RESOLUTION. (Hansard, 14 August 1871)

§ COLONEL ANSON
, in rising to call the attention of the House to the Report of the Select Committee that sat last year to inquire into the supersession of the Colonels of the English Army by the Colonels of the Indian Army; also to the Report of the Royal Commission appointed to consider the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons; and to move a Resolution— That the Report of the War Office Committee, dated the 9th day of January, 1869, be adopted in order to mitigate the hardship inflicted upon the British Colonels, said, he had greatly to complain of the conduct of the Government on this matter, which had been a subject of discussion in that House and before Royal Commissioners and Select Committees for seven or eight years, without anything having been done on behalf of those officers who were aggrieved. In 1864, after the amalgamation of the British and Indian Armies, a Royal Warrant was issued, giving to the Indian officers certain rights and privileges in consequence of the Report of a Commission presided over by Viscount Cranbourne in 1864. Next year Sir William Mansfield protested against the injury that would thus be inflicted upon British officers; but no notice of it was taken for a year and a-half, when the then Secretary for War (Sir John Pakington) appointed a Select Committee in the War Office, presided over by Colonel Egerton, to consider the whole question. The Report of the Committee, however, did not satisfy the present Secretary of State for War, who appointed another Committee, presided over by Sir William James, Vice Chancellor, which Committee, although they were limited to making a proposal which would not impose any expense upon either this country or India, reported that the case was one of great injustice to the officers of the English Army, and that something ought to be done, whereupon a correspondence arose between the India Office and the War Office. Last Session he (Colonel Anson) obtained the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the subject, and after two or three sittings they reported, with only one dissentient—the Under Secretary of State for India (Mr. Grant Duff)—that supersession should 1598 at once cease. That Report was presented at the end of the Session, and as soon as Parliament was prorogued there was further correspondence relative to the legality of that recommendation. Lord Cairns, Vice Chancellor James, and Baron Bramwell were appointed to inquire, and they reported, as had been before pointed out by the India Office, that the effect of the Report of his (Colonel Anson's) Committee would be to cause a breach of a Parliamentary guarantee that had been given to the officers of the Indian Army; but they agreed that the case was one of great injustice, and that either a stop should be put to the practice or that some compensation should be given. After that Report was made further correspondence passed between the Secretary of State for War and the Secretary of State for India, and the result was an agreement that the supersession complained of should cease when the Staff corps promotion came into play; but the Duke of Argyll stipulated that the rate of promotion should be reduced from 23 to 19 per annum, which was an increased injustice to British Army officers. He resolved to oppose the Bill which was to be brought forward to carry out that arrangement, as it did not carry out the Report of his Committee. The question which he submitted the House had now to consider was, what could be done to mitigate the hardships which had been inflicted upon colonels of the English Army. Two Reports had recommended that 45 major generals should be appointed from the list of officers who had been superseded. That portion of the Report of his Committee was warmly supported by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was opposed to the second portion, which he did not insist upon; but now he found that he could not get either, although there had been an universal expression of opinion that this was a case of hardship. He hoped the Government would accede to his Motion; if they did not, and as it was impossible for him to obtain any redress from the House at the present period of the Session, he should bring the subject forward again next year. In this matter the India Office had defended the rights and privileges of the officers of that Department, and he wished that the War Office had acted in a similar manner. He did not think the House ought to 1599 grudge any expenditure that might be necessary to do justice to the officers whose cause he advocated. The hon. and gallant Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
, said, he thought the hon. and gallant Member for Bewdley (Colonel Anson) was undoubtedly in the position of a man who brought forward a real grievance; for he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) himself was not prepared to deny that the supersession of English officers by Indian officers was a matter fairly calling for complaint. High legal authorities, to whom he was bound to bow, had declared that the course complained of by the hon. and gallant Member was in complete accordance with the guarantee received by the Indian officers in 1858, when the East India Company was abolished and its Army placed under the Crown. The opinion of those learned Judges would have been more satisfactory to his mind had they adverted to a subsequent stage of the affair—that was, to what happened in 1860, when the two Armies were amalgamated—the two Governments having been amalgamated in 1858; because it was quite evident to anyone, that principles that were laid down for portions of the Indian Army when it was a separate Army from the Queen's Army, though it belonged to the Queen, would not necessarily apply when the two Armies were absolutely amalgamated and made one Army. That being the state of the case, it became absolutely impossible, at least without an Act of Parliament, to give effect to the Report of the Committee of last year, and the question that remained was whether the Government, under these circumstances, having the Report of the Committee, but not having legal power to give effect to it, had made a fair and reasonable offer to the hon. and 1600 gallant Member and those whom he represented. The complaint was that the promotion on the Indian side was much more rapid, and thus a number of Indian officers were placed above English officers of older standing. With regard to that matter, he believed a rule had been laid down to the effect that, when eight or more officers had been promoted, the Staff corps would be carried over to the English side and would become part of the English service, the Indian officers belonging to the regiments of cavalry and infantry continuing still to enjoy the benefits of Indian promotion. He should have been very glad if he could have obtained a removal of the differences between these two services, so that the English and Indian officers should obtain promotion according to the time of their service; but that having been ruled to the contrary to the guarantee of 1858, the question was what terms he could make for the English Army. He thought that since January last four out of the eight officers of the Staff corps, on whose promotion the Indian Government insisted, had been already provided for; so that only four officers now stood between them and the time when the Staff corps would be carried over to the English side. If the plan proposed by the Government had been carried out there would be, perhaps, in about six months not merely an amalgamation of the Staff officers corps of the Indian service; that plan would apply not only to the Staff officers, but to the whole of the officers in the Indian Army. The offer of the Government was a fair and reasonable compromise, and the hon. and gallant Member would have thought so some time ago; but now the hon. and gallant Member repudiated the proposal of the Government that as soon as the remaining four colonels, out of the eight Staff officers, were made generals the whole of the two services should be entirely amalgamated, so that there should be perfect equality and no difference between them, and he asked him instead to take the course which he repudiated in the Committee, and which he thought the House would repudiate. The hon. and gallant Member asked him to agree to the recommendation of Colonel Egerton's Committee, that 45 generals should be created, at an expense of about £12,000 a-year, in order to satisfy 1601 some 45 out of 250 or 270 officers who had been superseded, and that the Government should go back to the year 1854, and re-arrange the list of generals according to the services of the different colonels who were promoted to be generals. The latter of these propositions would bring the whole Army into confusion; as to the former of those propositions, it was in effect this—that a burden of £12,000 should be imposed upon the taxpayers in order to create 45 new major generals, not because they were wanted for the public service, but because the hon. and gallant Member was not disposed to accept a proposal as fair as it was possible for the Government to make it. But with regard to the adoption of that course, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was inclined to think that the House would be of opinion that the Army was made for the people, and not the people for the Army. The hon. and gallant Member preferred to have the grievance remedied by a pecuniary mulct on the people of the country rather than in the way the Government suggested, and he for one could not agree to his Motion.

