HC Deb 22 July 1864 vol 176 cc1899-902

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [21st July], "That the Bill be now taken into Consideration."

Question again proposed,

Debate resumed.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill considered.

MR. HENNESSY moved a new clause enacting that any person, being a natural born subject of Her Majesty, who may be desirous of being appointed an assistant-surgeon in the said forces, shall be admitted to be examined as a candidate for such appointment. He believed that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for India and himself differed very little as to their opinions upon the subject; and his Motion, if carried, would only put into the Act what the right hon. Gentleman had declared to be the intention of the Government. His Motion was taken verbatim from the existing law, and would prevent the exercise of arbitrary power which would be warranted by the Bill in its present form. Although, therefore, his clause might not be exactly in conformity with the Bill, it ought to be inserted and become a portion of the measure. The present Bill was only a device to cover the misconduct of the Government in reference to their treatment of these officers, for in respect to rank, pay, and general position they had been be badly treated that there was a difficulty in procuring officers in that department of the service. He would quote the opinion of that day's Lancet, a high authority in such matters— Sir Charles Wood alleged on Tuesday night last in the House of Commons that competitive examinations for the army medical service had entirely failed, and has introduced an India Medical Service Bill which would do away with competitive examinations. We do not hesitate to declare that Sir Charles Wood has been completely misinformed on this subject, and has entirely misled the House. The examinations have been highly successful, and Sir Charles Wood could not have consulted cither the civil profession or the army medical service, much less the examiners themselves, before he made the statement of their complete failure. They have only been a little too successful for the Government. They have interposed a check on the proceedings of the Horse Guards by affording an index of the depression in the quality and the number of the candidates which the uniform harshness, morgue, and injustice of that department have caused. They propose, then, to do away with competitive examinations; to destroy the index and silence the tell-tale. It is no doubt an ingenious device to cover the injury which they have done and are doing to the army; but it can only serve to increase the defect in the quality of the candidates, and to damage the efficiency of the service by admitting indiscriminately those whom the competitive examinations would have rejected, and such as were utterly inefficient. If the House of Commons would take the trouble to investigate the question at all, we feel assured that it would never consent to abolish competitive examinations for the Army Medical Department. Mr. Longfield and Mr. Hennessy have rendered a public service in offering a spirited opposition to the progress of the India Medical Service Bill in its present form; and we hope that Mr. Hennessy will further master the details of the question, which will show how greatly such an abolition would be opposed to the best interests of the army. As regarded the system of competitive examination, Sir John Lawrence in 1860 or 1861 said that its results had been within his own experience eminently successful. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman distinctly, whether he was of opinion that the competitive examinations ought to be kept up? He wished to have an explicit answer, because they must not put their faith in Princes, much less in Secretaries of State.

COLONEL SYKES

seconded the Motion. He could not understand the objection which his right hon. Friend entertained towards the clause, because it was almost word for word a portion of the Queen's Proclamation to the people of India. He was glad to find that his right hon. Friend had removed many of the grievances under which the old service had laboured. He thought that the new officers should be grafted upon the old service. He had heard that day that a Native had been appointed to the office of Judge of the High Court of Bombay. That appointment did the right hon. Gentleman great credit, and such a course would do more to conciliate the people of India than the presence of 80,000 bayonets, and for each such appointment the Government might rest assured that they might remove a regiment.

Clause (Any person, being a natural born subject of Her Majesty, who may be desirous of being appointed an assistant surgeon in the said forces, shall be admitted to be examined as a candidate for such appointment,)—(Mr. Hennessy,)—brought up, and read 1o.

SIR CHARLES WOOD

said, he could not allow the hon. and learned Gentleman to imagine that he was averse to the principle of competitive examination, because he was the first to introduce the principle into this branch of the service, by an Act which be passed in 1853. The hon. and learned Gentleman did not seem to understand what the object of the Bill was. Previous to 1853 assistant-surgeons were appointed by the East India Company, and there was never at that time any deficiency in the supply of able candidates. In 1853 the service was thrown open to competition. The system had not answered as regarded India. In eighteen months—from July, 1859, to December, 1860—there were 90 vacancies and only 72 candidates, of whom only 52 succeeded in passing; so that the supply for eighteen months bad fallen short of the demand by 40. Now, what be proposed by the Bill was to enable the assistant-surgeons of the Queen's army, all of whom obtained their appointments by competition, to volunteer, if they so pleased, into the Indian service. The quotation which the hon. and learned Gentlemen had read from The Lancet referred, not to the Indian service, but to the Queen's service, with regard to which open competition had answered exceedingly well. With that service he did not propose to interfere—he only wished to be enabled to form a staff medical corps out of assistant-surgeons who had entered the Queen's service by open competition. As regarded Natives, he was not prepared to state what course he should adopt, but on that point he would consult the Government in India. Some remedy was absolutely called for; but the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman did nothing but restore a system which had already been found a failure. The matter was one of great importance, because he had just received a communication from Sir John Lawrence, stating that the medical service in Bengal was short twenty officers, and that the defici- ency elsewhere was still greater. He believed the Bill in its original form would be of great benefit to India, and he could not, therefore, consent to the addition of the clause proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman.

COLONEL NORTH

believed that the argument used by the right hon. Baronet would be a very good one if our own army found no difficulty in obtaining medical officers. But, so far from that being the case, the Government had been compelled to extend the age of admission, first to 25, and latterly to 40; and now they had been compelled to introduce a new class of officers, entitled acting assistant surgeons. The failure in the number of the candidates had partly arisen from the hard and unnecessary examinations which the candidates had been compelled to pass. On a former occasion be had been told that the system would be changed, and an increase of pay given to the medical department. He could not see how the deficiency in the Queen's service could be obviated by the assistant surgeons in that service volunteering into the Indian army.

MR. BRADY

said, that if there was any difficulty respecting the supply of medical officers, it might be easily removed. All that was required was that the profession should be treated with more liberality.

SIR JOHN TRELAWNY

had no fear that the right hon. Gentleman would take any steps prejudicial to the principle of competition. The Bill only gave the Secretary for India power to carry out a step which he thought for the benefit of India. He should support the Bill as it stood.

Motion made, and Question put, "That the Clause be now read a second time."

The House divided:—Ayes 11; Noes 31: Majority 20.

Bill to be read 3o on Monday next.