HC Deb 11 March 1875 vol 222 cc1617-27
MR. GORST

rose to call the attention of the House to the present unsatisfactory position of the Officers of the Royal Marine Corps. The hon. Gentleman said, it was not now, by the Forms of the House, in his power to ask hon. Members to express an opinion on this important subject by a formal Resolution, but he trusted that he should be able to elicit the views of the House respecting it; and he did not anticipate any reluctance on the part of the Government to promise their attention to the matter. Before he proceeded to the details of his case he would make a few general observations on the Marine service, in order to show that that service had disadvantages attached to it which were capable of being mitigated. At the present moment active routine service afloat was, unfortunately, not popular amongst the officers, and it was easy to see why that should be the case. Officers of Marines were placed under the command of officers belonging to an unsympathetic branch of the service. Their position and duties on board ship were not very clearly defined; they were, of necessity, under the command of the senior officer of the sea branch of the service, and they were often interfered with in a disagreeable manner. The effect was that active service, which was so much coveted in all other branches, whether of the Army or Navy, was not much sought after by the officers of the Marines. Of course, when they were afloat they discharged their duties to the best of their ability, and no complaints against them, so far as he knew, had over been made. But though they served efficiently they did not like it. In their peculiar position, being neither of the Army nor of the Navy, Marine officers were deprived of those opportunities of distinction which formed the attraction of the services—they had no power to win those honours which were the object and the admiration of both Army and Navy. Besides this, they had no collateral advantages—no employment on Commissions or Scientific Committees, or in any of the lucrative civil posts which fell to the lot of the officers of the Artillery and the Engineers. It seemed to him that the officers of the Marines had all the disadvantages which appertained to service in the Army and Navy and none of the advantages. He did not say that it was possible, from the nature of the service, for any arrangement to be made by which all their grievances could be remedied; but he was anxious to draw attention to those which were capable of being mitigated, if not done away with altogether. It was generally supposed that the Royal Marines had good pay, regular duty, and better retirement allowances than other branches of the service; but he would ask the House to consider how far the present system secured the promotion and retirement which were the sole inducement for its officers to enter the service? If they looked at the actual position of the officers of the Royal Marines they would find that the subalterns had scarcely any chance of promotion or advancement. In 1860 there was an increase of 104 in the officers of Marines and in 1870 a scheme was settled for their promotion and retirement which greatly affected the position of all the officers in the service. That scheme was accompanied by a great reduction of officers. The number of men remained unaltered—it was 14,000 in 1869, and it was 14,000 still; but the number of officers in the Light Infantry in 1869 was reduced by 61, and in 1870 by 33, making altogether 94; which, out of a total of 287, it must be admitted was a very considerable reduction. He found on inquiry that the senior lieutenants in the Marine Light Infantry had all been in the service more than 15 years, and since 1870 only 16 lieutenants had been promoted to the rank of captain, and in the present year only one. In the next five years there would be only a promotion of 18 lieutenants, and if they carried their view to the end of the five years the senior would have been 20 years in the service without attaining a single step in promotion, he would be 40 years of age, and he would be receiving the munificent pay of 7s. 6d. a-day. He would ask the House whether it was reasonable, when men served for 20 years in a profession without making a single step in promotion, and received no more than 7s. 6d. a-day, to expect them to be much attached to their profession, or to serve with much zeal and activity? The lowest pay of officers of corresponding rank in the Navy was 10s. a-day, and the highest pay of the Marine Lieutenant was 7s. 6d., a fact which of itself placed the latter in an entirely inferior position. But those who obtained captaincies did not find that they had much bettered themselves. The present senior captain had been 29 years in the service, and the 25 senior captains had all served more than 24 years. Since 1870 only eight captains had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and there would be no more promotions until September, 1876; so that for a year and a-half there would literally be no promotions, and in the whole of the next five years only 11. At the end of that time the senior captain would have served 31 years, and the senior lieutenant 20 years. It was evident, then, that promotion in the Marines was decidedly slow. Under these circumstances, it was not surprising that the captains should take means, if possible, to accelerate their promotion; and the other night the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) pounced on two unfortunate captains of Marines, who were charged with purchasing, or trying to purchase, the retirement of one of their seniors. The zeal of that hon. Member in the public interest no doubt entitled him to admiration, and the First Lord of the Admiralty very properly said he would take steps to put a stop to the practice supposed to exist. It would have been better, however, to have shown equal zeal in order to put a stop to the present stagnation of promotion, which was the cause of the misconduct—if it could be so regarded—of these two captains. A few captains did get promoted to lieutenant-colonelcies, but they did