-purchasing regiments, which is quite a matter of accident depending upon the vacancies at the time. If, at the end of six or seven years, they should both wish to retire on account of ill health, or any other cause, do you give to the officer who may have been at home the whole time £100 a year for his services, and give the officer who may have seen active service in India, nothing? Surely, this would be a great hardship, and yet I do not see how you could give him anything without committing an equal injustice. You cannot sell his commission, because he is in a non-purchasing regiment; and if you bring him into a purchasing regiment on a clear vacancy, arid sell his commission, you are committing a great injustice towards the officer in that regiment who would have obtained his promotion without purchase. This system of selling commissions in order to pay this allowance of £100ayear for services must materially affect the number of. commissions to be given without purchase. I do not know upon what basis the calculation was made that enabled the Secretary for War to that that there would be 230 commissions to be given away annually, of which 170 were to competed for at Sandhurst; but. I am sure, that if this practice continues, there will be nothing near that number. You will not be able to keep faith with the young men whom you have induced to go to Sandhurst on the understanding that there are to be 170 commissions to be competed for every year. On the other hand, if this practice is abolished, there will be more commissions to give away, and the system of purchase will be materially diminished. I think I have said quite enough to show the importance of this subject, as bearing on the purchase system. If you do away with the practice of giving the non-purchasing officer retiring from the service £100 a year for his services, he 984 will, of course, be placed in a worse position than he is in at present; but why he was ever placed in that position, except for the purpose of benefiting the fund, I am equally at a loss with His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief to conceive. It is not a reward for length of service, for the Ensign of four and a half years' service gets just as much as the one of eight or nine, and the Lieutenant of six and a half years' service as much as the one of fourteen or fifteen. So far from its being a reward for long service, it is an inducement to the officer to retire as soon as he has served long enough to entitle him to the price of his commission, because he can gain nothing more by serving in that rank. It is exactly contrary to the principle you adopt with regard to the men. You cannot enlist a man to serve for more than ten years; but at the expiration of that time you do all in your power to induce him to remain. You offer him a new bounty and kit, and he becomes entitled to a pension at the end of the second term of service. But instead of encouraging the officer to remain until he is entitled, by the regulations of the service, to sell his commission or to go upon half-pay, you bribe him, by this allowance, to retire. It is not given for distinguished or good service, for the nature of the service has nothing to do with it. The officer who may have been at home all the time is as much entitled to it as the one who may have seen the most active and arduous service. It is sacrificing the interests of the non-purchasing officer who wishes to remain in your service, for that of the one who retires from it; because the former is instantly purchased over to provide for the latter. This allowance is not given to the officers of the Engineers, Artillery, Marines, or the twelve new regiments; and yet the services of officers in these corps may have been quite equal to that of those who receive it. If it is given as an acknowledgment on the part of the Government that the officers have been miserably underpaid during the time they were serving, I am afraid I could not deny the justice of it; but then it would be surely better to give them an additional £50 a year when they are serving, which would induce them to remain, than to give them £100 a year when they leave. My attention was not drawn to this fund during the time I was Secretary for War, or I am sure I should have proposed some alteration in the working of it. I do not wish to see 985 the fund abolished, and should be very sorry if the Commander-in-Chief was deprived of the power of providing for a meritorious officer, who had risen from the ranks, or one who had performed distinguished service; but, I object to that being made the rule which ought to be an exception, for which reasons ought always to be; given, and the sanction of the Secretary for War obtained for it. Unless the Secretary for War has fully and duly considered the subject, and is prepared to give a decisive answer, I have no wish to press for one now. I shall be quite satisfied by his saying that he will take into consideration what I have stated; at the same time, I must remind him, that it is now nearly two years since the Committee reported, and that the only thing that has been done has been to confirm the practice, by the recognition of it in an order from the Horse Guards.
SIR GEORGE LEWISSir, there are two questions to be considered with reference to this fund—one is the mode in which it is created, and the other the mode in which it is appropriated. The point which principally attracted the notice of the Committee upon military organization, and to which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has especially called attention, is the existence of the fund and its appropriation. Undoubtedly, as he has correctly stated, grave constitutional objections may be urged against the existence of a fund not voted by Parliament, but arising from the sale of commissions, and subject to the discretion of the Executive Government. It is to that part of the case that my attention has been principally directed. An account was, for the first time I believe, laid upon the table last Session, showing how the fund had been appropriated, and the balance in the hands of the Government; and a similar account will be shortly laid upon the table, and will exhibit the annual statement since the last account was presented. With regard to the question of an independent audit, which was adverted to in the Report of the Committee, it is clear that this fund could not be audited by the Commissioners of Audit; but I should he quite ready to assent to any mode of auditing it which may be likely to meet with the approbation of this House. Considering the purposes to which the fund is applicable, as stated at the foot of the return on the table, it appeared to me that these purposes are generally advantageous, and I think the right hon. and gallant Gen- 986 tleman himself did not materially except to the manner in which the fund is appropriated. He stated the whole case with great clearness, and it is unnecessary, therefore, for me to describe the, purposes to which the fund is applied. The general character of its application is, undoubtedly, to facilitate and remove the friction from the working of the system of purchase. That is a correct description of the objects of the appropriation; and assuming that the War Department and Horse Guards act with good faith in the application of the fund, it is then for this House to consider how far they wish that that system should be facilitated. Those persons who are generally hostile to the purchase system with regard to military commissions would no doubt be unwilling to see any facilities given to the working of that system. On the other hand, those persons who may be on principle, favourable to that system, or who may he of opinion that, as it exists and is the law of the country, its working ought to be rendered easy, would desire the maintenance of the fund, always assuming that it was administered with honesty and discretion. It does not appear that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman impugns the administration of the fund, but he says that serious objections may be urged to the manner in which it was: created. Well, he certainly allowed that the question is, at all events, open to consideration. I confess that that part of the case has never been fully presented to me before, and I have learned much as to the objections which, I admit, may, with a fair show of reason, be made to many points connected with the creation of the fund. As the right hon. Gentleman brought for ward this question upon going into Committee of Supply, it was not incumbent upon him to propose any specific alterations. He has called the attention of the House fully to the subject; he has had an opportunity of laying his views before them, and I can only undertake, on the part of the Government, that the arguments which he has urged shall receive careful consideration.