§ SIR CHARLES WINGFIELD
said, he thought that one of the courses proposed would deprive the Indian officers of the advantage thoughtfully secured to them by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley). The course taken by his hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Anson) was greatly to his credit, and he hoped some satisfactory settlement would, be come to; and, with a view to that result being attained, speaking in the name of the taxpayers, he (Sir Charles Wingfield) had no objection to the charge for an immediate promotion of 45 of these officers to the rank of general, instead of the gradual promotion to which they were entitled, provided that charge were borne by the Imperial Exchequer and not by the people of India. He thought that the superseded colonels were deeply indebted to his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bewdley, for the exertions he had made on their behalf.

§ COLONEL NORTH
said, he thought he knew his countrymen as well as the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he was certain that if £12,000 was required to remedy an injustice they would not scruple to pay it. Officers of the English Army found 1602 themselves superseded by men in the Indian Army, who were their juniors by 10 years; for instance, 18 English colonels whose commissions dated from 1858, found themselves superseded by Indian officers who dated from 1868; and he was astonished his right hon. Friend opposite had not made this clear to the Government. The Duke of Argyll had stated that it would not be right that certain officers of the Indian Army who had been looking forward to promotion should be deprived of it; and in this he was perfectly right. But the same principle should be applied to officers in the English Army, and if applied would meet with approval from the people of the country.