not find that a state of advantage and unmixed satisfaction under the present regulations. The great prize of the service was the position of colonel-commandant, which a senior captain of not less than 30 years service might hope to obtain. The pay, however, was only £1 a-day, and by some evident mistake the colonel-commandant of Marine Light Infantry got 6s. 3d. a-day less than the colonel-commandant of Marine Artillery. This he supposed to be a mistake made in drafting the orders, because there was no such difference in other ranks. Thus the difference between the pay of a lieutenant of Marines and a lieutenant of Light Infantry was only 4d. per day, in the next rank it was 6d., then 1s. 6d., and then came this extraordinary difference of 6s. 3d. Then in the matter of retirement they were placed also at a disadvantage. While the age at which admirals and rear-admirals had that privilege was fixed at 60 and 65, in the Marines the age for general officers was fixed at 70. The quartermasters, who were the only commissioned officers who rose from the ranks were subjected to a similar injustice. Since the year 1857, whilst 20,000 Marines passed through the ranks only five had obtained commissions, and two of these had been waiting no less than 18 years. Thus the attraction held out in all other branches of the service was practically denied to the Marines. He thought he had given figures enough to show that there was a great stagnation of promotion among the officers of the Royal Marines. It was not exactly his duty to point out how this block might be remedied. That was a question for the consideration of the Government. But the custom existing in the Navy showed very clearly and very simply the remedy that might be supplied. All that was wanted was, to make the senior officers of Marines retire at the same age as the corresponding officers of the Navy; to do away with the position and rank of reserve colonel altogether, and to give to the captains, as we gave to the lieutenants in the Navy, a bonus of £75 a-year, adding to it a regulation that the total retiring allowance should not exceed a certain sum. That would immediately clear the lists, and create a healthy and steady flow of promotion. He would also give a retirement sum to the quartermasters as well as to the other officers. These simple measures would, in his opinion, remove the discontent and despair existing among the subalterns and captains, and quicken their zeal and their devotion to the service. Very probably, although the Government would admit the correctness of his statements and the aptness of his remedy, they would put in a claim for delay. Well, all he could say in that case was that delay was dangerous. Many of the officers who were now suffering injustice would soon have to retire, and no justice could then be done to them. But apart altogether from that, delay would increase the prevailing discontent, and cause it to pervade the whole corps, so that when the remedy came to be applied that discontent would not easily be removed. When, as in the present case, they had a large body of men suffering under a real grievance, it was desirable to relieve that grievance as soon as possible. But he might be told that there was a Commission sitting just now on the question of Army Promotion, and that it would be undesirable to deal with the question of promotion in the Marines until that Commission had presented its Report. In reply to that he would urge that the Commission had nothing to do with the Marines, nor had the Commissioners any jurisdiction in respect to promotion in the Marines. The case of the Marines was so entirely different from that of the rest of the Army, and promotion in the Marines was so different from promotion in the Army generally, that no prejudice to anyone could arise from dealing with the case of the Marines, quite irrespective of what the Report of the Commission might be. He had some figures which would at once make his case clear, and illustrate the difference in the rate of promotion between the Army and the Marines. The average service of captains and majors in the Cavalry was 17 years; in the Infantry 19 years; while of captains in the Marines it was 22 years, an average which would now be enormously increased. The average service of lieutenants in the Cavalry was five years; in the Infantry eight years; whilst in the Marines it was 10 years; and from the causes mentioned they would now serve longer in the Marines. The promotion in this corps was the slowest in the Army. Then, again, during the last five years one officer in 33 had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Artillery and Engineers, as contrasted with one officer in 75 in the Marines. The captains, moreover, came out quite as bad, for in the Artillery and Engineers the promotion of lieutenants and captains was I in 20 as contrasted with 1 in 45 in the Marines. These figures proved that promotion in the Marines was twice as slow as in the Artillery and Engineers. It was altogether unreasonable to say that promotion in the Marines should not be accelerated for fear it should make it faster than it was in the Army. Delay might be urged upon another ground—namely, that reform would cause a slight increase of annual expenditure by the Treasury; but that surely was no valid reason to urge against the improvement of the service. Everybody must admit the truth of the facts he had submitted. Everybody, moreover, must recognize the importance of putting the important branch of the service to which he was alluding in a proper state of efficiency. Officers who had joined the Marines ought not to be left to despair of promotion, or to have the feeling confirmed in them that their branch of the service was not sufficiently recognised by the country. Both sides of the House must desire that these men should have a fair position secured to them. He would therefore leave the matter in the hands of the Government, trusting that they would take it into their considera tion on the ground that the present condition of things was unsatisfactory, and therefore adverse to the efficiency of the public service.