§ SIR DE LACY EVANSsaid, he thought that the House was very much indebted to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman for the lucid and able manner in which he had brought forward a very intricate subject. The Committee which had considered the matter included several ex-Secretaries of War, but nobody seemed to know anything about it. In point of fact, the "Reserve 987 Fund" was not the proper name for the fund; it ought to be called "A Fund for the Extension of the Purchase System." One point was clearly explained by the right hon. and gallant General. Some years ago the War Office were alarmed lest certain cavalry regiments should be without cornets, the fact being that those regiments were so expensive that parents would not place their sons in them. The War Office thought the cornets could be provided by a system of the sort, which was in fact levying a contribution upon officers in the mass for the purpose of introducing cornets into the cavalry. The Secretary for War now said that the effect of the fund was to remove friction from the purchase system. That was a new phrase; but the case made out by the right hon. and gallant General was so strong that it would be impossible to permit a continuance of the present practice. It was not merely the equitable distribution of the fund which was in question, but the serious precedent which it established. It was an entirely new principle that a fund should be created and distributed according to the pleasure of the Executive, and such a principle was one which the House ought not to sanction.
§ LORD HOTHAMsaid, he had been much disappointed by the answer of the Secretary for War, and the entire absence of any explanation upon the subject under notice. That only convinced him the more that the same unwillingness to explain the nature and the application of the Reserve Fund still existed which had formerly been shown. On three different occasions he had sought unsuccessfully for information. On the first occasion the late lamented Lord Herbert said that the subject was about to be brought before a Royal Commission, and that therefore it would be better to wait. In another Session he was told that the matter was actually under inquiry; and on the next occasion that it had been inquired into, and that a Report would shortly be made. Last year a Return which he moved for as to the disposition of the fund was granted, but it gave little information on some points on which information was most required. The Secretary for War seemed to think that nobody objected to the application of the fund; but he (Lord Hotham) strongly objected to some of the purposes to which it was devoted, such, for example, as the application of a considerable proportion to the purchase of the commissions of members of Her Majesty's household. 988 That might be a desirable object, but it ought not to be effected through the instrumentality of that fund. It appeared that part of the fund was used to buy up commissions in the Corps of Yeomen of the Guard and Gentlemen at Arms. That nominations of deserving officer should be made to these corps by the Secretary for War or any responsible authority might be desirable enough, but they constantly saw announcements that the Queen, on the nomination of Lord Foley, had been pleased to appoint such and such officers to commissions in those corps. On that ground he objected to the fund. Another ground on which he objected to it was the entire secrecy with which it was managed. It was contrary to constitutional usage that a Minister should have at his disposal a large sum of money of which he gave no account. He also objected to the indiscriminate sale of commissions which had been introduced. According to the plan followed out by the Secretary of War, there was no reason why there should not be a system of competition for the purchase of commissions, and that the commissions should be knocked down to the highest bidder. He objected, also, to the allowance of;£100 a year to which his right hon. and gallant Friend had alluded two or three times, It was perfectly monstrous the great injustice which the system perpetrated. Reference had been made to the case of lieutenants. He would direct attention to the case of officers holding the rank of captain. Suppose two captains of the same regiment who had entered the army on the same day and had passed a term of eighteen years of equally meritorious service — suppose that one had purchased all his commissions, the other had been so fortunate as to obtain all his without purchase—now, if both those officers, who had entered the army on the same day, quitted it on the same day, the officer who had obtained his commissions without purchase would receive £1,800 as a bonus for his services, while the captain who had purchased his commissions would only receive back the sum he had paid, £1,800, and nothing more, besides having been liable to have his life cut short, with the entire loss of the money to his family. Could it be just to give one man such a bonus for his services and nothing to another, whose service was of the same length? It was a system in which some alteration was required. He hoped the House of Commons would not lose sight of the working of the system, and that the 989 right hon. Gentleman would inform the House fully of the course he intended to pursue for the future. He trusted that some alteration would be proposed to do away with the inconsistency and injustice of the existing practice.