MR. ANDERSON

said, the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) had passed some strictures upon a question which he had put to the House a few days ago; but the hon. Gentleman apparently did not know the grievance of which he complained. The circumstances were that there was a captain who was to be put on compulsory retirement on account of reaching the age of 48; but he having found a lieutenant-colonel who agreed to retire before his time, the captain got a step and a lease of six years' longer service. The effect of that moneyed transaction on the junior officers was that, whereas they would have got one step in a month and a second in about a year, yet as now arranged they got one step now, but they would not get their second step for six years, and therefore they were defrauded of that promotion which they had every reason to expect. He admitted it was a little hard that a captain should be obliged to retire at 48, as a man had still a good deal of fight left in him at that age; but he was very doubtful whether the hon. Member for Chatham would be successful in obtaining any improvement in the position of the Marine officers from the present Government, as they had that day given himself a reply about the Navy which was not encouraging.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

said, he thought that the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty might, with great propriety, take into his consideration the best mode of improving the position of the officers of our Marine corps. There was no corps in the service where the pecuniary advantages of officers was so small, and where the promotion was so much retarded. He was convinced that if the Government would endeavour to effect a flow of promotion it would not be necessary to interfere with the previous arrangements which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract had made. He could testify to this fact, that there was no branch of the military service with so few officers above the rank of captain as in the Marines, and there was no branch of the service which could supply so many privates or gunners at so moderate a rate per head as the marines now furnished. This was entirely owing to the far greater proportion of captains and subalterns to senior officers than existed in any other branch of the service. It was also mainly due to the few head-quarters of corps, and to the diminished number of companies which to the other branches of the service so greatly increased the charges. It would be easy to show this by merely comparing the number of battalions and companies into which the privates of the Marines would be distributed if they were organized in the expensive form followed by the infantry of the Line. He would therefore urge that it was wise to maintain the existing great disproportion of senior officers, but to counterbalance the evils which must follow in having slow promotion for the rank of captain, it was only just that openings for retiring old officers should be provided to a greater extent than at present, in view to guard the Marine service from those evils which must attach to captains and subalterns of long service and advanced age.

SIR EARDLEY WILMOT

cordially joined in the appeal to the Government to take the just grievances of a gallant body of men into their consideration. During the last year and a-half he had had frequent opportunities of coming into contact with officers of the Marines, and he was firmly convinced that their complaints were not without foundation. They had the authority of a distinguished officer for saying that the exertions of the Marines at the Gold Coast laid the foundation of the victories which ensued afterwards.

MR. CHILDERS

believed there was no more gallant body of men either in the Army or the Navy than the Marines, and none whose well-being ought to be more attended to by the Government. There was, moreover, nothing that he would see with greater regret than any weakening of the efficiency of that most valuable corps. But as to what the hon. Member for Chatham had said with reference to the disinclination of these officers for sea service, he must give it the most absolute contradiction. It was the primary duty of the Marines to serve afloat, and when in office he had never found that there was any reluctance on the part of parents to place their sons in that corps, or any indisposition on the part of young officers to remain in it. The Marines, however, were not, as the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) appeared to think, merely a branch of the Navy. They stood between the Navy and the Army; their organization was military, while their services were chiefly naval, and in making arrangements for promotion in, and retirement from, a corps of that kind they had to consider what relation those arrangements bore to the corresponding arrangements, not only for the Navy, but also for the Army. He was Chairman of a Committee of that House, which in 1867 entered very minutely into that very case of the Marines which the hon. Member now brought forward. That Committee had to inquire into promotion and retirement in connection with the Artillery and Engineers, as well as with the Marines. But anyone dealing with the question would be met at once with this difficulty—that in the Army the officers were on their regular active service up to the rank of colonel or general; whereas in the Marines it hardly ever happened, except in the case of great expeditions, that officers of higher rank than subalterns and captains went to sea at all, field officers being only employed in garrison towns at home, and hence arose the main difficulty of the case. In 1867, when the Committee made their inquiry, there was no certain rule for retirement from the Marines except that officers commanding divisions of that corps had to retire at the age of 60 unless the Admiralty thought it desirable to retain them. The system then existing was, as the Committee reported, "complicated, uncertain, and based on no principle"; and they recommended that there should be a code of regulations under which officers of different ranks should be compelled to retire after certain ages, their pensions being on a graduated scale, much exceeding the former rate. When he afterwards went to the Admiralty he had to carry that out in the best way he could. The hon. Member for Chatham seemed to think that a great reduction was made by him in the number of officers when these rules were promulgated. Technically the hon. Gentleman was right; but that reduction had nothing to do with the new rules, except that it took place within a year of their coming into force. It was the result of the re ductions made in the number of men in 1867 and 1868 by his predecessor; and all that he did in 1869 was to bring down the number of officers in the Marines to the proper proportion with the number of men. He found a draught Order in Council on his table when he went to the Admiralty, and he carried it out in 1869. But it must not be forgotten that the arrangements of 1870 were a very great improvement on those previously in force, which provided no compulsory retirement except for officers commanding divisions above 60 years of age, unless the Admiralty thought proper to retain their services. If the former system, or no system had been now in force, there would have been the most gloomy outlook for the officers, whose promotion would have appeared hopeless. The complaint now was rather that the compulsory retirement was enforced at a too early age than that promotion was at too late a period of service. When, therefore, the hon. Member for Chatham spoke of the present age being high, and the present years of service being long, he was bound to say that, looking at the state of the Marines in past times, if it had not been for the Rules of 1870 the stagnation in the corps would have been two or three times as great as it was now. The principles laid down in that Order in Council and by the Committee of 1867 were the only principles on which any self-acting system of retirement could be carried out. They were principles which they hoped to see applied to the Army, which had been applied to the Navy, and which, after a few years' working, would have a satisfactory effect. What he would suggest was that anything which was done to improve the conditions of retirement from the Marine Corps should be done at the same time, and, to a certain extent, though not wholly, on the same lines as any improvement with regard to the Army. There was a Commission now sitting to inquire into the subject of Rules for retirement in the Army, and his impression was strong that those Rules would be of a liberal character and would provide for a considerable amount of compulsory retirement. He thought that, with the Report of this Commission before them, and keeping in view the principles of the Orders in Council of 1870, as recommended by the Select Committee, the Board of Admiralty would have no difficulty in dealing with the comparatively moderate grievances complained of by the senior officers, especially the senior captains, of Marines.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, his hon. Friend the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) had omitted to allude to one point of some importance. He (Sir John Hay) was a Member of the Committee referred to by the right hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers), and had the Report of that Committee been carried out, the subject would have been in a very different state from what it was now in. It was quite evident that if the rank of major had been given to the Marines, as it had been restored to the Artillery and Engineers, the officers in question would be placed in a position more like that which they ought to have at the age they had attained, and which would hold out to them some chance of promotion. This would be only a temporary remedy, he knew. Allusion had been made as to the difficulty of employing Marines as field officers, but it had been found perfectly practicable and useful to give them employment.